NASA on Monday introduced 10 new astronauts, four men and six women selected from more than 8,000 applicants, to begin training for future flights to the International Space Station, the moon and, eventually, Mars.
“One of these 10 could actually be one of the first Americans to put their boots on the Mars surface, which is very, very cool,” Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy, and NASA’s acting administrator, said in welcoming remarks.
“No pressure, NASA, we have some work to do,” he said.
NASA’s 2025 astronaut class (left to right): Ben Bailey, Rebecca Lawler, Cameron Jones, Anna Menon, Katherine Spies, Lauren Edgar, Adam Fuhrmann, Erin Overcash, Imelda Muller and Yuri Kubo.
Josh Valcarcel – NASA – JSC
Meet the astronauts
This is NASA’s first astronaut class with more women than men. It includes six pilots with experience in high-performance aircraft, a biomedical engineer, an anesthesiologist, a geologist and a former SpaceX launch director.
Among the new astronaut candidates is 35-year-old Anna Menon, a mother of two who flew to orbit in 2024 aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon as a private astronaut on a commercial, non-NASA flight.
“I am so thrilled to be back here with the NASA family,” Menon said. “As more and more people venture into space … we have this awesome opportunity to learn a tremendous amount to help support those astronauts … and help keep them healthy and safe. So it’s an exciting time to be here.”
Menon worked for NASA for seven years as a biomedical researcher and flight controller before joining SpaceX in 2018. She served as a senior engineer and was later selected as the onboard medical officer during the commercial Polaris Dawn mission, chartered by billionaire Jared Isaacman.
NASA astronaut candidate Anna Menon, veteran of a commercial flight to low-Earth orbit in 2024 aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon.
Josh Valcarcel – NASA – JSC
She married her husband Anil in 2016 while both were working for NASA. A former Air Force flight surgeon, Anil Menon joined SpaceX as its first medical officer in 2018. He joined NASA’s astronaut corps in 2021 and is now assigned to a long-duration space station crew scheduled for launch aboard a Russian Soyuz next summer.
Anna and Anil Menon are among several couples who served in the astronaut corps at the same time. But only one couple ever flew in orbit together — shuttle astronauts Mark Lee and Jan Davis in 1992.
The other members of the 2025 astronaut class are:
Army Chief Warrant Officer 3 Ben Bailey, 38, a graduate of the Naval Test Pilot School with more than 2,000 hours flying more than 30 different aircraft, including recent work with UH-60 Black Hawk and CH-47F Chinook helicopters.
Lauren Edgar, 40, who holds a Ph.D. in geology from the Caltech, with experience supporting NASA’s Mars exploration rovers and, more recently, serving as a deputy principal investigator with NASA’s Artemis 3 moon landing mission.
Air Force Maj. Adam Fuhrmann, 35, an Air Force Test Pilot School graduate with more than 2,100 hours flying F-16 and F-35 jets. He holds a master’s degree in flight test engineering.
Air Force Maj. Cameron Jones, 35, another graduate of Air Force Test Pilot School as well as the Air Force Weapons School with more than 1,600 hours flying high performance aircraft, spending most of his time flying the F-22 Raptor.
Yuri Kubo, 40, a former SpaceX launch director with a master’s in electrical and computer engineering who also competed in ultimate frisbee contests.
Rebecca Lawler, 38, a former Navy P-3 Orion pilot and experimental test pilot with more than 2,800 hours of flight time, including stints flying a NOAA hurricane hunter aircraft. She was a Naval Academy graduate and was a test pilot for United Airlines at the time of her selection.
Imelda Muller, 34, a former undersea medical officer for the Navy with a medical degree from the University of Vermont College of Medicine; she was completing her residency in anesthesia at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore at the time of her astronaut selection.
Navy Lt. Cmdr. Erin Overcash, 34, a Naval Test Pilot School graduate and an experienced F/A-18 and F/A-18F Super Hornet pilot with 249 aircraft carrier landings. She also trained with the USA Rugby Women’s National Team.
Katherine Spies, 43, a former Marine Corps AH-1 attack helicopter pilot and a graduate of the Naval Test Pilot School with more than 2,000 hours flying time. She was director of flight test engineering for Gulfstream Aerospace Corp. at the time of her astronaut selection.
The new astronaut candidates will spend two years training at the Johnson Space Center and around the world with partner space agencies before becoming eligible for flight assignments.
The International Space Station as photographed by a visiting space shuttle crew in 2010.
NASA
Astronauts join space race in uncertain times
The new astronauts are joining NASA‘s ranks at a time of great uncertainty given the Trump administration’s budget cuts, plans to retire the ISS at the end of the decade and challenges faced by the agency’s Artemis moon program.
Under the Trump administration’s planned budget cuts, future NASA crew rotation flights have been extended from six months to eight, reducing the total number of flights through the end of the program. In addition, crew sizes are expected to be reduced.
It’s not clear how many of the new astronauts might be able to fly to the ISS before it’s retired or how many might eventually walk on the moon. Whether NASA can get there before the Chinese, who are targeting the end of the decade for their own moon landing mission, is also uncertain.
An artist’s impression of a SpaceX lander on the surface of the moon.
SpaceX/NASA
But Duffy assured the new astronaut candidates that NASA will, in fact, beat China back to the moon.
“Some are challenging our leadership in space, say, like the Chinese,” he said. “And I’ll just tell you this: I’ll be damned if the Chinese beat NASA or beat America back to the moon. We are going to win … the second space race back to the moon, with all of you participating in that great effort.”
As for flights to Mars, which the Trump administration supports, flights are not yet on the drawing board and most experts say no such NASA mission is likely to launch within the next decade and probably longer.
Bill Harwood has been covering the U.S. space program full-time since 1984, first as Cape Canaveral bureau chief for United Press International and now as a consultant for CBS News.
NASA aims to return astronauts to the Moon by mid-2027—a feat that would fulfill a decade of preparation. The agency may have to extend that timeline even further, however, as slow progress on SpaceX’s lunar lander threatens to delay the Artemis 3 mission.
During a public meeting on Friday, members of the Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel warned that the Human Landing System (HLS) version of Starship could be “years late,” SpaceNews reports. The panel reached that conclusion following a visit last month to SpaceX’s Starbase facility in Texas.
“The HLS schedule is significantly challenged and, in our estimation, could be years late for a 2027 Artemis 3 Moon landing,” said panelist Paul Hill, former director of Mission Operations at NASA.
Another Artemis delay—so what?
Putting American boots back on the Moon is a top priority for NASA. With a new space race underway, global powers including the U.S., China, and Russia are vying for a first-mover advantage.
