Editor’s Note: This post was updated April 21, 2026, to reflect mission funding by the U.S. National Science Foundation. NASA’s latest small satellite mission is now in orbit studying how natural and human-made radio waves travel from Earth’s surface into space, helping scientists better understand and predict changes in the near‑Earth space environment. The Climatology […]
On April 4, comet C/2026 A1 (MAPS) plunged toward the Sun — flying about twice as far from our star as the Moon is from Earth. Comet watchers held their collective breath, waiting to see whether comet MAPS would survive its sweltering passage by the Sun. The SOHO (Solar and Heliospheric Observatory) spacecraft — a joint NASA and ESA […]
NASA has given approval for the agency’s Rosalind Franklin Support and Augmentation (ROSA) project to begin implementation, underscoring the agency’s continued partnership with ESA’s (European Space Agency) Rosalind Franklin mission. The mission is led by ESA and that agency is responsible for providing the spacecraft, including the carrier module, the landing platform, as well as […]
The International Space Station is orbiting higher today after the Progress 93 resupply ship, docked to the Zvezda service module, fired its engines for just over five minutes Wednesday night. The orbital reboost places the space station at the correct altitude for the upcoming Progress 95 cargo mission scheduled to resupply the Expedition 74 crew at the end of April.
Following the conclusion of NASA’s Artemis II test flight, teams at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida are shifting focus to Artemis III, which is targeted to launch next year, by rolling the mobile launcher from Launch Complex 39B to NASA’s Kennedy Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) in Florida in preparation for rocket stacking operations. The mobile launcher began its approximately 4-mile trek on top of the agency’s crawler-transporter 2 at 8:11 a.m. EDT Thursday, […]
New science experiments are getting underway and new research hardware is being activated aboard the International Space Station after being delivered aboard the Cygnus XL cargo spacecraft on Monday. The Expedition 74 crew spent Wednesday unpacking Cygnus XL and stowing the new gear and supplies throughout the orbital outpost.
As NASA’s X-59 quiet supersonic jet takes to the air, its sleek configuration is now on display thanks to a key milestone it reached in April – flying wheels-up. The transition marks an important step in the aircraft’s testing. Experimental aircraft typically make their earliest test flights with the landing gear down, then begin retracting […]
Before a solar storm races across space and impacts technology on Earth, it starts with an explosive process on the Sun known as magnetic reconnection. Now, observations from NASA’s Parker Solar Probe have uncovered new details about how these types of magnetic events fling particles to dangerous speeds. On a 2022 solar flyby, Parker Solar […]
The hatches are open between Northrop Grumman’s second Cygnus XL cargo spacecraft and the International Space Station following its robotic capture and installation on Monday. The Expedition 74 crew is now beginning to unload some of the new science and crew supplies delivered on Monday.
Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus XL spacecraft has been installed to the Unity module’s Earth-facing port of the International Space Station. The mission is known as NASA’s Northrop Grumman Commercial Resupply Services 24, or Northrop Grumman CRS-24. Filled with more than 11,000 pounds of research and supplies, the Northrop Grumman Cygnus XL spacecraft, carried on a SpaceX Falcon […]
