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Space news: launches, missions, telescopes and discoveries, from NASA, ESA, SpaceX and the rest of the industry.
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NASA's Lucy spacecraft, launched in October 2021, is less than a year from its first encounter with the Trojan asteroids near Jupiter, having already made several notable discoveries during its journey, including a contact-binary moon and a peanut-shaped asteroid in the main belt.
WD J1330+6435, a white dwarf described as "the first green star", is the subject of NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day for 22 October 2026. Astronomers have found that trace elements drawn onto some white dwarfs can shift their normally white light into colours such as green, yellow, pink and purple.
The James Webb Space Telescope has discovered a surprising abundance of heavy metals in gas clouds surrounding Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the centre of the Milky Way. The finding, published in The Astronomical Journal, could help explain how metals forged in supernovae are distributed across galaxies and what that means for the black hole's slow feeding rate.
NASA conducted a hot fire test of RS-25 engine No. 10001 on October 21 at Stennis Space Center near Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, firing the developmental engine for nearly eight and a half minutes at up to 111% power, the thrust level required for new production engines on the Space Launch System.
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is celebrating its 90th anniversary, tracing its origins to a Halloween rocket test in 1936 by Caltech graduate students. Managed by Caltech for NASA, the lab is marking the milestone with a look at past achievements, first U.S. satellite, first planetary flybys, Mars rovers, and future missions including the SkyFall Mars helicopters, MoonFall lunar drones, and the asteroid-hunting NEO Surveyor.
NASA's Perseverance rover has broken the record for the farthest distance driven on another celestial body, with its odometer reaching 45.22 kilometers (28.10 miles) on October 11, 2026. The milestone, achieved during the mission's 2,006th Martian day (Sol), marks a significant step in autonomous exploration as the rover climbs the Jezero Crater rim.
NASA's Perseverance rover has shattered the record for the farthest distance traveled on another world, covering 45.22 kilometers (28.10 miles) since landing on Mars in 2021. The milestone, reached on October 11, surpasses the previous record of 45.16 kilometers set by the Opportunity rover over 15 years of exploration.
For decades, planetary scientists have puzzled over a thin, 1,800-kilometre-long cloud that appears every summer morning west of Mars’s Arsia Mons volcano. A new study published in Nature Geoscience proposes that the cloud forms through homogeneous nucleation, a process in which water vapour spontaneously freezes into ice without needing the dust particles that normally seed cloud formation. If confirmed, it would be the first known natural occurrence of a phenomenon long dismissed as a laboratory curiosity.
Astronomers have identified the first known green star, a white dwarf designated WD J1330+6435, as part of a new study revealing that white dwarf stars can glow in a range of unexpected colors including pink, purple, cyan, yellow and green.
NASA has announced Space Reactor 1 Freedom (SR-1), the first nuclear reactor powered interplanetary spacecraft, with an uncrewed mission to Mars slated for a late 2028 launch and a 2029 arrival. The project represents a significant commitment to nuclear electric propulsion, promising more efficient spaceflight and reduced radiation exposure for future astronauts.
Scientists have produced a global map of where ancient rains on Mars may have delivered formaldehyde, a key building block for life, billions of years ago. The map, led by researchers at the Institute of Science Tokyo, could help future robotic and crewed missions select landing sites where evidence of past microbial life might still be preserved.
SpaceX on Tuesday outlined a major pivot toward artificial intelligence infrastructure during its third quarter earnings call, with company officials detailing plans to provide up to 10 gigawatts of compute capacity by 2027. At the same time, CEO Elon Musk confirmed the company will attempt to catch both the Starship spacecraft and its Super Heavy booster for the first time next month, a milestone that would mark the first full recovery of an orbital launch system.
Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s (JAXA) Martian Moons eXploration (MMX) mission successfully launched from the Tanegashima Space Center on October 20, 2026, beginning a journey to Mars and its largest moon, Phobos, with arrival at Mars expected in August 2027. The mission aims to collect and return the first-ever samples from the Martian system, potentially settling a long-running debate over whether Phobos and Deimos are captured asteroids or remnants of a giant impact on Mars.
NASA announced progress on the Space Reactor-1 (SR-1) Freedom, the first fission-powered spacecraft designed to operate beyond Earth orbit. Key contract actions have been taken to advance the development of the nuclear power module, a critical element of the spacecraft's propulsion and power systems. The mission is scheduled for launch in late 2028, when SR-1 Freedom will deliver the SkyFall science payload, a trio of Mars helicopters evolved from the Ingenuity design, to collect scientific data, identify potential water sources, and demonstrate exploration zones.
New high-resolution simulations run on the Japanese supercomputer Fugaku suggest that magnetars, neutron stars with magnetic fields a thousand times stronger than average, can form directly from the merger of two low-mass neutron stars. The simulations show that within milliseconds of contact, turbulence in the neutron fluid amplifies the magnetic field by a factor of more than 300, creating conditions characteristic of a magnetar.
Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) have spotted what may be one of the most distant supernovas ever observed, an explosion that lit up when the universe was less than a tenth of its current age. The flash was seen as it appeared just days after the star died, more than 12.5 billion years ago.
The James Webb Space Telescope has unveiled a new image of the stellar nursery NGC 7129, revealing more than 130 stars in the early stages of formation. Located about 3,300 light-years from Earth in the constellation Cepheus, the region was previously opaque to visible-light telescopes, but Webb's infrared sensitivity exposes a dynamic environment of hot and cold gas, cavities, and bow shocks sculpted by young stars and their outflows.
Hewlett Packard Enterprise is sending its fourth Spaceborne Computer to the Moon later this year, aboard Astrolab's Flex Lunar Innovation Platform (FLIP) rover. The system will run AI and high-performance computing experiments near the lunar south pole, as part of NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services program.
NASA scientists have finally discovered why asteroid Bennu loses heat so rapidly despite being covered in massive boulders. Analysis of samples returned to Earth by the OSIRIS-REx mission reveals hidden networks of cracks within the rocks, solving a puzzle that has puzzled researchers since the spacecraft arrived in 2018.
A team led by astronomer Brittany Miles of the University of Arizona has confirmed that the coldest known brown dwarf, WISE 0855, hosts water ice clouds in its atmosphere. Using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), researchers settled a decade-long debate over the nature of the object's spectral signature, revealing a dynamic world with patchy clouds and deep churning gases.
Japan's Martian Moons eXploration (MMX) mission launched successfully early Monday, setting course for Phobos in an attempt to become the first spacecraft to return samples from a Martian moon. The uncrewed probe, carried by an H3 rocket from Tanegashima Space Center, is expected to reach Mars in August 2027.
Japan's Martian Moons Exploration (MMX) mission has passed its initial critical operations phase, JAXA announced Wednesday, confirming the spacecraft is locked onto its trajectory to Mars following a successful launch on October 19. The milestone marks the first steps in a five-year, round-trip journey to collect samples from Phobos, the larger of Mars's two moons, and return them to Earth in 2031.
The European Space Agency's Euclid space telescope, designed to map distant galaxies and probe dark energy, has discovered its first comet, a long-period object designated C/2026 S1 (Euclid), in an unexpected find during routine observations between September 16 and 24, 2026.
A Russian military satellite executed a series of deliberate maneuvers to come within extreme proximity of a U.S.-operated commercial Earth-imaging satellite that provides imagery to Ukraine, according to orbital tracking firm LeoLabs. The incident is the first known example of an unsanctioned rendezvous in low-Earth orbit, the company said.
Four volunteers have spent the past year living and working inside a 1,700-square-foot 3D-printed habitat at NASA's Johnson Space Center as part of the agency's simulated Mars mission. The crew, part of the Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog (CHAPEA) Mission 2, will exit the habitat on Oct. 31 after 378 days of isolation.
Astronomers at the University of Warwick have identified a white dwarf star that would appear genuinely green to the human eye, the first such star known. Using spectral data and a model of human color vision, they determined that WD J1330+6435, a cool white dwarf with a temperature around 4,000 degrees Celsius, has accreted sodium-rich rocky debris from its planetary system, giving it a chartreuse glow. The team also found a candidate for the reddest star ever documented and estimate that about one in every 30 white dwarfs across the Universe may display unexpected colors.
A Chinese rocket that launched from the Gobi Desert in September dropped debris over the American Midwest before a piece landed in a farmer's cornfield, according to experts who tracked the event. The Zhuque-2E booster, built by LandSpace, released 10 satellites then reignited its engine for a controlled deorbit that sent wreckage raining over Kansas, Minnesota, and Wisconsin.
A Japanese spacecraft has successfully launched on a mission to collect dust from the surface of Mars' moon Phobos and return it to Earth, in what would be a historic first for planetary science. The Mars Moons Exploration (MMX) mission lifted off from the Tanegashima Space Center at 0441 local time on 20 October, according to the Japanese Space Agency (JAXA). The spacecraft is scheduled to arrive at Phobos in August 2027 and return a sample capsule to the Woomera desert in South Australia in 2031.
Scientists have obtained the clearest images yet of Pa 30, the explosive aftermath of a supernova recorded by medieval astronomers nearly 850 years ago, and found that its firework-like filaments are not smooth streams but chains of tiny gas knots. The observations, led by the University of Warwick's Timothy Cunningham, were published in The Astrophysical Journal.
Astronomers have discovered a universal rule that appears to determine when black holes unleash powerful jets of material into space, regardless of whether they weigh 10 times the Sun or millions of times more. Published in Nature Astronomy, the finding emerged from studying how supermassive black holes tear stars apart, and it links their behaviour to the same feeding-cycle trigger already known in much smaller black holes.