Whoever reaches the lunar surface first will be able to set certain ground rules about who can do what and where. This would not only reinforce that country’s influence on the Moon and in space but also give it strategic leverage as military operations increasingly depend on space-based assets.
“This is a pivotal moment for our nation’s space program,” said Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) during a hearing on legislative priorities for NASA earlier this month. He went on to emphasize that space has become a “strategic frontier with direct consequences for national security, economic growth, and technological leadership.”
How did we get here?
In 2021, NASA contracted Elon Musk’s SpaceX to build a version of Starship capable of landing astronauts on the Moon. At that time, the agency aimed to accomplish a landing by 2024, but that target date has been pushed back in recent years.
One major issue is demonstrating the cryogenic propellant transfer needed to refuel Starship in low-Earth orbit before the rocket heads to the Moon, Hill said during the Friday meeting. Developmental delays for Starship 3—the first iteration capable of in-orbit fuel transfers—have slowed progress toward this goal.
Hill also pointed to potentially competing priorities for SpaceX between Starlink and Starship HLS, SpacePolicyOnline.com reports. Starship 3 will be integral in launching the third generation of Starlink satellites while simultaneously creating the on-orbit fuel depots and lunar lander for Artemis 3.
“The next six months of Starship launches will be telling about the likelihood of HLS flying crew in 2027 or by the end of the decade,” Hill said.
Despite these concerns, the panelists emphasized that SpaceX is still the only launch provider for the job. “There is no competitor, whether government or industry, that has this full combination of factors that yield this high a manufacturing and flight tempo, with their direct effects on reliability increases and cost reduction,” Hill said.
The downside to relying on SpaceX, however, is clear: Without a launch-ready Starship HLS by 2027, Artemis 3 won’t get off the ground on time.
Back in 2023, NASA selected Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin to provide a second lunar lander, dubbed Blue Ghost, to be used during the Artemis 5 mission later this decade. The contract is worth $3.4 billion and includes a development team consisting of Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Draper, Astrobotic, and Honeybee Robotics.
NASA is apparently giving its ice-scouting moon rover mission another try. The space agency has announced that the Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover (VIPER) project — which was called off last year after a series of delays and mounting costs — could catch a ride to the moon with Blue Origin in 2027 under the Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program. Blue Origin must first plan and demonstrate how the delivery at the lunar surface would work, and if it’s all to NASA’s liking, VIPER will be ferried by the company’s Blue Moon Mark 1 lander.
Blue Origin hasn’t yet attempted a moon landing, but the first opportunity for its Blue Moon Mark 1 lander is expected to launch later this year as part of another CLPS delivery. That mission will also help to inform NASA’s decision about VIPER’s rideshare, which would use a second Mark 1 lander that the agency says is already in production. If VIPER does eventually make it to the moon, it’ll be deployed in the extreme environment of the lunar South Pole to search for water ice and other resources that could support future missions.
“This delivery could show us where ice is most likely to be found and easiest to access, as a future resource for humans,” said Joel Kearns, Deputy Associate Administrator for Exploration with NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, in a statement. “And by studying these sources of lunar water, we also gain valuable insight into the distribution and origin of volatiles across the solar system, helping us better understand the processes that have shaped our space environment and how our inner solar system has evolved.”
Those are pretty slim odds, but on the off chance 2024 YR4 does end up on a collision course with the Moon, the scientific community needs to be prepared. Astronomers have found evidence to suggest that a lunar impact could eject an enormous amount of micrometeoroid debris into low-Earth orbit, potentially endangering spacecraft and astronauts aboard the International Space Station.
A new study by researchers from NASA and several other U.S. institutions lays out our options for avoiding this worst-case scenario. In the paper—submitted to the Journal of the Astronautical Sciences for peer review and made available on the preprint server arXiv—the authors assess multiple strategies for deflecting or destroying the asteroid before it can slam into the lunar surface. Their conclusion? It looks like blowing it up would be our best bet.
Why we shouldn’t deflect asteroid 2024 YR4
Detonation is not typically the preferred strategy. Deflecting 2024 YR4 would ensure that no part of it could impact the Moon or Earth, whereas detonating it could turn one large, predictable threat into numerous smaller, unpredictable ones. All this said, for deflection to work, it has to be done perfectly—and that’s not a simple task given how little we know about the asteroid and the short amount of time afforded to us.
To do this accurately, astronomers need to know how much 2024 YR4 weighs to calculate the amount of energy required to alter its trajectory. This is difficult to estimate with any degree of certainty. The James Webb Space Telescope measured the asteroid’s diameter in March, finding it to be about 197 feet (60 meters) wide. But to calculate its mass, astronomers also need to know its density, and they don’t currently have a clear understanding of 2024 YR4’s composition.
According to the researchers, the asteroid’s mass could range from 74 million pounds (33 million kilograms) to over 2 billion pounds (930 million kilograms). This equates to an enormous amount of uncertainty around how much energy it would take to nudge 2024 YR4 off course. Getting this wrong could have serious consequences—potentially deflecting the asteroid toward Earth instead.
NASA could launch a reconnaissance mission to refine estimations of 2024 YR4’s mass, but the best time to do so would be 2028. That only gives the agency three years to develop the mission—an unprecedentedly tight timeframe. As such, the researchers concluded that deflection missions are impractical for preventing a lunar impact.
The case for destruction
In light of these challenges, destroying the asteroid appears to be the more viable option, according to the researchers. They outline a couple different ways NASA could go about this.
The first is a robust kinetic disruption mission. This would be similar to NASA’s DART mission, but instead of nudging the asteroid off course, the spacecraft would aim to break it apart. Unlike the DART-style impact, kinetic disruption has never been tested before. However, NASA would have a reasonable amount of time to develop this mission, as the next available launch window is between April 2030 and April 2032, according to the researchers.
Alternatively, NASA could just nuke it. Yes, really. This would involve detonating a nuclear device on, near, or beneath the surface of 2024 YR4 to break it into pieces. This hasn’t been tested before either, but it’s theoretically possible. The researchers state that the next available launch window for such a mission would be between late 2029 and late 2031.
We still have seven years before 2024 YR4 makes its close approach, and it will most likely pass safely by the Moon. Even so, this asteroid offers scientists a rare opportunity to test and refine strategies for preventing impacts on Earth and its natural satellite, ensuring we’re prepared to protect our home if the need arises.
WASHINGTON — Early in his first term, President Trump held a modest ceremony directing NASA to return humans to the moon for the first time in 50 years. It was a goalpost set without a road map. Veterans of the space community reflected on the 2017 document, conspicuously silent on budgets and timelines, equivocating between excitement and concern.
Was Trump setting up a giveaway to special interests in the aerospace community? Or was he setting forth a real strategic vision for the coming decade, to secure American leadership in the heavens?
