Space news

The Federal Aviation Administration office that regulates commercial spaceflight expects continued growth in launches, despite industry concerns about whether the office can keep pace. The post FAA projects continuing growth in commercial space transportation appeared first on SpaceNews.

Los Angeles CA (SPX) Jan 28, 2026 Modern technology has transformed how we identify and value coins, making what once required expert knowledge accessible to everyone. The best coin value app on your smartphone can instantly tell you if that old quarter is worth keeping or spending.

Los Angeles CA (SPX) Jan 28, 2026 At the beginning of the previous decade, online casinos had a firm grip on the industry. Not only had they established their dominance in the market since the beginning of the 21st century, but they had solidified it by combining fintech innovation with high-quality gaming designs and catering to a global audience that accessed the vast majority of their casino games online and on smartphones

London, UK (SPX) Jan 28, 2026 Scientists have produced the most detailed map yet of the dark matter that threads through the Universe, revealing how this invisible component has guided the formation of galaxies, stars and planets over cosmic time. The new map, created with observations from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope and published in Nature Astronomy, traces dark matter in a region of sky in the constellation Se

Berlin, Germany (SPX) Jan 28, 2026 The first images from Europe s pioneering meteorological infrared sounder were unveiled at the EU Space Conference in Brussels, marking a significant advance in observing the atmosphere in three dimensions ahead of severe weather. The new data come from the Infrared Sounder instrument on Meteosat Third Generation Sounder 1, the first European geostationary satellite to carry a hyperspectra

Los Angeles CA (SPX) Jan 28, 2026 To an untrained eye, the aircraft engine sitting outside a Cincinnati area facility in December looked like standard hardware. For NASA and GE Aerospace researchers watching the unit fire up for a demonstration, it represented a hybrid engine performing at a level that could potentially power an airliner. The engine, tested at GE Aerospace's Peebles Test Operation site in Ohio, is a modifi

Washington DC (SPX) Jan 27, 2026 Nuclear propulsion and power technologies could unlock new frontiers in missions to the Moon, Mars, and beyond. NASA has reached an important milestone advancing nuclear propulsion that could benefit future deep space missions by completing a cold-flow test campaign of the first flight reactor engineering development unit since the 1960s. Teams at the agency's Marshall Space Flight Center

IRVINE, CA – January 28, 2026 – Terran Orbital proudly announces the Mitsubishi Electric LEO Demo Mission, a state-of-the-art project in collaboration with Mitsubishi Electric Corporation and Mitsubishi Electric US. […] The post Terran Orbital to Deliver Nebula Bus for Mitsubishi Electric LEO Demo Mission appeared first on SpaceNews.

New study finds the label “commercial” masks sharp differences in risk, ownership and policy goals The post What ‘commercial space’ really means depends on who’s buying — and why appeared first on SpaceNews.

The German government agency responsible for military procurement has awarded a contract to POLARIS Spaceplanes to build and flight test a reusable hypersonic vehicle. The vehicle is expected to be ready for its first flight toward the end of 2027. On 27 January, POLARIS Spaceplanes announced that it had been awarded a contract by the […] The post POLARIS Spaceplanes Wins Contract for Reusable Hypersonic Vehicle appeared first on European Spaceflight.

Mission marks third consecutive GPS launch reassigned from ULA to SpaceX The post SpaceX launches GPS satellite for U.S. Space Force appeared first on SpaceNews.

BRUSSELS — Exotrail, a French company specializing in multi-orbit satellite mobility and focused on LEO service vehicles, together with Astroscale France, the French subsidiary of the Japan-based on-orbit servicing company, announced Jan. 28 a partnership aimed at testing deorbiting capabilities in low Earth orbit. The mission itself has not yet been fully approved. “We are […] The post Exotrail and Astroscale France join forces to build deorbiting capability for LEO appeared first on SpaceNews.

Tune in on Friday, 30 January from 16:00 GMT/17:00 CET (11:00 EST) to watch the mission overview press conference, followed at 18:00 GMT/19:00 CET (13:00 EST) by the final press conference of the Crew-12 astronauts as they prepare to launch to the International Space Station for a nine-month mission — live on ESA Web TV.

SAN FRANCISCO — The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s latest space weather observatory has reached Lagrange point 1. The Space Weather Follow On — Lagrange 1 executed its final engine […] The post NOAA solar observatory reaches Lagrange point 1 appeared first on SpaceNews.

Satellites observed a frozen landscape across much of the country after a massive winter storm.

SAN FRANCISCO – The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is keeping close tabs on the cost of the next generation of geostationary weather satellites. The Geostationary and Extended Operations (GeoXO) […] The post Budget remains tight for scaled-back GeoXO program appeared first on SpaceNews.

