Space news

02.19.2026 DURANGO, Colo. — Agile Space Industries, a leading provider of in-space chemical propulsion, today announced their Series A equity financing round. The round was led by Caruso Ventures and […] The post Agile Space Industries Oversubscribed $17M Series A Accelerates Growth of In-Space Propulsion Capabilities appeared first on SpaceNews.

Japanese lunar company ispace said work on a new engine for its lunar landers is facing delays and that it is keeping open the option of switching engines. The post Japan’s ispace warns of delays in new lunar lander engine appeared first on SpaceNews.

SSC Space has officially opened the Esrange Space Center’s new Orbital Launch Control Center, which will be used to manage future rocket launches from the facility. The Esrange Space Center in northern Sweden has hosted suborbital rocket launches since the 1960s. In October 2020, the Swedish government and the Swedish Space Corporation (SSC), now known […] The post SSC Space Opens Orbital Launch Control Center at Esrange appeared first on European Spaceflight.

A vivid display of the aurora lit up skies over the Denmark Strait and eastern Canada during a minor geomagnetic storm in February 2026.

The Defense Innovation Unit plans to select companies to field and operate spacecraft before transferring them to government control within three years The post Pentagon seeks commercially built GEO spy satellites  appeared first on SpaceNews.

The CSDA Program added three digital elevation and digital terrain products from Vantor’s Precision3D Product Line to the Satellite Data Explorer.

NASA’s Commercial Satellite Data Acquisition (CSDA) Program announces the addition of imagery from Vantor to its Satellite Data Explorer (SDX) data access and discovery tool.

The CSDA Program’s Data Acquisition Request System lets authorized users submit proposals for yet-to-be-collected data from CSDA’s commercial partners.

NASA’s Commercial Satellite Data Acquisition (CSDA) Program announced eight new agreements with seven of its commercial partners to give users more access to near‑global multispectral and synthetic aperture radar data.

Vein scans and pharmaceutical research topped the science schedule aboard the International Space Station on Wednesday. The Expedition 74 crew rounded out the day with Dragon cargo transfers, lab familiarization activities, and life support maintenance duties.

Looking at Chlorophyll from Space By Compton “Jim” Tucker NASA scientists are able to study plants from space, but this wasn’t always the case. “I love using satellite data to study the Earth,” says Dr. Compton “Jim” Tucker. When Tucker was a graduate student, he and some friends discovered a new way to study photosynthesis. […]

By Denise Lineberry On Jan. 31, 1958, Explorer 1 became the first satellite launched by the United States. Its primary science instrument, a cosmic ray detector, was designed to measure the radiation environment in Earth orbit. Though its final transmission was in May 1958, it continued to revolve around Earth more than 58,000 times. As […]

By Hashima Hasan How did a little girl born in India soon after its independence from the British Empire, become a program scientist for NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, and the first female program scientist for the James Webb Space Telescope, Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA), Gravity Probe B, and other astrophysics flight missions? The […]

By John Mather The Cosmic Background Explorer satellite (COBE) went up on a Delta rocket on Nov. 18, 1989, into a polar sun-synchronous orbit 900 km up. Our team at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), Ball Aerospace, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and universities built it to look at the cosmic microwave and infrared […]

By Laura Rocchio On July 23, 1972 the first civilian satellite designed to image Earth’s land surfaces was launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. On board the satellite, originally named the Earth Resources Technology Satellite (ERTS), but later known as Landsat 1, were two sensors. The primary sensor, called the Return Beam Vidicon […]

By Marcia J. Rieke The development of infrared detector arrays is intertwined with my experiences working on NASA projects. As an astronomer at a university, my interactions with NASA all start with a proposal in response to an opportunity. In 1983, near-infrared detector arrays were beginning to attract the attention of astronomers. At the suggestion […]

By Nancy Grace Roman Looking through the atmosphere is like looking through a piece of old stained glass. The glass has defects that distort the image. The atmosphere also has defects that distort the image, but the defects in the atmosphere move, thus blurring the image as well. The glass is colored, so only some […]

As NASA continues preparations for the Artemis II test flight, the agency will provide coverage Thursday, Feb. 19, of its next wet dress rehearsal, a fueling test of the SLS (Space Launch System) rocket, and hold a news conference on Friday, Feb. 20. Teams are counting down to the opening of a simulated launch window at 8:30 p.m. EST on Feb. […]

Commodity Classic, February 25 – 27, 2026 Join NASA in the Exhibit Hall (Booth #3481) for Hyperwall Storytelling by NASA experts. Full Hyperwall Agenda below. WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 25 4:30 – 4:50 PMNASA: Your Space and Science AgencyKaren St Germain THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 26 11:00 – 11:20 AMInforming Water and Agricultural Management Apps with NASA Modeling and […]