Share via
It was a return to a plan first proposed by President George W. Bush in 2004, then abandoned by President Obama in 2010, asserting the moon as a vital part of American ambitions in space. Whether to return to the lunar surface at all — or skip it to focus on Mars — was a long-standing debate governing the division of resources at NASA, where every project is precious, holding extraordinary promise for the knowledge of mankind, yet requiring consistent, high-dollar funding commitments from a capricious Congress.
Eight years on, the debate is over. Trump’s policy shift has blazed a new American trail in space — and spawned an urgent race with China that is fast approaching the finish line.
Both nations are in a sprint toward manned missions to the lunar surface by the end of this decade, with sights on 2029 as a common deadline — marking the end of Trump’s presidency and, in China, the 80th anniversary of the People’s Republic.
A “What Will 2030 Look Like?” sign behind Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, who chairs the Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee, during a confirmation hearing in April.
(Kent Nishimura/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
It is a far different race from the original, against the Soviet Union, when U.S. astronauts inspired the world with a televised landing in 1969. This time, Washington would not just plant a flag and return its astronauts home. Instead, the Americans plan to stay, establishing a lunar base that would test humanity’s ability to live beyond Earth.
China has similar plans. And with both countries aiming for the same strategic area of the surface — the south pole of the moon, where peaks of eternal light shine alongside crevices of permanent darkness, believed to store frozen water — the stakes of the race are grounded in national security. Whichever nation establishes a presence there first could lay claim to the region for themselves.
The world’s first full-scale model of the crewed pressurized lunar rover, to be used in the Artemis moon exploration program, is displayed during a press preview in July.
(Kazuhiro Nogi/AFP via Getty Images)
Advocates of the U.S. effort, called the Artemis program, increasingly fear that delays at NASA and its private sector partners, coupled with proposed funding cuts to NASA from the Trump administration, could ensure China’s victory in a race with broad consequences for U.S. interests.
So it is a race that Trump started. The question is whether he can finish it.
While U.S. intelligence officials have assessed that Beijing is on track to meet its goals, NASA veterans say that accomplishing a manned mission before the Chinese appears increasingly out of reach.
“It’s a stretch,” said G. Scott Hubbard, a leader in human space exploration for the last half-century who served as NASA’s first “Mars czar” and former director of the Ames Research Center in Mountain View, Calif. “Bottom line, yes, it is doable. It’ll take an intense effort by the best engineers, and appropriate funding.
“It’s not inconceivable,” he added.
Visitors take photos of a space suit during an event marking China’s Space Day at the Harbin Institute of Technology in Harbin, capital of northeast China’s Heilongjiang province.
(Wang Jianwei/Xinhua via Getty Images)
The White House said Trump is committed to making “American leadership in space great again,” noting his first-term push to return U.S. astronauts to the moon and his efforts to deregulate the U.S. space industry. But officials declined to comment on a timeline for the mission or on China’s steady progress.
“Being first and beating China to the moon matters because it sets the rules of the road,” Sean Duffy, Transportation secretary and acting NASA administrator, told The Times. “We’re committed to doing this right — safely, peacefully, and ahead of strategic competitors — because American leadership on the moon secures our future in space.”
The success of the Artemis program, Duffy said, is about ensuring the United States leads in space for generations to come. “Those who lead in space lead on Earth,” he added.
NASA officials, granted anonymity to speak candidly, expressed concern that while leadership on the Artemis program has remained relatively stable, talent on robotics and in other key areas has left the agency at a critical time in the race, with potentially less than two years to go before China launches its first robotic mission to the south pole — a scout, of sorts, for a manned landing to follow.
A proposal to cut NASA research funding by roughly 47% has gripped officials there with doubt, jeopardizing a sense of job security at the agency and destabilizing a talent pipeline that could prove critical to success.
In the 1960s, the federal government increased spending on NASA to 4.4% of GDP to secure victory in the first space race.
“There’s too much uncertainty,” one NASA official said, raising the specter of the Trump administration impounding funds for the agency even if Congress continues to fund it.
Inside NASA headquarters, Hubbard said, “the feeling right now is terrified uncertainty — everyone is walking on eggshells.”
“They’re treading water,” he added. “People want to be given clear direction, and they’re not getting it.”
A Chinese Smart Dragon-3 rocket carrying satellites lifts off from sea on Sept. 9.
(VCG/VCG via Getty Images)
China’s long march gets closer
Beijing conducted a series of tests over the last several weeks viewed in Washington as crucial milestones for China on its journey to the moon.
A launch of its Lanyue lander, equipped to carry two taikonauts to the lunar surface, “validated” its landing and takeoff system, state media reported. Two subsequent tests of China’s Long March 10, a super-heavy lift rocket designed to jump-start the mission, were a “complete success,” according to the China Manned Space Agency.
Unlike in the United States, China’s manned space flight program is housed within its military.
“We have seen them steadily progress on all of the various pieces that they are going to need,” said Dean Cheng, senior advisor to the China program at the U.S. Institute of Peace.
“You need a vehicle to launch, because current rockets simply don’t have enough throw-weight. They’re testing the lander to carry astronauts to the surface,” Cheng said. “These are key pieces, and significant advances — this is a brand new rocket and a lunar lander with new technology.”
China initially set a goal for its manned mission by 2035, but has since moved up its plans, an expression of confidence from Beijing and an unusual break from typical party protocol. Now, China aims not only to have completed that mission, but to begin establishing an International Lunar Research Station on its surface, in conjunction with Russia, by 2030.
They are expected to target the south pole.
“There’s room for two powers under schemes of coordination, but there’s not room in an uncoordinated environment. There can easily be a competition for resources,” said Thomas González Roberts, an assistant professor of international affairs and aerospace engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology.
Landing and takeoff of spacecraft on the moon will kick up lunar dust and rocks, risking the safety of astronauts on the ground and sensitive equipment across a base site — considerations that are likely driving Beijing’s strategy to get there first. Those enjoying the benefits of first arrival could set up generous routes for rovers, equipment at dig sites for deposits, telecommunication assets, and even a nuclear reactor to assert a large area of domain.
Since his first term, Trump and his aides have sought to avoid a showdown on the lunar surface, drafting a new set of international rules to govern an otherwise untamed frontier. The Artemis Accords “set out a practical set of principles to guide space exploration,” according to the State Department. President Biden embraced and extended the initiative, growing the list of signatories to 56 nations.
But China is not one of them, prohibited by Congress during the Obama era from cooperating with the United States in space after attempting to steal U.S. technology on intercontinental ballistic missiles and thermonuclear weapons. Instead, Beijing has recruited a small list of countries to join its lunar base program, including Russia, Venezuela, Pakistan, Egypt, Nicaragua, Belarus and South Africa.