BRUSSELS —  The European Union’s new government satellite communications program, GOVSATCOM, which pools capacity from eight already on-orbit geosynchronous satellites, began operations last week, European Commissioner for Defence and Space Andrius Kubilius said Jan. 27. The program is designed to provide secure communications capabilities to the EU and its member states and could expand by […] The post EU launches government satcom program in sovereignty push appeared first on SpaceNews.

Written by Daniel Boyette Nuclear propulsion and power technologies could unlock new frontiers in missions to the Moon, Mars, and beyond. NASA has reached an important milestone advancing nuclear propulsion that could benefit future deep space missions by completing a cold-flow test campaign of the first flight reactor engineering development unit since the 1960s. “Nuclear […]

The Discovery A candidate planet that might be remarkably similar to Earth, HD 137010 b, has one potentially big difference: It could be colder than perpetually frozen Mars. Key Facts Scientists continue to mine data gathered by NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope, retired in 2018, and continue to turn up surprises. A new paper reveals the […]

A team of NASA scientists deployed on an international mission designed to better understand severe winter storms. The North American Upstream Feature-Resolving and Tropopause Uncertainty Reconnaissance Experiment, or NURTURE, is an airborne campaign that uses a suite of remote sensing instruments to collect atmospheric data on winter weather with a goal of improving the models […]

This image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, containing nearly 800,000 galaxies, is overlaid with a map of dark matter, represented in blue. Brighter blue areas indicate a higher density of dark matter. Researchers used Webb data to find the dark matter — which is invisible — via its gravitational influence on regular matter. The […]

The second edition of the Space Debris 2026 Conference officially commenced today. Organized by the Saudi Space Agency (SSA), the conference is witnessing broad international participation representing 75 countries from […] The post Second Edition of Space Debris 2026 Conference Kicks Off with Participation from 75 Countries appeared first on SpaceNews.

"A thorough investigation will be conducted by NASA into the cause."

SIMSBURY, Conn., January 26, 2026 – Ensign-Bickford Aerospace and Defense Company (EBAD) announced the successful flight and actuation of its Payload Release Module, PRM9103, during SpaceX’s Falcon 9 Twilight rideshare […] The post EBAD PRM Payload Release Module Family Demonstrates Scalable, Low-Shock Separation Capability on Falcon 9 Twilight Rideshare Mission appeared first on SpaceNews.

Results from the solar-powered spacecraft provide a new measurement of the thickness of the ice shell encasing the Jovian moon’s ocean.  Data from NASA’s Juno mission has provided new insights into the thickness and subsurface structure of the icy shell encasing Jupiter’s moon Europa. Using the spacecraft’s Microwave Radiometer (MWR), mission scientists determined that the shell averages about 18 miles (29 […]

Robotics and virtual reality filled the science schedule aboard the International Space Station on Tuesday as the Expedition 74 crew promoted education and explored human research. The orbital trio also inspected safety equipment, worked on cargo swaps, and conducted Earth observations.

NASA is announcing the availability of its newest supercomputer, Athena, an advanced system designed to support a new generation of missions and research projects. The newest member of the agency’s High-End Computing Capability project expands the resources available to help scientists and engineers tackle some of the most complex challenges in space, aeronautics, and science. […]

The NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) on NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope captured the actively forming protostar EC 53 (circled at left) in the Serpens Nebula in this image released on Jan. 21, 2026. Astronomers have long sought evidence to explain why comets at the outskirts of our own solar system contain crystalline silicates, since crystals require intense heat to form […]

Engineers and scientists at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, completed tests this month on a second early version of a key element of the upcoming LISA (Laser Interferometer Space Antenna) mission. The LISA mission, a collaboration between ESA (the European Space Agency) and NASA, will use infrared lasers to detect gravitational waves, […]

A team of astronomers has employed a cutting-edge, artificial intelligence-assisted technique to uncover rare astronomical phenomena within archived data from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope. The team analyzed nearly 100 million image cutouts from the Hubble Legacy Archive, each measuring just a few dozen pixels (7 to 8 arcseconds) on a side. They identified more than […]

Watch the keynote address by ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher at the 18th European Space Conference in Brussels.

A team of astronomers have used a new AI-assisted method to search for rare astronomical objects in the Hubble Legacy Archive. The team sifted through nearly 100 million image cutouts in just two and a half days, uncovering nearly 1400 anomalous objects, more than 800 of which had never been documented before.

NIGRÁN, Spain — While much of the European NewSpace ecosystem has spent the last five years in a cycle of public fundraising and prototype announcements, UARX Space took a different […] The post The “Stealth” Strategy Pays Off: UARX Space Emerges as Europe’s High-Reliability Powerhouse appeared first on SpaceNews.

"That's why we're here, that's why we're building what we're building."

SAN FRANCISCO – An independent NASA evaluation confirmed the quality of radio occultation data provided by PlanetiQ. The one-year evaluation, which compared PlanetiQ observations with data from the Constellation Observing […] The post NASA evaluation lauds quality of PlanetiQ radio occultation data appeared first on SpaceNews.