Fishing boats illuminate the Arabian Sea along India’s west coast with green lights designed to attract squid, shrimp, sardines, and mackerel in this nighttime photograph from the International Space Station, orbiting 259 miles above Earth on Dec. 25, 2025. Studying nighttime light offers a unique perspective for investigations into human behaviors, such as tracking the […]

Description These images were part of the first successful use of a new technology called Mars Global Localization, developed at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Using its navigation cameras, NASA’s Perseverance captured a 360-degree view of the surrounding terrain that was matched to orbital imagery, enabling the rover to pinpoint its location on Mars on Feb. 2, […]

Description Using its navigation cameras, NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover captured the five stereo pairs of images that make up this panorama on Feb. 2, 2026, the 1,762nd day, or sol, of the mission. A new technology called Mars Global Localization matched this 360-degree view to onboard orbital imagery from the agency’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), […]

There is no GPS at the Red Planet, but a new technology called Mars Global Localization lets Perseverance determine precisely where it is — without human help.  Imagine you’re all alone, driving along in a rocky, unforgiving desert with no roads, no map, no GPS, and no more than one phone call a day for someone to inform you exactly where you are. That’s what NASA’s Perseverance rover has been experiencing since landing on Mars five years ago. Though it carries time-tested tools for determining its general location, the rover has needed operators on Earth to tell it precisely where it is — until now.   A new […]

Listen to this audio excerpt from Katie Oriti, Orion European Service Module Integration Office manager: Growing up in rural America, Katie Oriti could only dream of working for NASA. Not because she wasn’t inspired by the dark, star-filled skies of her hometown Shelby, Ohio, but because it felt out of reach. “I think NASA was […]

In the vast tapestry of the universe, most galaxies shine brightly across cosmic time and space. Yet a rare class of galaxies remains nearly invisible — low-surface-brightness galaxies dominated by dark matter and containing only a sparse scattering of faint stars. One such elusive object, dubbed CDG-2, may be among the most heavily dark matter-dominated […]

Employing NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope in combination with ESA Euclid and ground-based NAOJ Subaru Telescope, astronomers identified a galaxy that appears to be almost entirely dominated by dark matter with only a smattering of stars. The galaxy, known as Candidate Dark Galaxy-2 (CDG-2), appears to contain just four globular star clusters (compared to the Milky Way’s 150-plus), and dimly shines with the light of only about 1 million Suns.

With the final GPS III satellite scheduled to launch in March, the United States is completing the most significant upgrade to its positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT) infrastructure in more than a decade.  GPS III delivers improved accuracy, stronger signals and enhanced anti-jam capabilities for military users. By any technical measure, it is a better […] The post Why GPS III, and what comes after it, still falls short in modern war appeared first on SpaceNews.

The NASA Engineering and Safety Center (NESC) performed an assessment to characterize the effects of abnormal grain growth (AGG) within a metallic liner of a composite overwrapped pressure vessel (COPV). This effort focused on evaluating the mechanical response of the liner material, including the strain amplification factor (SAF), using a series of custom-designed coupons that […]

Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS), a proxy adviser for institutional investors, has recommended that Avio shareholders vote against a set of proposed bylaw amendments, setting up a tense run-up to a 3 March Extraordinary General Meeting. In September 2025, Italian rocket builder Avio introduced a new ten-year business plan targeting an average annual growth rate of […] The post Shareholder Advisory Firm Urges Vote Against Avio Bylaw Amendments appeared first on European Spaceflight.

Each year, the world’s leading climate scientists evaluate the most critical evidence on how our planet is changing. Their assessments draw heavily on data from Earth-observing satellites – and the latest report delivers a stark warning: the planet’s energy balance is drifting further out of alignment, ocean warming is now accelerating, and the land’s capacity to absorb carbon is declining, along with other troubling trends.

Satellite imagery-to-report timelines would be reduced from hours to minutes The post Vantor partners with Google AI to automate intelligence reports for government agencies appeared first on SpaceNews.

Los Angeles CA (SPX) Feb 16, 2026 A chance observation on a Moroccan hillside has revealed that some wrinkled rock textures from the deep sea may actually be fossilized microbial communities, not just products of underwater landslides. While hiking in 2016, University of Texas at Austin geologist Rowan Martindale noticed a slab of sedimentary rock with a distinctive wrinkled surface that looked like classic microbial mat fossils

Ithaca, NY (SPX) Feb 16, 2026 To lower agricultural emissions, policymakers and communities first need to pinpoint the sources. Not just by country but crop by crop, field by field. In other words, they need maps. Detailed maps. In a study published Feb. 13 in Nature Climate Change, researchers have synthesized data from multiple ground sources and models to map global cropland emissions at high resolution - down to ab

Los Angeles CA (SPX) Feb 18, 2026 Australian hypersonic flight developer Hypersonix Launch Systems has set the launch window for a landmark test of its DART AE scramjet-powered vehicle, moving the company a step closer to sustained hypersonic flight in operational conditions. Founded in 2019, Hypersonix is developing a new class of autonomous hypersonic aircraft designed to deliver sustained flight at extreme speed, range

