NASA Punts Mars Sample Return Decision
After more than a year of review, there’s no concrete plan to retrieve scientific samples from Mars.
Science
Stories about the wondrous world of space science.
Satellites Face More Stormy Weather in 2025
A report from Space Foundation last week outlined how NASA, NOAA, and the commercial satellite industry are preparing to weather these storms.
Texas A&M Breaks Ground on New Space Institute
The Space Institute will include lab and office space, classrooms, an auditorium, as well as two football-field sized landscapes that simulate the lunar and Martian surfaces.
General Galactic Raises $8M Seed For Clean Fuel Tech
General Galactic wants to change the way the world thinks about the green transition, by using pollutants themselves as a renewable fuel source.
Satellite Break-up Experiment to Help ESA Learn How Satellites Die
The Destructive Re-entry Assessment Container Object mission, or DRACO, will be the first demo of a fully controlled break-up during its return to Earth.
Boeing To Launch Groundbreaking Orbital Quantum Experiment
Quantum entanglement swapping has been demonstrated in the lab, but never before in space.
New Glenn Debut Delayed Along With EscaPADE Mars Mission
Blue has yet to test fire New Glenn’s second stage or perform an integrated first stage engine test firing.
Europa Clipper’s Chips Are Good Enough For Jupiter
JPL launched a Tiger Team to assess if the $5B spacecraft could survive its Jovian voyage as-is.
Habitable Worlds Observatory and the Future of Space Telescopes in the Era of Super Heavy Lift Launch
With the emergence of Starship, New Glenn, and SLS rockets, NASA engineers are reimagining what is possible for future space telescopes and our search for life in the universe.
Rocket Lab Preps Double Launch for NASA
Rocket Lab is planning the first of two Electron flights to launch a pair of NASA weather satellites, in the latest use of NASA’s venture-class launch missions. The launch, which was expected early tomorrow morning, has been delayed to Saturday because of severe weather. The details: Two 6U cubesats will spend ten months measuring thermal […]
How To Survive a Solar Storm
The geomagnetic storm that painted skies purple and green across vast swaths of the Northern Hemisphere over the weekend also created a dangerous environment for satellites in Earth’s orbit.