Aerospace

NASA’s Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System (CYGNSS), which launched in 2016, is deorbiting on New Year’s Day. The technology will live on, commercialized by Muon Space, a Silicon Valley startup that grew out of a Stanford class project.   The satellites lack propulsion systems, so they have been steadily losing altitude since launch.  They would naturally deorbit sometime next year, burning up on reentry, but NASA decided…

Disturbances on Earth, from thunderstorms to earthquakes, send ripples into the upper atmosphere, disturbing the region that low-Earth-orbit satellites fly through and that GPS and communications signals must cross.  “Think of waves as throwing a pebble into a body of water, and you see those waves propagate out in a circle. That’s what happens in…

A comprehensive analysis of the expected shelf-lives of the entire 2023 ISS formulary found that 54 of 91 medications have a terrestrial shelf-life of 36 months or less, which could be accelerated by space radiation. As NASA aims for Mars missions, which take about 200 days, resupply becomes unrealistic. Now, researchers at the University of…

Axiom Space and Prada unveiled the Liquid Cooling and Ventilation Garment (LCVG), the inner layer of the Axiom Extravehicular Mobility Unit (AxEMU), this week. The garment was designed for NASA’s Artemis IV, which is scheduled to land on the moon in 2028.  “By bringing together the best in both aerospace engineering as well as luxury…

NASA today announced the four members of the Artemis III crew and gave updates on the mission, including how a recent explosion during a Blue Origin test is affecting the timeline.  The Blue Origin New Glenn rocket exploded during a hotfire test at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on May 28. The incident destroyed the…

Blue Origin’s uncrewed New Glenn rocket exploded during a hotfire test at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station last week. No casualties were reported, but the incident destroyed the rocket and damaged the launch infrastructure.  The explosion could also threaten the timeline of NASA’s Artemis program, as Blue Origin is one of two primary contractors, alongside…

SpaceX’s Starship megarocket, made up of SpaceX’s Super Heavy Version 3 (V3) booster and Starship, completed its launch rehearsal today in preparation for liftoff as soon as May 19. At nearly 150 meters tall, the Starship V3 is the tallest rocket ever assembled. It is designed to haul up to 150 metric tons of cargo…

Today, more than 33,000 tracked objects circle Earth at about 28,000 km/h. These are just the objects that can be seen. At that speed, even a paint flake can cause damage, as seen on the International Space Station. When smaller fragments are included in the count, it rises to tens or hundreds of millions of…

A paper published in Applied and Environmental Microbiology identified 23 fungal strains isolated from NASA spacecraft assembly cleanrooms capable of surviving ultraviolet radiation exposure.  Using experimental simulation facilities, the researchers conducted a comprehensive assessment of microbial survivability and morphology on the most resilient spacecraft-associated microorganisms.  Simulating Mars and sterilization protocols The researchers used a Mars…

Astronomers are improving the resolution of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) space observatory using a non-redundant Aperture Masking Interferometer. They published their findings in Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia. The JWST features a non-redundant Aperture Masking Interferometer (AMI) within its Near Infrared Imager and Slitless Spectrograph (NIRISS). This provides magnitudes more precise than…

NASA’s X-59 aircraft, part of the Quesst mission, can reach supersonic speeds without causing a sonic boom. Development of the aircraft began in 2018, starting with risk reduction studies. The aircraft was built by Lockheed Martin Skunk Works in Palmdale, California, and completed its first flight on Oct. 28., 2025.  The X-59 achieves its quiet…

NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover found organic molecules that have never been seen before on Mars. A rock that the rover drilled and analyzed in 2020 includes the most diverse collection of organic molecules ever found on Mars, NASA announced last week. Of the 21 carbon-containing molecules identified in the sample, seven of them had never…

NANO Nuclear Space Inc., a subsidiary of NANO Nuclear Energy, is designing a nuclear reactor for the Moon. James Walker, CEO of NANO Nuclear Energy, says they can get it there by 2030.  There are several challenges associated with a lunar reactor, Walker said. The payload has to be smaller for launch, the operation has…

While the Artemis II mission was primarily a test flight for future lunar missions, a small experiment aboard the spacecraft is investigating space’s effects on the human body. The A Virtual Astronaut Tissue Analog Response (AVATAR) experiment used organ-on-a-chip devices to study the effects of deep space radiation and microgravity on human health.  The experiment…

Artemis II splashed down last week, ending the first American lunar mission in over 50 years. But the Artemis initiative is far from over. Artemis III was originally envisioned as a lunar landing mission, but it was significantly revised in February 2026 to ensure safety and technology readiness. Now, it will instead serve as a…

The heat shield on Orion was tested during the uncrewed Artemis I mission and experienced an anomaly during reentry. As the Orion spacecraft reenters the atmosphere this evening, the Avcoat heat shield will be essential to the safety of the crew. Although NASA is confident the splashdown will occur safely as planned, some experts disagree. …

Liquid metals (LMs) have a unique combination of properties that suit the extreme environment of space, such as wide liquid-temperature ranges, high thermal and electrical conductivity, low vapor pressure, large surface tension and responsiveness to electric and magnetic fields. Gallium and bismuth-based alloys are often highlighted as the most promising candidates due to their chemical…

The Artemis II crew has completed its lunar flyby and is embarking on its return trajectory to Earth after setting a new record for the farthest distance humans have ever traveled from our home planet, 252,760 miles.  Artemis II is the first crewed mission to the lunar vicinity in over 50 years, since Apollo 17…

NASA’s Artemis II mission is scheduled to launch this Wednesday evening from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The mission is a 10-day journey around the moon, marking the first launch towards the moon since 1972.  The crew includes three NASA astronauts: Reid Wiseman, Christina Koch and Victor Glover and one Canadian astronaut: Jeremy Hansen.…

Researchers from Beijing Normal University and East China Normal University have developed a new disaster detection framework called Single-temportal High-spatial resolution image Individual unsupervised change Detection (Shield). They published their research in the Journal of Remote Sensing. The system allows satellites to detect disaster-affected areas directly in orbit. By combining change detection and anomaly detection,…

NASA announced a series of agency-wide initiatives designed to achieve President Trump’s National Space Policy on Tuesday. The initiatives include building a Moon base, a plan for continuous American presence on the International Space Station, several science missions and a nuclear-powered interplanetary spacecraft.  “NASA is committed to achieving the near‑impossible once again, to return to…

NASA’s Perseverance rover’s ground-penetrating radar detected a magnesium-carbonate formation, evidence of an ancient river delta on Mars. Carbonates record past interactions between water and carbon dioxide in Mars’ atmosphere. The results of the radar observations were published in Science Advances.  Researchers said the rover revealed geological features up to 115 feet (35 meters) underground while…

Researchers have shown that potatoes can grow in moon dust-equivalent conditions in a preprint posted on bioRxiv. The researchers used recreated lunar regolith, the powdery dust layer on the moon’s surface, from NASA and Exolith Lab.  However, real lunar regolith is missing the organic matter plants need to grow, so the scientists added vermicompost, organic…

Astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) have revealed that comet 3I/ATLAS is packed with an unusually large amount of the organic molecule methanol.  “Observing 3I/ATLAS is like taking a fingerprint from another solar system,” shares Nathan Roth, lead author on this research, and a professor with American University, “The details reveal what it’s…

Astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile have created the largest image of the central region of the Milky Way ever produced by ALMA, revealing a complex network of filaments of cosmic gas. The data will allow astronomers to investigate the lives of stars in the most extreme region of the galaxy,…