Space news

Riverside, CA (SPX) Jan 12, 2026 At half the size of Earth and one-tenth its mass, Mars is a featherweight as far as planets go. And yet, new research reveals the extent to which Mars is quietly tugging on Earth's orbit and shaping the cycles that drive long-term climate patterns here, including ice ages. Stephen Kane, a professor of planetary astrophysics at UC Riverside, began this project with doubts about recent studi

Tokyo, Japan (SPX) Jan 13, 2026 A Chinese suborbital spacecraft designed for reusable operations and future space tourism has completed a key test flight, marking a new step in the country's commercial space ambitions. The vehicle, designated PH-1, is developed by Beijing-based commercial aerospace company CAS Space and is intended to support low cost scientific experiments in microgravity as well as pave the way for pas

Behind the rhetoric about competition and innovation, not everyone is convinced SDA’s approach is a win-win The post Space Force wants competition. Satellite makers want stability. appeared first on SpaceNews.

IRVINE, Calif. & LOS ANGELES, Calif. — January 13, 2026 — Turion Space Corp. (“Turion”), a space infrastructure company that builds and operates mission-grade spacecraft and space operations software, today […] The post Turion Space Corp. Acquires Tychee Research Group to Accelerate Autonomous Space Operations and Mission Engineering appeared first on SpaceNews.

A disparate collection of young stellar objects bejewels a cosmic panorama in the star-forming region NGC 1333 in this new image from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope. To the left, an actively forming star called a protostar casts its glow on the surrounding gas and dust, creating a reflection nebula. Two dark stripes on opposite sides […]

From the ESA Blogs.

The European Space Agency (ESA) has adjusted the scope of Phase 2 of its LEO Cargo Return Services programme to account for the retirement of the International Space Station (ISS). Under the new call, the agency will accept proposals for demonstration missions to a future commercial LEO destination by the end of 2030. ESA announced […] The post ESA Adjusts Scope of Phase 2 of its LEO Cargo Return Services Initiative appeared first on European Spaceflight.

Lunar night survival becomes an imperative “Surviving the lunar night has crossed a critical threshold: what was once a ‘nice-to-have’ is now the imperative for any serious lunar mission. We’re seeing this ‘survive, operate, thrive’ progression play out in real time: we’ve proven we can land repeatedly, now we’re focused on surviving that brutal two-week […] The post 2026 will be the year of space nuclear power and surviving the lunar night appeared first on SpaceNews.

Michigan-based supplier cites rising government and commercial demand amid tight smallsat supply chain The post Orbion delivers 33 electric thrusters to York Space for U.S. military constellation appeared first on SpaceNews.

Eutelsat has ordered the remaining 340 satellites needed to replenish its OneWeb satellite constellation from Airbus Defence and Space. The post Eutelsat orders 340 additional satellites to replenish OneWeb constellation appeared first on SpaceNews.

Belgian manufacturer to support early rollout as U.S. commercial PNT startup builds in-house production The post Aerospacelab to build eight satellites for Xona’s navigation constellation appeared first on SpaceNews.

The Circinus Galaxy, a galaxy about 13 million light-years away, contains an active supermassive black hole that continues to influence its evolution. The largest source of infrared light from the region closest to the black hole itself was thought to be outflows, or streams of superheated matter that fire outward.  Image: Circinus Galaxy (Hubble and […]

Romanian company ATD Aerospace RS SRL is developing a 10 kN rocket engine that can be re-ignited and adjust its thrust. This builds on the 1 kN engine they developed with support from the European Space Agency (ESA).

The category 5 hurricane stirred up carbonate sediment near Jamaica in what scientists believe is the largest such event in the satellite record.

Portugal became the 60th country to join the Artemis Accords today. It’s another milestone for the U.S.-led principles for responsible behavior on the Moon. The Accords recently celebrated the fifth […]

NASA astronaut Mike Fincke took over command of the International Space Station on Dec. 7, 2025. He and the rest of the SpaceX Crew-11 mission will undock from the ISS on Jan. 14.

Portugal has become the latest country to sign the Artemis Accords outlining best practices for responsible space exploration, beating out another European country to be the 60th to join. The post Portugal signs the Artemis Accords appeared first on SpaceNews.

Media accreditation is open for the launch of NASA’s 12th rotational mission of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft carrying astronauts to the International Space Station for a science expedition from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. NASA announced it is targeting no earlier than Thursday, Jan. […]

Eight orbital launch attempts are scheduled for this week, with SpaceX and Chinese launches comprising… The post Launch Preview: Launches from China, U.S., and Norway scheduled for upcoming week appeared first on NASASpaceFlight.com.