“I don’t think there will be extreme congestion on the moon, but if you really define an area of interest — and there is that, with these peaks of eternal light next to permanently shadowed regions — you could manufacture congestion,” Roberts added.
“How do you benefit from obfuscation?” he asked. “If you’re the first arrival, you spread yourself out.”
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifts off from launch pad 40 at Cape Canaveral, carrying Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus XL cargo spacecraft toward the International Space Station.
(Manuel Mazzanti/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
The promise and burden of Musk’s Starship
Last month, Duffy warned NASA staff that the Trump administration suspects Beijing is planning to deliver a nuclear reactor to power a long-term presence at its lunar base by 2029.
The move, Duffy said, could allow China to “declare a keep-out zone, which would significantly inhibit the United States from establishing a planned Artemis presence if not there first.” He ordered the agency to collect proposals by October on delivering a U.S. reactor to the surface no later than that year.
The administration’s success relies on a man whose relationship with Trump has crashed spectacularly to Earth.
Starship, a super heavy-lift launch vehicle produced by Elon Musk’s SpaceX, is the rocket Trump is relying on to accomplish the Artemis mission. Yet repeated setbacks in the Starship program have raised alarm at NASA over its fundamental constitution. A concerning series of tests have already delayed the U.S. manned launch, known as Artemis III, toward the end of Trump’s term.
Last month, in its 10th test flight, the rocket finally succeeded in a suborbital mission. But “Starship has yet to reach orbit,” Hubbard said, “and once it reaches orbit, they’ve got to demonstrate microgravity transfer of cryogenic propellant.”
“That’s something that’s never been done before,” he added. “So to say that they’ll be ready to do all of that in two years is a real stretch.”
Setbacks are common course in the history of the U.S. space program. But the success of China’s recent tests has shown the Trump administration that NASA and its partners have run out of time for further delays.
Duffy said that Artemis II, a manned mission to orbit the moon, will take place early next year, overcoming a separate set of design flaws that faced Lockheed Martin’s Orion spacecraft. Artemis III would keep astronauts on the surface for more than a week and deliver payloads to help begin the foundation of a base.
Whether the Trump administration will commit to the funding and leadership necessary for the mission is an open question. The White House declined to say who within the West Wing is leading the effort. Trump has not named a permanent NASA administrator for Senate confirmation.
Success on the moon is meant to provide a testing ground and a launching pad for more ambitious, challenging manned missions to Mars. But Trump’s commitment to those ventures are equally in doubt. The administration has proposed canceling funds for a landmark program decades in the making to return samples from the red planet, despite a NASA announcement last week revealed it had discovered signs of ancient Martian life.
“I’ve been on the inside of it — you waste enormous amounts of time just trying to find workarounds to get funding in to stay on schedule,” Hubbard said. “If you really, really want to beat the Chinese, give NASA the funding and some stability — because you’re not going to beat them if every day, week or month, there’s a different direction, a different budget, a different administrator.
“And China may still win,” he said, adding: “It would be another claim that they’re the dominant power in the world.”
Running a day late because of software issues, Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus XL cargo ship caught up with the International Space Station early Thursday and then stood by while the lab’s robot arm latched on to a grapple fixture to wrap up a successful, if extended, rendezvous.
The capture came after Northrop Grumman engineers adjusted the sensitivity of the main engine fault detection software that prematurely triggered shutdowns during two rendezvous thruster firings Tuesday.
Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus XL cargo ship is seen on final approach to the International Space Station early Thursday.
NASA
As it turned out, the main engine was healthy all along and once the software was adjusted, the spacecraft was able to press ahead with the rendezvous, pulling up to a point just below the station so robot arm operator Jonny Kim, assisted by Zena Cardman, could capture the ship.
“A big congratulations to the NASA and Cygnus teams for a successful Cygnus launch, rendezvous and capture,” Kim radioed mission control. “Adapting and overcoming unforeseen challenges is something we do at NASA, and I’m very proud to be a part of this team.”
Unlike SpaceX’s cargo Dragon and Russian Progress freighters, which carry out autonomous dockings at their respective ports, the Cygnus was designed to be captured by the station’s arm and pulled in for berthing.
After locking onto the Cygnus XL at 7:24 a.m. EDT, Kim handed off arm operations to flight controllers at the Johnson Space Center in Houston so the ship could be pulled in for berthing at the Earth-facing port of the central Unity module.
Astronaut Jonny Kim, operating the space station’s robot arm from a work station inside the lab, latched onto the Cygnus XL cargo ship to wrap up an extended rendezvous.
NASA
Northrop Grumman names its cargo ships after notable figures in the space community. The Cygnus XL was named in honor of shuttle pilot William “Willie” McCool, who lost his life in the 2003 Columbia disaster.
Space station astronaut Mike Fincke, a member of the 1996 astronaut class along with McCool, said he was “a gifted pilot, a devoted crewmate and a man of deep humility, his life continues to inspire us.”
“To see a ship bearing his name safely arrive at the station is a reminder that his courage and kindness are still circling our beautiful planet Earth,” he said.
On board: more than 5 tons of needed spare parts, research material and crew supplies, including holiday treats for the station crew.
“The (Cygnus) is packed with consumables, like nitrogen, oxygen, food and toilet parts, and it has a large number of spare parts that are required for systems like, for example, our urine processor,” said Dina Contella, deputy manager of the space station program at the Johnson Space Center.
“We’re stocking up on these items since we were short over the past year, and we’d like to have a good reserve for the future,” she said.
That shortfall was caused, in part, by damage an earlier Cygnus suffered during shipment from a subcontractor in Europe to Cape Canaveral, Florida. That vehicle is still grounded pending analysis and repairs.
Sunday’s launch of the Cygnus XL marked the maiden flight of an upgraded version of the cargo ship, which is about 5 feet longer than the original, allowing it to carry about 2,600 pounds of additional cargo.
NASA pays for cargo delivery flights using Cygnus and Dragon spacecraft. To date, SpaceX has successfully carried out 32 Dragon resupply missions while Northrop Grumman has executed 21 successful flights, including the current mission.
Bill Spetch, operations integration manager for the space station, said the resupply flights “and especially this great capability that Cygnus brings and the amount of cargo that it brings to us, is critical for us to keep us running smooth and doing the things that we need … to do the research.”
Bill Harwood has been covering the U.S. space program full-time since 1984, first as Cape Canaveral bureau chief for United Press International and now as a consultant for CBS News.
Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus XL cargo ship, carrying more than 11,000 pounds of equipment and supplies for the International Space Station, is scheduled to rendezvous with the space station Thursday morning, NASA announced Wednesday.
This comes after two premature engine shutdowns Tuesday forced flight controllers to interrupt a carefully planned rendezvous and delay the ship’s arrival at the outpost.