Madrid, Spain (SPX) Feb 18, 2026 Sateliot and PLD Space have signed a commercial contract for the dedicated launch of Sateliot's first two Trito next generation 5G direct to device satellites on a Miura 5 rocket in 2027. The agreement covers placing both satellites, each with a mass of about 160 kilograms, into low Earth orbit on a mission operated entirely by PLD Space. The deal is described as the first fully private Sp

Berlin, Germany (SPX) Feb 18, 2026 Exolaunch has completed integration of five customer satellites for launch on Isar Aerospace's Spectrum rocket, scheduled no earlier than March 19, 2026 from Andoya spaceport in Norway. The mission, branded 'Onward and Upward,' represents the second flight of Spectrum and a key step toward strengthening German and European sovereign access to orbit. The Berlin-based company is providing la

Dubai (AFP) Feb 17, 2026 The United Arab Emirates announced on Tuesday that it would extend its Mars probe mission, now in its fifth year, for an additional three, underlining the oil-rich state's space ambitions. The UAE's Hope probe arrived in orbit around Mars in 2021 after a seven-month voyage through space, making it the first Arab country to explore the Red Planet with a $200 million investment. The Emirat

A new SpaceX initiative to provide space traffic coordination services has attracted attention and praise in part because of the conditions it places on users of it. The post SpaceX unveils space traffic management system appeared first on SpaceNews.

A long-awaited cap on liability for U.K. launch operators came into force Feb. 18, aiming to make the country’s fledgling rocket sector more competitive as it struggles to get off the ground. The post UK caps launch liability in timely boost for nascent domestic market appeared first on SpaceNews.

Chinese commercial launch firm Landspace is targeting Q2 for a second orbital launch and booster recovery attempt and aiming for a reuse test in Q4. The post Landspace targets Q2 for next Zhuque-3 orbital launch and recovery attempt  appeared first on SpaceNews.

The European Space Agency (ESA) is preparing for the inaugural launch of the Celeste LEO-PNT in-orbit demonstration mission with the first two satellites scheduled to lift off no earlier than 24 March, aboard Rocket Lab’s Electron rocket from the company’s Māhia Launch Complex in New Zealand.

Widespread flooding affected tens of thousands of people after cyclones Fytia and Gezani drenched the island.

Written by Abigail Fraeman, Curiosity Deputy Project Scientist Earth planning date: Friday, Feb. 13, 2026 Curiosity spent this week at Gale crater completing the last few activities associated with the “Nevado Sajama 2” drill before kicking off our final phase of the boxwork exploration campaign. As we’ve explored the boxwork region, the science team has […]

SpaceX conducted a successful full test of the water-cooled top deck on the Orbital Launch… The post Starbase Pad 2 prepares to receive Booster 19 ahead of Block 3 milestones appeared first on NASASpaceFlight.com.

SAN FRANCISCO – After attracting cubesat customers, Belgium-based Simera Sense is developing higher-resolution optical payloads for larger satellites. To date, Simera Sense customers have sent more than 50 xScape100 and xScape200 cameras into orbit. Most have flown on cubesats ranging in size from 6u to 16u. For larger satellites, Simera Sense is developing standardized optical payloads […] The post Simera Sense to offer larger cameras and enhanced autonomy appeared first on SpaceNews.

Chinese launch startup Space Epoch has secured B-round funding as the company moves towards a first orbital launch and recovery attempt late this year. The post China’s Space Epoch raises new funding, targets 2026 launch and recovery attempt appeared first on SpaceNews.

On February 5, 2026, the MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) on NASA’s Terra satellite acquired this image of snow-covered landscapes across Hokkaido. With more than 31 active volcanoes, the island features several large caldera lakes, including at least five that are visible in the image. (Calderas are large depressions formed by volcanic eruptions.) In the east, forested windbreaks around Nakashibetsu form […]

The seven-member Expedition 74 crew is in its first full week together aboard the International Space Station following Saturday’s arrival of NASA’s SpaceX Crew-12 mission. The orbital septet is resuming its full complement of advanced space science and lab maintenance as the Crew-12 quartet familiarizes itself with station operations.

High-altitude flight is getting increasing attention from sectors ranging from telecommunications to emergency response. To make that airspace more accessible, NASA is developing an air traffic management system covering those altitudes and supplementing its work with real-time data from a research balloon in Earth’s stratosphere.  Aircraft at high altitudes – 50,000 feet or higher, or roughly 10,000 to 20,000 feet above most commercial traffic – offer new […]

Earth observation startup SatVu said Feb. 17 it has raised $41 million in a funding round that included the NATO Innovation Fund, as commercial space-based thermal imagery gains traction with defense and intelligence agencies. The post SatVu to expand thermal imaging constellation with NATO-backed funds appeared first on SpaceNews.