Space

SpaceX flies Starship a 13th time - the one rocket built to do many different jobs →

Starship's 13th test flight deployed 20 next-generation Starlink satellites and tested the design NASA has picked to land astronauts on the Moon. It was a good day for a machine meant to do several unrelated jobs at once, and a reminder that one rocket now carries internet, a lunar landing, and a Mars ambition on the same development bill.

NASA bets $2 billion on a nuclear engine to beat the brutal math of reaching Mars →

A first-of-its-kind fission-powered Mars spacecraft, a 13th Starship test, and a fresh round for in-orbit refueling all chase the same problem this week - the exponential fuel penalty of going far.

NASA spells out its most complex flight yet — a two-week Moon rehearsal before boots land →

Artemis III has grown into a four-astronaut, three-spacecraft test of docking with two rival Moon landers. The complexity, and the cost, is the point.

It costs 96% less to reach orbit than in 1960 — and a new study says the fall is far from over →

A dataset of 4,405 launches finds the price of sending a kilogram to orbit dropped from $87,023 to $3,868, and could reach $300 by 2040 — if scale keeps compounding and no one corners the market.

The FCC sells off a slice of the airwaves — and rewrites the rules for who gets to fly in space →

A July 22 vote pushes satellite TV operators out of prime spectrum for a multibillion-dollar 5G auction, part of a sweeping licensing overhaul, as the space economy hits a record $686 billion and launches, funding rounds, and Mars science pile up.

A robot with two arms goes to work on aging satellites in orbit →

SpaceX launched Northrop Grumman's Mission Robotic Vehicle to refuel and extend the lives of three commercial satellites — the week's quiet turn from throwing satellites away to keeping them running. Plus Starship's rocket that would not start, and a probe that stole a boost from Mars.

The US military more than tripled its rocket-launch budget as space demand surges →

The Space Force raised one launch contract's ceiling from $5.6 billion to $17 billion and now keeps seven rocket companies competing for the work — even though SpaceX wins most of it.

Each Starlink satellite now swerves 40 times a year — and nobody has to count them →

Low Earth orbit is getting crowded fast, and the dodging that keeps it safe is invisible to regulators. Plus a Starship abort, a $17 billion launch contract, and a first attempt at spotting nuclear weapons in space.

NASA ends its far-side moon-lander deal as delays push the landing toward 2031 →

NASA and Draper mutually cancelled a $73 million contract to land science instruments on the moon's far side, after redesign after redesign pushed the target from 2025 to 2031 — and the agency is already spreading the same science across other landers.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.