On Wednesday evening, NASA announced that the issue had been resolved and the cargo ship was expected to arrive at the space station at 7:18 a.m. Eastern Time Thursday.
“Data shared by the spacecraft confirmed that Cygnus XL operated as intended during two planned maneuvers when an early warning system initiated a shutdown command and ended the main engine burn because of a conservative safeguard in the software settings,” NASA explained in a statement.
NASA said that astronaut Jonny Kim, with support from NASA astronaut Zena Cardman, will capture Cygnus XL using the station’s Canadarm2 robotic arm.
A file photo of a Northrop Grumman Cygnus cargo ship after capture by the International Space Station’s robot arm during an earlier resupply mission.
NASA
The Cygnus was launched Sunday from Cape Canaveral atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. The cargo ship was released from the booster’s upper stage as planned, kicking off a precisely planned sequence of rendezvous rocket firings to catch up with the space station.
Unlike SpaceX’s cargo Dragon and Russian Progress freighters, which carry out autonomous dockings at their respective ports, the Cygnus was designed to be captured by the station’s robot arm and pulled in for berthing.
The Cygnus XL capture had been planned for Wednesday morning, but was put on hold while engineers work to understand the problem and develop an alternate rendezvous plan.
“Early Tuesday morning, Cygnus XL’s main engine stopped earlier than planned during two burns designed to raise the orbit of the spacecraft for rendezvous with the space station,” NASA had said in a previous blog post. “All other Cygnus XL systems are performing normally.”
A Progress launched last week successfully docked at the station Saturday. The Cygnus XL launch is a long-awaited milestone for Northrop Grumman after an earlier Cygnus was damaged during transit from a subcontractor in Europe to Cape Canaveral. That vehicle is still grounded pending analysis and repairs.
Sunday’s launch was the third of at least four SpaceX flights purchased by Northrop Grumman while the company recovers from the transit setback and presses ahead with work to develop a new booster of its own.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket climbs away from pad 40 at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, boosting Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus XL cargo ship toward orbit on a flight to the International Space Station.
SpaceX
And it was the maiden flight of the Cygnus XL, so named because the upgraded cargo ship has been lengthened to carry more cargo to the station per flight.
“We’ve been partnering with Northrop Grumman on this update, and we’re excited that Northrop is ready to deliver this incredibly beneficial increase in capacity,” Dina Contella, deputy manager of the space station program for NASA, said before launch. “It’s about 1.6 meters (5 feet) longer and it carries about 2,600 additional pounds more cargo.”
For its first flight, the XL ship is loaded with more than five-and-a-half tons of needed spare parts, research material and crew supplies, including holiday treats for the station crew.
“The (Cygnus) is packed with consumables, like nitrogen, oxygen, food and toilet parts, and it has a large number of spare parts that are required for systems like, for example, our urine processor,” said Contella. “We’re stocking up on these items since we were short over the past year, and we’d like to have a good reserve for the future.”
NASA pays for cargo delivery flights using Cygnus and Dragon spacecraft. To date, SpaceX has successfully carried out 32 Dragon resupply missions while Northrop Grumman has completed 20 successful flights not counting the current mission.
Both companies suffered one in-flight failure each due to launch mishaps early in the commercial resupply program.
Bill Harwood has been covering the U.S. space program full-time since 1984, first as Cape Canaveral bureau chief for United Press International and now as a consultant for CBS News.
NASA announced Sept. 16 that the spacecraft had experienced engine trouble on its way to the space station, with the main engine cutting off earlier than planned.
“NASA and Northrop Grumman are delaying the arrival of the Cygnus XL to the International Space Station as flight controllers evaluate an alternate burn plan for the resupply spacecraft. The Cygnus XL will not arrive to the space station on Wednesday, Sept. 17, as originally planned, with a new arrival date and time under review,” a statement by NASA read.
NASA said that everything else is performing as expected with the spacecraft.
Once the Cygnus spacecraft does arrive at the International Space Station, astronauts Jonny Kim and Zena Cardman will use the space station’s robotic Canadarm2 to grab and dock it.
This mission — refrred to as NG-23 — is the first flight of the company’s new Cygnus XL spacecraft. It is described as solar-powered, larger and a more capable cargo spacecraft compared to previous Cygnus models, which have flown multiple NASA resupply missions in the past.
It is not the first time a Cygnus spacecraft experienced an issue in flight. In 2022, a Cygnus spacecraft flying as part of the NG-18 mission failed to deploy a solar array, putting the spacecraft’s power levels at risk. Northrop Grumman and NASA were able to work around the issue, and the spacecraft was successfully captured by astronauts onboard the station.
As of the morning of Sept. 17, NASA had not released an update on the current issue.
One day after the arrival of a Russian cargo ship, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched an upgraded Northrop Grumman space freighter Sunday, putting the unpiloted spacecraft on course for capture by the International Space Station early Wednesday.
On board: more than 5 tons of needed spare parts, research material and crew supplies, including holiday treats for the station crew.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket climbs away from pad 40 at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, boosting a Northrop Grumman Cygnus cargo ship toward orbit on a flight to the International Space Station.
SpaceX
“The (Cygnus) is packed with consumables, like nitrogen, oxygen, food and toilet parts, and it has a large number of spare parts that are required for systems like, for example, our urine processor,” said Dina Contella, deputy manager of the space station program at the Johnson Space Center.
“We’re stocking up on these items since we were short over the past year, and we’d like to have a good reserve for the future.”
Among the more mouth-watering items being delivered “are what I’d call specialties,” Contella said. “The crew can eat these during any of the upcoming holidays or at any time really, but these are foods like clams, oysters, crab, roast turkey and smoked salmon, plus treats like candies, cookies and ice cream.”
“We also have a high school breakfast competition food called … shakshuka scramble. It’s based on a popular dish throughout North Africa and the Middle East made of eggs cooked in spicy sauce.”
Mounted atop pad 40 at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, the Falcon 9’s first stage engines thundered to life at 6:11 p.m. EDT, generating 1.7 million pounds of thrust to push the rocket up into the early evening sky on a northeasterly trajectory matching the space station’s orbit.
After powering out of the thick lower atmosphere, the first stage separated, reversed course and flew itself back to a spectacular landing at the Space Force station to chalk up SpaceX’s 67th Florida touchdown and its 505th successful booster recovery overall.
Putting on a spectacular show for spectators watching from a Port Canaveral pier, the Falcon 9’s first stage booster, making its fourth flight, successfully flew itself back to Florida after boosting the rocket’s upper stage out of the lower atmosphere. The rocket’s landing legs are deploying in this photo, taken seconds before touchdown.
