Space Missions News

August 31, 2026

Top Headlines

NASA’s Roman Space Telescope Launches to Reveal the Universe’s Darkest Secrets

Aug. 31, 2026 NASA’s Roman Space Telescope has launched on a million mile journey to L2, where it will scan huge portions of the cosmos for clues about dark matter, dark energy, and distant worlds. With survey ...

NASA Just Used Satellites and Debris to Navigate Without GPS

Aug. 26, 2026 NASA has successfully tested a system that allows satellites to navigate without GPS by using other spacecraft and debris as landmarks in orbit. In just three days, FALCON also improved the known orbits of more than 200 space objects completely ...

A SpaceX Rocket Smashed Into the Moon — NASA Just Revealed the Crater

Aug. 20, 2026 A discarded SpaceX Falcon 9 stage crashed into the Moon on Aug. 5, leaving behind a newly formed crater about 60 feet wide. NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter captured detailed images showing bright and dark streaks of debris blasted across the ...

NASA’s Moon Base Is Taking Shape with 20+ Lunar Landings Planned

Aug. 11, 2026 NASA is assembling the foundations of a future Moon Base through a wave of robotic missions and powerful new commercial landers. More than 20 landings are planned through 2029, testing everything from precision landings and lunar communications to ...

Voyager 2 Was Running Out of Power. NASA Just Bought It More Time

Aug. 10, 2026 NASA engineers have found a clever way to squeeze more life out of Voyager 2, nearly half a century after it left Earth. In an operation nicknamed the “Big Bang,” the team simultaneously shut down certain power-hungry hardware and switched to ...

NASA’s Psyche Spacecraft Aces Mars Flyby Capturing Stunning Timelapse Video

July 28, 2026 NASA’s Psyche spacecraft aced its Mars flyby, using the planet’s gravity to speed toward its 2029 encounter with a metal-rich asteroid. The spacecraft tested its cameras, magnetometer, and ...

NASA Will Test SpaceX and Blue Origin Moon Landers Before the Next Lunar Landing

July 23, 2026 NASA is preparing for future astronaut landings on the Moon with an unusually ambitious orbital rehearsal. During Artemis III in 2027, Orion astronauts will rendezvous and dock separately with ...

China’s Chang’e-6 Reveals Why Solar Wind Hits the Moon’s Two Sides Differently

July 21, 2026 China’s Chang’e-6 samples have uncovered a surprising difference between the Moon’s two hemispheres. Solar wind particles penetrated deeper into the far-side soil because Earth’s ...

A Shattered Asteroid May Have Bombarded Earth 800 Million Years Ago

July 18, 2026 A catastrophic asteroid breakup may have triggered a huge wave of impacts across the inner solar system about 800 million years ago. The debris was launched from near a gravitational gateway controlled by Jupiter, sending fragments toward Earth, the ...

Terraforming Mars May Be More Realistic Than Scientists Once Thought

July 17, 2026 Scientists say new technologies have reopened the debate over whether Mars could someday be terraformed, turning a once impossible idea into a serious research topic. Before anyone tries to reshape the Red Planet, though, researchers say we must ...

NASA Selects 41 Space Technologies for Future Moon and Mars Exploration

July 15, 2026 NASA has chosen 41 commercial technology projects that could solve critical challenges for future missions to the Moon and Mars. From powering lunar outposts to protecting spacecraft from Moon dust, the innovations are designed to push both space ...

NASA's Perseverance Just Completed a Marathon on Mars

July 14, 2026 NASA's Perseverance rover has reached an impressive new milestone on Mars, completing the equivalent of a full marathon by driving 26.2 miles (42.195 kilometers) across the Red Planet. It accomplished the feat in just five years and four months, ...

Latest Headlines

updated 11:14am EDT

Scientists Discover a Massive Heat Anomaly Deep Inside Mars

Aug. 30, 2026 Mars has a hidden temperature divide, with its southern interior potentially hundreds of degrees hotter than the north and partially molten. The discovery could help explain several long-standing ...

