NASA has extended recovery efforts of its Lunar Trailblazer spacecraft from mid-June to early July. Updated modeling of the spacecraft’s trajectory by the mission team indicates lighting conditions will continue to be favorable and may provide enough sunlight for the spacecraft’s solar panels to recharge its batteries to an operational state and turn on its […]
Successful Liftoff, Signal Acquired for NASA’s Arcstone Satellite
NASA’s Arcstone lunar calibration instrument lifted off aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 launch of the Transporter-14 rideshare mission from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California at 2:25 PDT on June 23, 2025. Blue Canyon Technologies, which operates the spacecraft, established the first contact with Arcstone, and testing and commissioning are ongoing. Continue to follow NASA’s […]
Ax-4 Meets Expedition 73 and Begins Space Research
11 residents are living and working aboard the International Space Station today following the docking of Axiom Mission 4 (Ax-4) at 6:31 a.m. EDT on Thursday. The seven Expedition 73 crew members welcomed the four Ax-4 astronauts and are now helping them get up to speed with orbital lab systems and prepare for two weeks of microgravity research.
Axiom Mission 4 Astronauts Enter Station, Begin Research Mission
At 8:14 a.m. EDT on Thursday, the hatch opened between the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft and the International Space Station following the arrival of Axiom Mission 4. NASA’s live coverage will continue through welcome remarks from the crew.
Axiom Mission 4 Astronauts Dock to Station Inside Dragon
At 6:31 a.m. EDT on Thursday, the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft docked to the International Space Station for the fourth private astronaut mission to the orbiting laboratory, Axiom Mission 4. NASA’s arrival coverage will continue through hatch opening and welcome remarks from the crew.
Axiom Mission 4 Mission Approaches Station for Docking on NASA+
NASA’s live coverage is underway on NASA+ for the arrival of the fourth private astronaut mission to the International Space Station, Axiom Mission 4.
Ax-4 Orbiting Toward Station as Expedition 73 Studies Pharma, Blood Pressure
The SpaceX Dragon spacecraft carrying four Axiom Mission 4 (Ax-4) crew members is orbiting Earth and on its way to the International Space Station after launching from Kennedy Space Center at 2:31 a.m. EDT on Wednesday. Dragon is carrying Ax-4 Commander Peggy Whitson, Pilot Shubhanshu Shukla, and Mission Specialists Sławosz Uznański-Wiśniewski and Tibor Kapu and will dock to the Harmony module’s space-facing port at 7 a.m. on Thursday with NASA+ coverage beginning at 5 a.m.
NASA’s IMAP Instruments Join Spacecraft
Technicians installed two instruments on NASA’s IMAP (Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe) spacecraft on at the Astrotech Space Operations facility near the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The work took multiple days and finished on Monday, June 23. Scheduled to launch this fall, IMAP’s 10 science instruments will monitor space weather and study and […]
Data from NASA’s ICESat-2 Goes Beyond the Surface
Researchers have developed a new way to measure near-shore bathymetry using satellite observations alone. Soon after NASA’s ICESat-2 satellite launched into orbit in 2018 on a mission to measure the heights of Earth’s ice, forests, and land cover, scientists examined the data and found something unexpected. As the laser instrument aboard the Ice, Cloud, land, […]
NASA’s RockOn Student Mission to Launch June 26–29 From Virginia
A sounding rocket carrying dozens of student and faculty experiments will launch from Wallops Island, Virginia, as part of NASA’s RockOn and RockSat-C student flight programs. The annual student mission, “RockOn,” is scheduled to launch from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility on a Terrier-Improved Orion sounding rocket. The launch window for the mission is 5:30–9:30 a.m. […]