Michael Cain/Spaceflight Now
The Falcon 9’s second stage, meanwhile, put the Cygnus into the planned preliminary orbit and released it to fly on its own 14-and-a-half minutes after liftoff. If all goes well, the spacecraft will catch up with the space station early Wednesday for capture by the lab’s robot arm.
Berthing will come four days after a Russian Progress cargo ship, launched Thursday from Kazakhstan, docked at the lab’s aft port, bringing propellant, a new Russian spacesuit and other needed supplies to the outpost.
Sunday’s launch was the third of at least four SpaceX flights purchased by Northrop Grumman while the company develops a new booster of its own. And it was the first flight of a Cygnus XL, so named because the spacecraft has been lengthened to allow it to carry more cargo to the space station.
The Cygnus cargo ship was released from the Falcon 9’s upper stage about 14-and-a-half minutes after liftoff. If all goes well, the spacecraft will catch up with the space station early Wednesday.
SpaceX
“We’ve been partnering with Northrop Grumman on this update, and we’re excited that Northrop is ready to deliver this incredibly beneficial increase in capacity,” Contella said. “It’s about 1.6 meters (5 feet) longer, and it carries about 2,600 additional pounds more cargo.”
NASA pays for cargo delivery flights using Cygnus spacecraft and SpaceX’s Dragon. To date, SpaceX has successfully carried out 32 Dragon resupply missions, while Northrop Grumman has launched 21 successful flights. Both companies suffered one in-flight failure each early in the commercial resupply program.
Bill Harwood has been covering the U.S. space program full-time since 1984, first as Cape Canaveral bureau chief for United Press International and now as a consultant for CBS News.
Due to the spacecraft traveling to the orbiting space station, the Falcon 9 rocket must launch on time or SpaceX will have to stand down for the day.
Upon liftoff, the Falcon 9 rocket will fly on a northeast trajectory – however, that is not the end of the show for those on the Space Coast.
Just under eight minutes past the launch, the Falcon 9’s first stage booster will come in for a landing at Cape Canaveral Landing Zone 2. The result will be a sonic boom heard shortly afterward throughout Brevard County.
The spacecraft will then continue onward to the space station on its commercial resupply mission. Onboard is 11,000 pounds of food, supplies, and science for the astronauts onboard the station.
CRS-23 – also referred to as NG-23 — marks the 23rd resupply mission by Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus. The mission will be the first flight of the company’s new Cygnus XL spacecraft. It is referred to as a solar powered, larger and more capable cargo spacecraft compared to previous models of the Cygnus, which flew multiple NASA resupply missions in the past.
Check back two hours prior to liftoff for live FLORIDA TODAY updates on this page.
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission.
Russia’s Progress 93 cargo spacecraft approaches the International Space Station on Sept. 13, 2025. | Credit: NASA
The astronauts on board the International Space Station (ISS) just got a fresh shipment of supplies.
Russia’s robotic Progress 93 spacecraft docked with the orbiting lab’s Zvezda module at 1:23 p.m. EDT (1723 GMT) today (Sept. 13), two days after launching atop a Soyuz rocket from the Russia-run Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
The meetup occurred today as the two spacecraft were flying 260 miles (418 kilometers) over northeastern Kazakhstan.
Progress is loaded with 2.8 tons of food, fuel and other cargo for the astronauts of the ISS’ current Expedition 73 mission, according to NASA officials.
The freighter will remain at the ISS for about six months, after which it will undock, head back down toward Earth and die a fiery death in our planet’s atmosphere.
Progress 93 joins four other spacecraft at the ISS. Two of them are fellow freighters (another Progress and a robotic SpaceX Dragon capsule) and two are crew-carrying spacecraft (a Russian Soyuz and Endeavour, the Dragon that’s flying SpaceX’s Crew-11 astronaut mission for NASA).
And yet another vehicle will head up soon — Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus cargo spacecraft, which is scheduled to launch on Sunday (Sept. 14) and arrive at the ISS on Wednesday (Sept. 17).
There are seven people living aboard the ISS at the moment: Zena Cardman, Mike Fincke and Jonny Kim of NASA; Kimiya Yui of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA); and Sergey Ryzhikov, Alexey Zubritsky and Oleg Platonov of the Russian space agency Roscosmos.
Ryzhikov commands Expedition 73. His six crewmates are all flight engineers.
In June, 2024, Perseverance, a NASA rover sent to collect samples on the surface of Mars, came upon a cluster of rocks in what is thought to be a former riverbed. Most of the rocks were identified as mudstones—they likely formed from the sediment in slow-moving water—meaning they would be perfect vessels for any traces of aquatic life in the area. After a monthlong, systematic geological survey, scientists took a special interest in an arrowhead-shaped stone slab dubbed Cheyava Falls. The rover drilled a sample of it, which researchers called Sapphire Canyon, for an eventual return to Earth. (Confusingly, the names are borrowed from Grand Canyon National Park and do not reflect the geography or the scale of the Martian specimens; the red planet’s Cheyava Falls is two feet across, and its Sapphire Canyon could fit in a tube of lipstick.)
The discovery may go down in history. Perseverance determined that the whole area around Cheyava Falls is rich in oxidized iron, phosphorus, sulfur, and organic carbon—a combination that microbes could potentially feed on. Colorful spots on Cheyava Falls contain the mineral greigite, which some microbes on Earth excrete, and vivianite, which is often found around decaying organic matter. Producing such minerals in a lifeless place would probably require acidic conditions or high temperatures—and the area showed signs of neither. Together, these findings are a “potential biosignature,” Katie Stack Morgan, Perseverance’s project scientist, said at a press conference on Wednesday. This means that they are more likely to be the result of biology than the result of something else. Scientists published their findings this week in the journal Nature. Sean Duffy, the interim administrator of NASA, called them “the clearest sign of life that we’ve ever found on Mars.”
Billions of years ago, as life was emerging on Earth, Mars is thought to have fostered a wide, shimmering ocean, as well as rivers and deltas that might have flooded when it rained. If biology was possible on Earth, then it was possible on the ancient surface of Mars. The red planet eventually lost most of its atmosphere, presumably wiping out whatever might have flourished on it, but there could still be traces, even fossils.
Life on other planets has been “discovered” before. At the turn of the twentieth century, Percival Lowell, an American astronomer, spent years mapping artificial canals that he believed had been built on Mars. Other astronomers spent decades challenging his interpretation. The issue wasn’t settled until 1965, when NASA’s Mariner 4 spacecraft flew past Mars and saw no canals. Even after that, many scientists thought that Mars harbored life. The Martian surface darkened during certain parts of the year, giving rise to theories that plants grew there. Carl Sagan, who said that extraordinary claims required extraordinary evidence, hypothesized that the dark patches were caused by windstorms, not flora, but even he hadn’t abandoned the possibility that Martian life forms existed. In the planning stages of the two-part Viking mission, which landed spacecraft on Mars in the mid-seventies, Sagan argued that the probes should include lights and cameras, in case creatures scurried past.