One Asteroid Strike May Explain Two Mysteries of Mars’ Moon Deimos

Aug. 26, 2026 A single asteroid impact may explain two of Deimos’s most puzzling features: its huge southern depression and unusually smooth, dusty surface. Simulations suggest a roughly 320-meter asteroid ...

NASA Finds Earth Microbes Could Survive on the Moon

Aug. 25, 2026 NASA scientists found that microbes brought by astronauts could survive in cold, shadowed niches around the Moon’s South Pole, potentially complicating future searches for pristine lunar chemistry. ...

Neptune’s Tiny Moons May Be the Wreckage of Shattered Ancient Worlds

Aug. 14, 2026 JWST has uncovered surprising clues that Neptune’s strange inner moons may be the wreckage of an ancient cosmic catastrophe. Researchers detected clay-like minerals on Larissa, Galatea, and ...

A Massive New Cosmic Map Is Revealing Black Holes, Rare Stars, and Hidden Gas

Aug. 14, 2026 Astronomers have released more than three million new spectra in a sweeping expansion that, for the first time, brings SDSS-V optical observations to ...

NASA’s Perseverance Rover Watches Earth Vanish from the Surface of Mars

Aug. 13, 2026 NASA’s Perseverance rover caught a striking first from Mars: Earth disappearing behind the tiny moon Phobos. Seen from nearly 195 million miles away, our planet was reduced to a single point of ...

James Webb Captures a Cosmic Lion Sculpted by a Dying Star

Aug. 12, 2026 James Webb has captured a striking new infrared view of NGC 2392, the Lion Nebula, revealing the dramatic aftermath of a dying Sun-like star. At its center, a scorching white dwarf is blasting ...

The Sun Will Vanish Over Europe in a Rare Total Solar Eclipse: Watch Live

Aug. 10, 2026 A total solar eclipse will plunge parts of Europe into darkness on August 12, 2026, with Spain offering some of the best views. ESA will livestream the spectacle from the Javalambre Observatory, ...

Cassini Reveals a Surprising Twist in Saturn’s Magnetic Shield

Aug. 10, 2026 Cassini data has revealed a surprising twist in Saturn’s magnetic shield: the planet’s rapid rotation appears to drag a key opening in its magnetosphere far toward the afternoon side instead of ...

A Solar Eclipse and the Perseid Meteor Shower Arrive on the Same Day

Aug. 5, 2026 August brings four major celestial events, including a solar eclipse and the peak of the Perseid meteor shower. Dark New Moon skies could make the Perseids especially impressive, while Venus will ...

Moonquakes Could Reveal Hidden Water Beneath the Lunar Surface

Aug. 3, 2026 Hidden moon ice may reveal itself through the way it bends and reflects vibrations from moonquakes. The technique could help astronauts locate vital water supplies and uncover clues about the origins ...

Giant Waves Are Sweeping Mars’ Atmosphere Into Space

Aug. 3, 2026 The solar wind may be stripping away Mars’ atmosphere by creating giant rolling waves along its outer edge. Data from MAVEN and Tianwen-1 show that these waves form plasma clouds that carry ...

After 241 Days in Orbit This NASA Astronaut Is Finally Home

July 27, 2026 NASA astronaut Chris Williams and two Roscosmos cosmonauts are back on Earth after spending 241 days aboard the International Space Station. Their journey covered more than 102 million miles and ...

Venus May Be Tearing Itself Apart from Within

July 24, 2026 Scientists have uncovered new evidence that Venus may still be tearing itself apart from within. Advanced 3D simulations indicate that some of the planet's giant rift valleys formed relatively ...

The Search for Life on Jupiter's Icy Moon Europa Just Got More Complicated

July 29, 2026 Europa’s hidden ocean has made the icy moon one of the solar system’s most promising places to search for habitable conditions. Scientists have hoped that water from this deep ocean might rise ...

NASA Selects Four New Moon Missions to Build a Permanent Lunar Base

July 14, 2026 NASA is ramping up its lunar ambitions by awarding nearly $600 million for four commercial Moon landings planned for late 2028. Each mission will carry the same trio of science instruments to improve ...