White dwarf stars come in a far wider range of colours than their name suggests, including pink, green, cyan, purple and yellow, according to a new study published in the journal RAS Techniques and Instruments. The research has identified what scientists say is the first known green star and the reddest star ever found.
Scientists using the James Webb Space Telescope have uncovered a surprisingly organized weather system on a brown dwarf 20 light-years from Earth, according to a study published in Astronomy & Astrophysics. The findings suggest that the complex atmosphere of SIMP 0136 is governed largely by temperature changes and the vertical structure of its clouds.
Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope have discovered that the atmosphere of WASP-17b, a giant planet 1,300 light-years from Earth, is noticeably asymmetrical. The bulge on one side, detected using a technique called transmission strings, provides the first direct observational evidence that exoplanet atmospheres can have uneven shapes. The finding, published in Nature Astronomy, closely matches theoretical predictions and offers a three-dimensional view of an alien world's atmospheric structure.
NASA has announced that its Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is performing significantly better than anticipated, with engineers confirming that its main camera system is delivering image quality nearly 30% better than predicted. The achievement follows an extensive series of tests and precision adjustments to the telescope's Wide Field Instrument.
NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman has appointed Stephen Cash as the new director of the agency’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, effective October 19. Cash, a veteran NASA engineer and aerospace executive, returns to lead the center where he began his career more than 40 years ago.
California startup Reflect Orbital has purchased two launches from India's Skyroot Aerospace for its planned in-space mirror service, while Japan's Martian Moons Exploration (MMX) mission is set to launch as soon as Monday (US time) aboard an H3 rocket.
Blue Origin announced a significant expansion of its Florida launch facilities on Friday, adding two new launch pads, a manufacturing plant for up to 150 upper stages, and two more landing ships as part of plans to eventually launch 150 New Glenn rockets per year from Cape Canaveral.
Rocket Lab announced Wednesday that the first launch of its Neutron rocket will not occur until 2027, citing a problem discovered during manufacturing of the vehicle's carbon composite structures.
Over the past five years, NASA has augmented the International Space Station’s power supply with a new generation of Roll Out Solar Arrays, known as IROSAs, which unfurl autonomously after installation to provide additional electricity for the station’s systems and scientific experiments.
SpaceNews has released a new episode of its Space Minds podcast featuring an interview with NASA's Shatel Bhakta, principal systems engineer for Moon Base, who outlines the incremental development needed between now and 2028 to establish a permanent lunar outpost.
NASA has confirmed through additional engineering data analysis that the Orion spacecraft's heat shield performed as expected during Artemis II, the first crewed flight of the capsule, validating the reentry trajectory change introduced after char loss was observed on the uncrewed Artemis I mission.
A new study using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory has identified the likely cause of a striking radio wave formation nicknamed the 'Treble Clef': an outburst from a supermassive black hole followed by a collision of two galaxy clusters. The findings, led by Andrea Botteon of Italy's National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF), were published Oct. 14, 2026, in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.
NASA's first Venus missions in a generation are moving forward, with two spacecraft now on track for launch in the early 2030s after previously facing cancellation threats. The DAVINCI mission has been accelerated to a December 2030 launch, while the VERITAS orbiter is scheduled for November 2032, heralding a renewed era of Venus exploration that also includes European and private efforts.
NASA will hold a public briefing on Friday, Oct. 23, to provide an update on its accelerated timeline to return American astronauts to the lunar surface by 2028, as well as details on the upcoming Artemis III mission. The event is scheduled for 2 p.m. EDT at the agency's Kennedy Space Center in Florida and will stream online.
Les chercheurs de la NASA travaillent sur une nouvelle génération de batteries à l'état solide conçues pour résister aux températures extrêmes du pôle Sud lunaire, où la nuit thermique descend à -200 °C. Le projet, baptisé SPEARS (Solid Power for Extreme Environment Adaptability and Resilience in Space), doit fournir des accumulateurs fiables et sûrs pour les missions Artemis, des kits d'urgence aux rovers explorant les cratères les plus sombres.
NASA has released an image from the Perseverance rover's navigation camera marking a record drive on Mars, the space agency announced. The picture shows rover tracks pressing into the sandy, rocky terrain of a slope leading upward toward a distant ridge under a hazy sky.
NASA announced on Tuesday that astronaut and engineer Christina Koch will serve as the agency's acting deputy chief engineer beginning Sunday, Nov. 1, succeeding Katherine Van Hooser, who is retiring after more than 35 years with the agency.
A commercial lunar lander bound for the Moon later this year has passed a series of critical environmental tests at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, with the agency confirming the spacecraft is ready for the rigors of spaceflight as it prepares to support humanity's first lunar outpost.