In the end, the Viking landers found no creatures, and biological experiments proved inconclusive. Then, in the nineties, NASA scientists studied a Martian meteorite discovered in the Allan Hills of Antarctica. It contained strange blobs and wormlike structures, which the scientists interpreted as evidence of fossilized bacteria. President Bill Clinton gave a speech to mark what was potentially “one of the most stunning insights into our universe that science has ever uncovered.” But when other scientists reëvaluated the meteorite, they came up with several explanations that did not require the existence of aliens. Inorganic crystals could have caused the wormy features; the types of chemical reactions that produce limestone could have caused the blobs.
There was potential evidence for extraterrestrial life in our solar system, but it didn’t reach the threshold of proof. “We have a bunch of bridges built halfway, from various lines of evidence,” Kirby Runyon, a research scientist at the Planetary Science Institute, headquartered in Tucson, told me. In 2020, astronomers asserted that they’d found phosphine gas in Venus’s atmosphere, and that life could have produced it. (On Earth, bacteria produce phosphine, but so do chemical reactions involving phosphorus.) Some scholars countered that Venusian volcanoes could have produced phosphine; others said that the measurements were dubious, and the mystery gas wasn’t phosphine.
Runyon described the authors of the recent Nature paper as appropriately cautious: they offered many caveats and didn’t jump to conclusions. If an identical rock were found on Earth, he said, we would assume it had a biological origin. “The geochemistry is very reminiscent of life,” he told me. But claims of life on Mars are extraordinary, and verifying them requires extraordinary evidence. “The skeptical posture says we’re just running up against how far rocks and geochemistry can go to look like life—but not be life. And that reveals the extent to which we must be cautious in interpreting our scientific results.”
There could be a way to prove that the Cheyava Falls rock contains signs of life: by studying it more closely than Perseverance is able to do. “If this is the most compelling potential biosignature on Mars, and it seems to be, logic dictates that NASA should go back with more missions, or bring that sample home for analysis,” Runyon said. Unfortunately, NASA is currently facing its own extinction-level event: the Trump Administration has recommended a budget that cuts the agency’s over-all federal funding by nearly a quarter, and essentially halves its spending on its science program. The proposal would also cancel the mission to return the samples to Earth. Duffy, a Trump appointee, seemed pleased during Wednesday’s announcement, but he is part of an Administration that would leave the bridge half built.
The authors of the Cheyava Falls paper spent a year in the peer-review process, and during that time their discovery was publicly known. Did NASA headquarters seize this moment to publicize its findings in hopes of resurrecting the sample-return mission? “The announcement was more earnest than calculated, I believe,” Casey Dreier, the chief of space policy at the Planetary Society, a space-exploration-advocacy group that is headed by Bill Nye, told me. “But it only raises the issues of the President’s self-contradictory and self-sabotaging budget.” Trump’s proposed budget would cancel forty-one science missions and slash Perseverance funding by twenty-three per cent. There’s no money to be saved on the building, launching, and landing of Perseverance—these things have already happened—so “the only dial you can turn to achieve that is by doing less science,” Dreier said. The budget, which could take effect on October 1st if Congress does not pass an appropriations bill, would also effectively disable two healthy spacecraft that are orbiting Mars: MAVEN and Mars Odyssey, both of which Perseverance uses to send communications back to Earth. (Early this year, Trump vowed to land humans on Mars, but his proposed budget invests very little in that effort.)
Methodical science could perhaps be accused of constraining our collective imagination. We no longer dream of discovering moon bats, Venusian dinosaurs, and Martian beavers, as scientists and sci-fi writers of old once did. Yet NASA is arguably within reach of something even more wondrous: the truth about life on another planet. In Dreier’s view, that would seem to call for more science, not less. “NASA just found potential signatures of life, and the official plan is to walk away from it,” Dreier said. Still, he seemed hopeful that Duffy and the rest of the Trump Administration might change course. “This is the exciting part of NASA,” he told me. “Discoveries like this are why we do this, and highlight what we could be giving up. I hope some people get inspired.” ♦
This week, NASA said scientists took the biggest step yet toward discovering whether there was ever life on Mars when a rock sample collected by the Mars rover Perseverance contained potential biosignatures, which could suggest ancient signs of life. Douglas Jerolmack, a professor of Earth and environmental science at the University of Pennsylvania, discusses the significance of the discovery.
For four years, NASA’s Perseverance rover has searched for possible signs of ancient life on the surface of Mars. It has found myriad interesting features in its travels, including a rock with strange spots, discovered inside Mars’ Jezero Crater. Dubbed “Cheyava Falls,” the 2024 discovery immediately caught the attention of scientists on Earth, as its spots indicated it may hold a potential biosignature—a sign of life.
The rover went to work. The bot analyzed the rock’s composition and surface chemistry, and then extracted a core nicknamed “Sapphire Canyon.”
Its hard work has seemingly paid off. On Wednesday, NASA scientists dropped the bombshell: Cheyava Falls may in fact be the clearest sign of past life ever found on Mars.
“We had almost left the crater. These were the last set of sedimentary rocks we were probably going to be looking at on the mission,” Joel Hurowitz, a planetary scientist at Stony Brook University, told Gizmodo. He is the lead author on a new study detailing the findings that was published in Nature.
“It was super surprising that this would have been the place where the potential biosignatures jumped out of the rock at us and said, ‘hey, look here!’”
Of the 30 rock and regolith samples Perseverance has collected over the last four years, none show more promise as evidence for ancient life on Mars than this one. But actually confirming a biosignature depends on getting this sample back to Earth. At stake is one of the most enduring questions of our world: Is life on Earth truly alone?
“I don’t think we’re ever going to make that determination without that sample in our hands,” Hurowitz said.
The case for a potential biosignature
The surface of Cheyava Falls bears tiny black spots that NASA scientists call “poppy seeds,” interspersed among larger “leopard” spots. These features suggested to Hurowitz and his colleagues that chemical reactions had occurred at the time these sediments were deposited.
Perseverance’s analysis found that Cheyava Falls is rich in organic carbon, sulfur, oxidized iron (rust), and phosphorus. This combination of chemical compounds could have provided a potential energy source for ancient microbes, but the researchers decided to probe the rock further.
Using Perseverance’s PIXL (Planetary Instrument for X-ray Lithochemistry) instrument to map the rock’s surface chemistry, they uncovered a distinct pattern of minerals arranged into reaction fronts—points of contact where chemical and physical reactions occur—that corresponded to the leopard spots. These spots also carried signatures of iron-rich minerals, vivianite and greigite.