Scientists Want to Quarantine Alien Life on the Moon Before It Reaches Earth

July 6, 2026 Scientists are calling for a lunar quarantine facility where samples from Mars, the Moon, and beyond would be examined before being brought to Earth. They warn that even a tiny alien microorganism ...

NASA’s Lucy Finds a Wobbling Peanut-Shaped Asteroid With Signs of Ancient Water

June 25, 2026 NASA’s Lucy spacecraft discovered that asteroid Donaldjohanson is a wobbling, peanut-shaped relic born from a violent collision and slowly reshaped by the subtle force of sunlight. It also carries ...

NASA’s Cold Atom Lab Is Creating One of the Weirdest Forms of Matter in Space

June 23, 2026 NASA’s upgraded Cold Atom Lab is turning the International Space Station into a frontier for quantum research, creating ultra-cold matter that behaves in astonishing ways. The experiments could ...

Future Astronauts Could Walk Across Rocks from Deep Inside the Moon

June 22, 2026 A colossal ancient collision may have left some of the Moon’s deepest secrets surprisingly close to future Artemis landing sites. By recreating the impact that formed the giant South Pole-Aitken ...

James Webb Reveals Two Completely Different Twilights on an Alien World

June 11, 2026 JWST has revealed dramatic differences between the dawn and dusk regions of the scorching exoplanet WASP-121 b. Fierce winds appear to carry heat from the planet’s permanent dayside, making the ...

NASA Reveals Artemis III Crew for One of the Most Complex Space Missions Ever

June 11, 2026 NASA has selected the Artemis III crew for a high-stakes 2027 mission designed to test the future of lunar exploration. Astronauts will launch aboard Orion and perform unprecedented docking ...

Tiny X-Ray Telescope Could Unlock the Moon's Hidden Chemistry

June 6, 2026 A lightweight new X-ray telescope could finally give scientists something they’ve never had before: a complete chemical map of the Moon. Researchers used detailed mission simulations to show that a ...

NASA Updates Worsening ISS Leak After Crew Safety Alert

June 8, 2026 NASA says a long-running air leak aboard the ISS recently worsened, leading engineers to investigate new suspected crack locations and consider a riskier repair strategy. Astronauts were temporarily ...

Earth May Have Been Seeding Venus With Life for Billions of Years

June 25, 2026 A new study suggests Earth may have been sending tiny hitchhikers to Venus for billions of years. Researchers found that asteroid impacts could launch microbes into space, where some might survive ...

MIT’s New Spacecraft Engine Could Send Tiny Satellites to Mars

June 10, 2026 MIT researchers have shown that one fuel can power both chemical and electric spacecraft thrusters, potentially transforming what small satellites can do. The approach combines quick bursts of speed ...

NASA Just Proved Spacecraft Can Switch Between Multiple Satellite Networks

June 6, 2026 NASA’s PExT terminal has shown that spacecraft can seamlessly communicate through multiple government and commercial networks, a major step beyond traditional single-network systems. The mission is ...

Venus Will Disappear Behind the Moon in a Rare June Sky Event

June 3, 2026 June's night sky delivers several must-see events, starting with a close encounter between Venus and Jupiter after sunset. Mercury joins the pair to form a rare three-planet lineup, while the ...

NASA’s Psyche Spacecraft Captures Stunning Mars Images During High-Speed Flyby

May 23, 2026 NASA’s Psyche spacecraft skimmed past Mars in a precision flyby that helped catapult it deeper into space toward its ultimate target: the bizarre metal-rich asteroid Psyche. During the encounter, ...

NASA’s Psyche Spacecraft Uses Mars as a Giant Slingshot Toward a Mysterious Metal World

May 26, 2026 NASA’s Psyche spacecraft just used Mars as a giant gravitational slingshot to continue its journey toward a strange metal rich asteroid. The close flyby boosted the spacecraft’s speed by about ...