"We can't keep everyone living on that first ship that sailed to North America."

For more than 25 years, humans have lived and worked continuously aboard the International Space Station, conducting research that is transforming life on Earth and shaping the future of exploration. From growing food and sequencing DNA to studying disease and simulating Mars missions, every experiment aboard the orbiting laboratory expands our understanding of how humans […]

Media accreditation is open to attend Artemis II mission activities at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. Johnson is where flight controllers in mission control will manage the test flight after liftoff of the first crewed Moon mission under the agency’s Artemis campaign. Targeted to launch no earlier Friday, Feb. 6, the Artemis II mission […]

NASA astronaut Mike Fincke handed over command of the International Space Station to Roscosmos cosmonaut Sergey Kud-Sverchkov at 2:35 p.m. EST today. The traditional Change of Command Ceremony precedes the targeted departure of Fincke with Zena Cardman of NASA, Kimiya Yui of JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency), and Oleg Platonov of Roscosmos aboard the SpaceX Dragon crew spacecraft.

NASA has identified a list of 32 technology shortfalls and invites you to give input on your critical technology needs using this feedback mechanism. Whether you’re part of the space technology community or an interested member of the public, your input is invaluable. By registering and providing your feedback, you could help inform of national space technology priorities. […]

Portugal is the latest nation to sign the Artemis Accords alongside 59 other countries in a commitment to advancing principles for the responsible exploration of the Moon, Mars, and beyond with NASA. “Portugal joins a cadre of nations building the framework for safe, transparent, and prosperous activity in space,” said NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman in […]

Richard Wear calls it an honor to be working at NASA’s Stennis Space Center near Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, during a historic time as NASA prepares to send astronauts around the Moon for the first time in more than 50 years on the Artemis II mission. “I have not stopped learning in the 15 years […]

A smaller white dwarf star (left) pulls material from a larger star into a swirling accretion disk in this artist’s concept released Nov. 19, 2025, to illustrate the first use of NASA’s IXPE (Imaging X-ray Polarization Explorer) to study a white dwarf star. IXPE spent nearly one week focused on EX Hydrae, a white dwarf […]

The Starlink 6-97 mission is the fifth Falcon 9 rocket launch of 2026, a rate of roughly one flight every 2.5 days. Liftoff from pad 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station is scheduled for 3:00:40 p.m. EST (2000:40 UTC).

Turin, Italy — Jan. 11, 2026 — The 12U CubeSat LIDE (LIve DEmonstration) has successfully completed its first months of on-orbit operations following its launch July 23, 2025, aboard a […] The post Tyvak International’s LIDE satellite completes initial on-orbit 5G tests appeared first on SpaceNews.

The anomaly Monday morning local time came less than a year after a previous issue that caused the failure of the PSLV-C61 mission.

Former House Defense Appropriations aide takes on day-to-day leadership role at U.S. spy satellite agency The post NRO taps Capitol Hill staffer Bill Adkins as principal deputy director appeared first on SpaceNews.

Recent technological advances have set the stage for a renewed focus on human-based solutions called new approach methodologies (NAMs) that can complement, and in some cases replace, animal models in research and regulatory testing. These NAMs generally span advanced cell-tissue-organoid (in vitro), computational modeling (in silico), and cell-free biochemical analysis (in chemico) techniques, with each […]

In 2016, Airbus Defence and Space and OneWeb founded a joint venture called Airbus OneWeb Satellites to build what was then a constellation of 900 satellites for the OneWeb low Earth orbit megaconstellation. The joint venture built more than 600 OneWeb satellites that are currently in orbit. In September 2023, Eutelsat completed its acquisition of […] The post Eutelsat Taps Airbus To Build 340 OneWeb Satellites appeared first on European Spaceflight.

For several years, the space-based geospatial intelligence industry has been chasing a logical vision for AI: use it to make our existing systems faster and smarter. Train models to detect objects. Automate change detection. Speed up analysis. These capabilities have delivered operational benefits. But they’ve also kept us focused on a specific paradigm — collect […] The post AI needs spatial intelligence. The GEOINT industry will deliver it. appeared first on SpaceNews.

As NASA prepares for long-duration missions to the Moon that will pave the way for human exploration on Mars, the agency is tapping into America’s expanding space economy to help guide its strategic technology investments. This initiative, led by NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate invites collaboration from U.S. industry leaders, academic institutions, and other government […]

Shortly after space week in October, investment firm JP Morgan announced a $10 billion investment plan targeting industries critical for United States national security. In addition to things like nanomaterials, autonomous robotics and solar power, the announcement also focused on funding spacecraft and space launches. JP Morgan’s emphasis on space-related “frontier” technologies is significant, because it signals an acknowledgment that space is becoming an investable sector. What remains unclear is […] The post Space is becoming an industrial economy appeared first on SpaceNews.

