Space

Saturday, 18 July 2026

India's first private rocket reaches for orbit — and cracks open a state monopoly →

A startup in Hyderabad launched India's first privately built orbital rocket today, joining a fast-growing commercial space push — while NASA quietly killed a delayed Moon lander and a record wave of money poured into orbit.

Friday, 17 July 2026

A rocky planet the size of a slightly bigger Earth just showed us its air →

For the first time, astronomers have detected an atmosphere on a rocky world in the zone where liquid water could exist — a small step toward answering whether we are alone, and a reminder of how much of the sky stays dark to us.

Thursday, 16 July 2026

SpaceX is set to fly its biggest rocket again today — for the 13th time, on purpose →

Starship Flight 13 aims for orbit this evening carrying real satellites, while China and Japan race to copy the reusable-rocket trick SpaceX pioneered.

Wednesday, 15 July 2026

A space mirror won approval — and the agency admitted the harm wasn't its to weigh →

US regulators cleared a satellite that beams sunlight down after dark, saying its effect on the night sky falls outside their authority. Meanwhile reusable rockets crossed new lines, a fresh crew reached the space station, and telescopes turned up long-hidden black holes.

Tuesday, 14 July 2026

A NASA astronaut rode a Russian rocket to orbit today — while the two countries barely speak on Earth →

Anil Menon launched to the space station on a Russian Soyuz this morning, a reminder that in orbit the US and Russia still keep each other alive — even as NASA drafts the rules for the private stations that will end the arrangement.

Monday, 13 July 2026

A Mars rover finds life's building block — and why scientists won't call it life →

Perseverance's organic carbon, Viking's 50th anniversary, and a new UFO panel all circle the same hard question — how do you prove you've found something? Plus China lands a rocket the hard way, and the Philippines aims for orbit.

Sunday, 12 July 2026

A planet outlived its dying star — and it's teaching us about Earth's own end →

Astronomers used the James Webb telescope to study the one known planet that survived a Sun-like star's death, while a separate study nudged up Earth's own odds of outlasting the Sun. Plus China joins the reusable-rocket club, a lost planet turns up in old data via an Einstein trick, and two more nations push toward orbit.

Saturday, 11 July 2026

The company that could pay for space itself decided to stop →

For 25 years Jeff Bezos funded Blue Origin out of his own pocket. This week it started raising outside money for the first time — $10 billion — as investor cash floods into space after SpaceX's record IPO.

Friday, 10 July 2026

NASA sent a robot to catch a falling telescope before it burns up →

The Swift observatory has been quietly sinking out of orbit for 20 years. This month a three-armed spacecraft launched to grab it and push it back up — the first rescue of its kind, and the opening act of an orbital repair industry.

Thursday, 9 July 2026

A satellite that runs without the sun clears its first real hurdle — the paperwork →

The first commercial nuclear-powered satellite reached orbit this week. The technology is decades old; what was new was a rule nobody had cleared before.

Wednesday, 8 July 2026

Two probes reached two asteroids the same weekend — and both rocks were two things stuck together →

While the US marked its 250th birthday, Japan's Hayabusa2 flew past a peanut-shaped asteroid and China's Tianwen-2 arrived at Earth's quasi-moon. Plus a nearby planet that might hold water, and Amazon's satellite internet nears launch.

Tuesday, 7 July 2026

Two private spacecraft played cat-and-mouse in orbit — for the Space Force →

On a mission called Victus Haze, one company's satellite hunted down, circled, and photographed another's while the military watched — a rehearsal for tracking an adversary in space, and the clearest sign yet that orbit is now a place where you can be approached.

Monday, 6 July 2026

A five-month-old startup just asked to put 100,000 data centers in orbit →

Companies are racing to file plans for enormous orbital data-center swarms — hundreds of thousands of satellites that don't exist yet. Plus a spacewalk arm repair, a nearby maybe-habitable planet, and China's push into very low orbit.

Sunday, 5 July 2026

The last of a legendary rocket flew — to build a network on rockets that aren't ready →

United Launch Alliance flew its final Atlas V 551, one of the most reliable rockets ever built, adding satellites to Amazon's internet constellation. The catch — the two newer rockets meant to finish the job are both grounded.

Saturday, 4 July 2026

A report on why Starliner failed points at the same word twice — overconfidence →

NASA's watchdog says the Boeing Starliner crisis that stranded two astronauts came from trusting a design too much and testing it too little — while the week's other space news kept moving.

Friday, 3 July 2026

Astronomers found a third galaxy with no dark matter — and that absence is the point →

A faint dwarf galaxy called DF9 appears to hold no dark matter at all, joining two neighbours that also lack it. Plus a repair spacewalk on the station's robotic arm, a new push for satellites that skim the edge of space, and a launch called off with one second left.

Thursday, 2 July 2026

A telescope in Chile just started a 10-year movie of the entire southern sky →

The Vera C. Rubin Observatory began the largest astronomical survey ever attempted, scanning the whole southern sky every few nights for a decade — while NASA weighs sending a spare Mars rover to the Moon and astronauts repair the space station's robotic arm.

Wednesday, 1 July 2026

NASA is sending a robot to grab a dying telescope it never built to be saved →

A $30 million rescue mission launches to tow the 21-year-old Swift telescope back to a safe orbit, because Swift was built without the thrusters to save itself. Plus $600M for four Moon landers, a plan for 100,000 data-center satellites, and a spacewalk to fix the station's robotic arm.

