Space

SpaceX's debut earnings show the real engine: sheer volume →

SpaceX's first public results and a satellite-factory boom point to one thing - in space, whoever builds the most of the same thing wins on cost.

SpaceX keeps its old crew ship alive while its new one is still learning to land →

SpaceX is stretching the life of its proven Crew Dragon fleet rather than commit to a Starship handover - a deliberate hedge while the new ship is still test-flying.

A startup wins the right to broadcast right next to GPS →

Xona gets cleared to slot a navigation signal beside GPS the same week a satellite-internet pioneer goes bankrupt - two edges of what it means to be first.

The sky is filling up, and no one owns it →

A satellite gold rush is crowding low-Earth orbit and the radio spectrum - shared spaces with no owner - as debris mounts and the fixes lag behind.

The Space Force's biggest launch order yet goes to the rocket it already trusts →

SpaceX won $1.6 billion to fly 18 Falcon 9 missions for the US military, while newer rivals wait - the proven rocket keeps winning the highest-stakes work.

A Moon lander that flew twice on SpaceX will switch to Japan's own rocket →

Japan's ispace signed with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries to launch its next lunar lander on the H3 rocket in 2028 - a lander built to ride more than one rocket. Around it, a busy week: a $1.6 billion military launch order, an ISS crew home after 241 days, and a NASA flagship telescope running months ahead of schedule.

Boeing's Starliner aims to fly again - the backup ride NASA can't afford to lose →

Two years after its only crewed flight failed, Boeing says its Starliner capsule is close to flying again - as a cargo test, not with crew. It is the second way to the space station that NASA deliberately paid for, and never gave up on.

A spacecraft borrows its way to Jupiter, and astronomers pick its next target →

Astronomers pinned down a tiny Jovian moon for Europe's JUICE probe to swing past in 2031 - a mission that reaches Jupiter not on its own fuel, but by stealing speed from planet after planet. Plus a new telescope fuels up, a crew comes home after 241 days, and the launch business keeps booking.

Amazon files to beam phone service from space, taking on Starlink in a market that tends to crown one winner →

Amazon asked US regulators for a 5,105-satellite network to reach phones directly, joining a race that has cost three companies about $36 billion in a single year just to get in.

NASA's science fleet faces its deepest cut in a generation as the staff drain begins to bite →

A watchdog report finds a fifth of NASA's workforce gone and 25 major projects already feeling it, while a budget plan would cancel nearly half the agency's science missions.

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.