Teams at the Kennedy Space Center are advancing preparations for the Artemis II mission, the… The post NASA lines up WDR for SLS ahead of Artemis II appeared first on NASASpaceFlight.com.

Los Angeles CA (SPX) Jan 21, 2026 After years of international negotiation and diplomacy, the High Seas Treaty has come into force in January 2026, with 61 states ratifying the agreement to protect international waters and marine life. The milestone has renewed debate over whether international law can meaningfully safeguard the ocean without robust enforcement and complementary direct action. In a new book titled The Only

Berlin, Germany (SPX) Jan 21, 2026 What is the state of a quantum system? Answering this question is essential for exploiting quantum properties in emerging devices and for developing new quantum technologies across computing, sensing and secure communications. Quantum technologies, whether computers, sensors or cryptographic systems, all rely on one essential step: the characterisation of quantum states. This process, know

Los Angeles CA (SPX) Jan 26, 2026 Cryptocurrency markets are known for extreme price swings, where values can rise or drop dramatically within hours. This volatility creates uncertainty for traders, investors, and institutions trying to move assets safely. Stablecoins have emerged to provide a consistent value anchor amid these fluctuations, offering predictable liquidity and price stability. Among them, USDT stands as one of th

Los Angeles CA (SPX) Jan 26, 2026 The Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory is joining with Type One Energy and the University of Tennessee, Knoxville to develop a world class high heat flux facility to test fusion energy materials at the Tennessee Valley Authority's Bull Run Energy Complex in East Tennessee. The new facility will evaluate how plasma facing components perform when exposed to the extreme heat

Tokyo, Japan (SPX) Jan 26, 2026 A new theoretical study shows that intense laser fields could greatly enhance nuclear fusion reactions by reshaping the collision energies of interacting nuclei before they tunnel through the Coulomb barrier. The work tackles one of fusion energy's central challenges, the strong electrostatic repulsion between positively charged nuclei that usually demands temperatures of tens of millions of kel

Los Angeles CA (SPX) Jan 26, 2026 A long standing idea in planetary science is that water rich meteorites arriving late in Earth history could have delivered a major share of the planet's water. A new study that mines the Moon's impact history now argues that this late delivery pathway could only have supplied a small fraction of Earth's oceans. In work published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a te

Blacksburg VA (SPX) Jan 21, 2026 What's the shape of water? In 2022, NASA launched the Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) satellite to answer this question by precisely measuring the height and extent of bodies of water. Virginia Tech geoscientists are using the same satellite to ask a related question: How is water shaping the land? "We wanted to show how the satellite could be used in ways that it wasn't pr

Los Angeles CA (SPX) Jan 26, 2026 Spire Global has been selected by AiDASH to supply advanced space-based weather intelligence for AiDASH's vegetation, storm and ignition risk platform used by electric utilities in North America. The collaboration integrates Spire's high-resolution forecasts and meteorology support into AiDASH's AI-driven tools for vegetation management and outage prediction across modern power grids. AiDA

Los Angeles CA (SPX) Jan 26, 2026 By resurrecting a 3.2 billion year old enzyme and testing it inside living microbes, researchers have opened a new experimental window on early Earth and how to recognize signs of life on other worlds. The work, led by scientists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and supported by NASA, uses synthetic biology to reconstruct ancient biochemistry in the laboratory. The team focused on ni

Los Angeles CA (SPX) Jan 26, 2026 Aalyria has been selected by the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory's Rapid Architecture Prototyping and Integration Development program to advance software solutions for managing complex military space communications networks under the Space Data Network Experimentation program. The award, executed through AFRL's Space Technology Advanced Research Fast-trackin

Los Angeles CA (SPX) Jan 26, 2026 The lightest element in the universe is helping nuclear physicists probe the inner structure of matter with new precision. At the U.S. Department of Energy's Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility, researchers have compared two isotopes of hydrogen to gain sharper insight into how quarks and gluons are arranged inside protons and neutrons. Hydrogen sits at the top of the Periodic T

Sydney, Australia (SPX) Jan 21, 2026 Stratoship has signed a memorandum of understanding with Queensland based companies Orbit2Orbit and Sunburnt Space Co to build a staged lab to space pathway for small satellite payloads. The agreement establishes a commercial framework that links laboratory development, stratospheric testing, very low Earth orbit and orbital missions into a coherent progression for customers. Under t

The European Space Agency discussed plans for its record budget as the 18th European Space Conference began in Brussels, Belgium on 27 January.

The service plans to select satellite manufacturers as soon as March for the Geosynchronous Reconnaissance & Surveillance (RG-XX) program, The post Space Force set to choose contractors for next-gen GEO spy satellites appeared first on SpaceNews.