This new NASA Hubble Space Telescope image captures a jet of gas from a forming star shooting across the dark expanse. The bright pink and green patches running diagonally through the image are HH 80/81, a pair of Herbig-Haro (HH) objects previously observed by Hubble in 1995. The patch to the upper left is part […]

NASA has provided a long-awaited update on plans for the Artemis 2 launch, including a Jan. 17 rollout of the launch vehicle to the pad. The post NASA outlines path to Artemis 2 launch appeared first on SpaceNews.

From the ESA Blogs.

The problem of overcrowding orbits and increasing space debris has never been more urgent. International organizations, policy makers, regulators, space operators and researchers are recognizing how critical this issue is and how it could impact all space services and operations, including, but not limited to, satellite broadband, global navigation satellite systems, scientific research and space […] The post This year must bring greater collaboration against orbital congestion appeared first on SpaceNews.

It took a year, but the Jared Isaacman era at NASA finally started. Sworn in Dec. 17, the new administrator spoke at a NASA town hall the next day to take questions about his plans for the agency. He offered few specifics about those plans, saying he had to learn about agency activities. But he […] The post Applied lessons for NASA’s science programs appeared first on SpaceNews.

India’s Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle failed late Sunday during ascent, resulting in the loss of a primary Earth observation satellite and 15 smaller co-passenger spacecraft. The post India’s PSLV launch fails during ascent, 16 satellites lost appeared first on SpaceNews.

Menlo Park CA (SPX) Jan 08, 2026 Researchers hoped to clarify the boundaries between different types of superionic water - the hot, black ice believed to exist at the core of giant ice planets. Instead, they found multiple atomic stacking patterns coexisting in overlapping configurations never seen before in this phase of water. Superionic water - the hot, black and strangely conductive form of ice that exists in the cent

Berlin, Germany (SPX) Jan 09, 2026 Neutrinos, often called ghost particles, are elementary particles that are electrically neutral, extremely light, and interact only rarely with other matter. Trillions pass through Earth and the human body every second without leaving a trace, which makes them difficult to detect but valuable as probes of regions of the universe that are otherwise hidden. Researchers at the University of C

Los Angeles CA (SPX) Jan 09, 2026 Astronomers at the University of California, Irvine have identified the largest-known stream of super-heated gas in the universe flowing out of a nearby disk galaxy called VV 340a, with their findings reported in Science. The gas, traced using data from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, emerges from both sides of the galaxy as two elongated nebulae powered by an active supermassive black hole a

Berlin, Germany (SPX) Jan 09, 2026 Plans to obtain the first precision measurements of some of the rarest and most unstable atomic nuclei are set to advance understanding of nuclear structure and the way chemical elements form during extreme cosmic events such as supernovae, neutron star mergers and X-ray bursts. The University of Surrey is partnering with researchers in Japan to develop instruments that can measure previou

Berlin, Germany (SPX) Jan 09, 2026 Researchers at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitat Munchen have demonstrated a quantum interferometric method that can register extremely small tilts and displacements of a laser beam. The approach is based on weak value amplification, a concept from quantum mechanics that enhances the response of an interferometer when internal beam parameters change only slightly. In many experiments and tech

Tokyo, Japan (SPX) Jan 08, 2026 Giant DNA viruses that infect amoebae are providing new evidence that viruses may have helped drive the evolution of complex life, according to researchers at Tokyo University of Science and the National Institute of Natural Sciences in Japan. In work published online on November 24, 2025, in the Journal of Virology, the team reports the discovery of ushikuvirus, a newly isolated giant vir

Zurich, Switzerland (SPX) Jan 07, 2026 One of the great successes of 20th-century physics was the quantum mechanical description of solids. This allowed scientists to understand for the first time how and why certain materials conduct electric current and how these properties could be purposefully modified. For instance, semiconductors such as silicon could be used to produce transistors, which revolutionized electronics and made mod

Davis CA (SPX) Jan 08, 2026 UC Davis researchers have developed a new method that uses light to transform amino acids - the building blocks of proteins - into molecules that are similar in structure to psychedelics and mimic their interaction with the brain. Like psychedelics, these molecules activate the brain's serotonin 5-HT2A receptors, which promote cortical neuron growth, and could be candidates to treat a host of br