Tuesday, 30 June 2026

Rocket Lab is paying $8 billion to stop being a rocket company →

A launch company is buying a 2.5-million-customer satellite network — a bet that the real money in space is in selling services, not rides to orbit.

Monday, 29 June 2026

NASA spent $5.9 billion on moon hardware it is now throwing away →

An inspector general's audit found four canceled Artemis projects had more than doubled in cost and slipped years behind. Plus a six-galaxy pileup in the early universe, a new Starship breathes fire, and a Japanese probe lines up an asteroid flyby.

Sunday, 28 June 2026

The Sun could knock out the grid the AI boom is built on — and almost no one is planning for it →

A solar storm severe enough to damage the grid is overdue, and the data centers powering AI can't ride one out. Plus the loudest black-hole crash ever heard, Euclid's stunning Milky Way core, and a repair spacewalk that says a lot about a tired space station.

Saturday, 27 June 2026

Two planets the size of Jupiter, lighter than cotton candy →

Astronomers found a pair of 'super-puff' worlds 1,110 light-years away — Jupiter-sized but so faint in mass that Jupiter itself is up to 35 times denser. Plus a planet that brushes magnetic fields with its star, and a new tool to triage the search for life.

Friday, 26 June 2026

A rocket reached orbit 16 hours after the order — and that clock is the whole point →

Rocket Lab launched a US Space Force satellite less than 17 hours after getting the go-ahead, a new record for "responsive" space. Plus a six-galaxy pileup caught mid-merge, a comet older than the Sun, and the lightest gas planets ever found.

Thursday, 25 June 2026

A NASA rover found carbon on Mars that life can make — and so can lifeless rock →

Perseverance detected complex carbon in an ancient Martian riverbed. It is the strongest hint yet of past life — and still not proof, because the same molecules form without any life at all.

Wednesday, 24 June 2026

A quiet race begins to bring things back down from space →

For 70 years space was a one-way trip up. This week SpaceX flew its first "Starfall" return capsule and a Japanese startup raised $40 million — both betting that coming back down is the next big business.

Tuesday, 23 June 2026

A satellite mapped GPS jamming from orbit — and the interference is worse than expected →

An experimental spacecraft measured how badly GPS is being scrambled across Europe and the Middle East, revealing that even satellites high above the jammers are losing the signal.

Monday, 22 June 2026

NASA's next Mars orbiter won't be built by NASA — a private company will own it →

Relativity Space will build and fly the next Mars orbiter in 2028, with NASA contributing instruments and buying the data. It's a different model — and it lands the same week NASA retires MAVEN, its old fully-owned orbiter.

Sunday, 21 June 2026

A working space telescope is falling out of the sky — so NASA is sending a robot to catch it →

A $30 million rescue craft launches June 27 to grab a $500 million observatory that was never built to save itself. Plus a record European launch, a beloved Mars orbiter laid to rest, and a planet where it rains rubies.

Saturday, 20 June 2026

NASA shelves its $1.1 billion Moon-station module — and it may have nowhere else to go →

A pressurized habitat built for a lunar orbiting station has lost its purpose, and unlike its sister module, it can't be repurposed. Plus a record Ariane 6 launch and a new path for Mars science.

Friday, 19 June 2026

A small upgrade put a record load of Amazon satellites into orbit — while the flashy new rockets keep slipping →

Europe's Ariane 6 bolted bigger boosters onto a proven rocket and set a new cargo record, as Blue Origin and ULA's newer vehicles stall. Plus a Moon lander heads for testing, a planet where it rains gemstones, and a beloved Mars orbiter goes quiet.

Thursday, 18 June 2026

A Chinese rocket broke apart in orbit — and the debris it left can't be called back →

A spent upper stage shattered into roughly 100 to 150 fragments in a crowded part of low-Earth orbit, near the space station and Starlink. Plus a record European launch, a retired Mars orbiter, and a Chinese probe closing on an asteroid.

Wednesday, 17 June 2026

China's asteroid probe went quiet — so amateurs in Germany listened in and worked out what it was doing →

China's space agency has said nothing about Tianwen-2's final approach to a tiny asteroid. A 20-metre dish in Bochum, run by volunteers, read the spacecraft's signal anyway — and caught it firing its engine.

Tuesday, 16 June 2026

The solar system just got 100 new moons — and they rewrite a story we thought was finished →

A hidden swarm of tiny, dark moons is coming into view around the giant planets, and they hint the outer solar system is still being violently reshaped. Plus a "galaxy-killing" wind caught in the act, Japan's rocket back in flight, and the cracks on the space station finally sealed.

Monday, 15 June 2026

China is copying SpaceX's playbook — and finding out the playbook isn't the point →

SpaceX's record $75 billion IPO has set off a wave of Chinese space listings chasing the same goals. But the numbers, and the structure underneath them, show how far the copy still is from the original.

Sunday, 14 June 2026

SpaceX plans to fill orbit with AI data centers — and astronomers say the night sky is the bill →

SpaceX confirmed it will launch the first orbital AI computing satellites in 2027, part of a filing for up to a million spacecraft. Astronomers warn the swarm could brighten the night sky to half-moon glare — a cost they never agreed to pay.

Saturday, 13 June 2026

The space industry is booming — and the insurers who cover it are watching their best business disappear →

Operators are cancelling the giant satellites that bankroll space insurance and pivoting to cheap swarms that mostly aren't insured at all. The week's $75 billion SpaceX IPO is the same shift, seen from the winning side.