On Earth, these minerals are often byproducts of reactions that arise from microbes metabolizing organic matter, according to Hurowitz. Importantly, it’s also possible that the spots on Cheyava Falls formed through some other process, most likely through geothermal heating during the early stages of the rock’s formation. “But there’s no real, clear evidence that the rocks were heated to a significant degree,” Hurowitz said.
Researchers are a long way from ruling out those possible explanations—140 million miles away, on average, in fact.
“Deciding between life‑driven and purely chemical origins needs laboratory analyses of the cored sample Sapphire Canyon,” Mario Parente, an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at UMass Amherst, told Gizmodo. Parente was not involved in the study, but co-authored a corresponding viewpoint about the results.
Why Sapphire Canyon must return to Earth
Lab-based analyses are “essential” to answering key questions that could confirm whether this is, indeed, a potential biosignature, Parente said. Techniques such as nanoscale mineral identification and high-resolution chemical mapping of the Sapphire Canyon sample could determine whether it truly contains vivianite, greigite, and carbon closely interwoven with those minerals, he explained.
Additionally, isotopic analysis would be able to uncover patterns called “fractionations” that are tell-tale signs of microbial activity. “Isotopes are one of the clearest ways to separate biology from geology,” Parente said. “I think those measurements could probably answer the question pretty clearly,” Hurowitz concurred.
There is, however, a major obstacle in the way of such an endeavor: As things stand, NASA has no solid plans to go to Mars to retrieve Sapphire Canyon—or any of Perseverance’s samples for that matter. The agency has been working with the European Space Agency to develop a multi-mission Mars Sample Return campaign to retrieve the samples, but escalating costs and complexity have stalled its progress.
The White House’s budget proposal for fiscal year 2026, released in May, threatened to cut the effort’s funding, but in July, the House Appropriations Commerce-Justice-Science subcommittee moved to allocate $300 million to the program. That bill is still in process, and it remains entirely possible that the missions could be canceled.
“I would hate to see us not return the samples,” Hurowitz said. After spending more than 20 years working on Mars rover missions, he lays out what is at stake: “It’s been this incredibly well-laid-out program of exploration to get to this goal of trying to understand whether or not Mars was ever inhabited,” he said.
“With the data we have from the rover, we’re going to have this tantalizing clue that says, ‘maybe,’ but we can’t answer the question.”
NASA’s Mars rover Perseverance has uncovered rocks in a dry river channel that may hold potential signs of ancient microscopic life, scientists reported Wednesday.
They stressed that in-depth analysis is needed of the sample gathered there by Perseverance — ideally in labs on Earth — before reaching any conclusions.
“Today we are really showing you how we are kind of one step closer to answering … are we truly alone in the universe,” Associate NASA Administrator Nicky Fox said during a briefing on the findings Wednesday morning.
Roaming Mars since 2021, the rover cannot directly detect life. Instead, it carries a drill to penetrate rocks and tubes to hold the samples gathered from places judged most suitable for hosting life billions of years ago. The samples are awaiting retrieval to Earth — an ambitious plan that’s on hold as NASA seeks cheaper, quicker options.
Calling it an “exciting discovery,” a pair of scientists who were not involved in the study — SETI Institute’s Janice Bishop and the University of Massachusetts Amherst’s Mario Parente — were quick to point out that non-biological processes could be responsible.
“That’s part of the reason why we can’t go so far as to say, ‘A-ha, this is proof positive of life,”’ lead researcher Joel Hurowitz of Stony Brook University told The Associated Press. “All we can say is one of the possible explanations is microbial life, but there could be other ways to make this set of features that we see.”
NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope snapped a picture of Mars on Aug. 27, 2003.
NASA/Handout via Reuters
Either way, Hurowitz said it’s the best, most compelling candidate yet in the rover’s search for potential signs of long-ago life. It was the 25th sample gathered; the tally is now up to 30, with six more to go.
“It would be amazing to be able to demonstrate conclusively that these features were formed by something that was alive on another planet billions of years ago, right?” Hurowitz said. But even if that’s not the case, it’s “a valuable lesson in all of the ways that nature can conspire to fool us.”
Collected last summer, the sample is from reddish, clay-rich mudstones in Neretva Vallis, a river channel that once carried water into Jezero Crater. This outcrop of sedimentary rock, known as the Bright Angel formation, was surveyed by Perseverance’s science instruments before the drill came out.
Along with organic carbon, a building block of life, Hurowitz and his team found minuscule specks, dubbed poppy seeds and leopard spots, that were enriched with iron phosphate and iron sulfide. On Earth, these chemical compounds are the byproducts when microorganisms chomp down on organic matter.
Ten of the titanium sample tubes were placed on the Martian surface a few years ago as a backup to the rest aboard the rover, the main target in NASA’s still fuzzy return mission.
When Perseverance launched in 2020, NASA expected the samples back on Earth by the early 2030s. But that date slipped into the 2040s as costs swelled to $11 billion, stalling the retrieval effort.
Until the samples are transported off of Mars by robotic spacecraft or astronauts, scientists will have to rely on Earthly stand-ins and lab experiments to evaluate the feasibility of ancient Martian life, according to Hurowitz.
On Earth, microorganisms commonly interact with minerals in Antarctic lakes.
“There is no evidence of microbes on Mars today, but if any had been present on ancient Mars, they too might have reduced sulfate minerals to form sulfides in such a lake at Jezero Crater,” Bishop and Parente wrote in an accompanying editorial.
NASA’s Mars rover Perseverance has uncovered rocks in a dry river channel that may hold potential signs of ancient microscopic life, according to scientists. Mark Strassmann reports.
Scientists are observing an Earth-like exoplanet that may contain water using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, the space agency said in a news release.
The exoplanet, known as TRAPPIST-1 e, orbits the red dwarf star TRAPPIST-1. The system was discovered in 2017. There are seven Earth-sized worlds orbiting the star, but planet e is the only one that is at a distance where water on the surface is “theoretically possible,” NASA said. However, astronomers still need to determine if the planet has an atmosphere.
To look for an atmosphere, NASA scientists directed the Webb telescope’s Near-Infrared Spectrograph instrument at the TRAPPIST-1 system as planet e passed in front of the star. If the planet has an atmosphere, the starlight that passes through it will be partially absorbed. That will create dips in the light spectrum that reaches the spectrograph. Those dips will allow scientists to determine if the planet has an atmosphere and what chemicals it might be made of.
Scientists are also studying the light spectrum of another exoplanet in the system called TRAPPIST-1 b. Researchers have determined that planet has no atmosphere, NASA said, so comparing its output to that of TRAPPIST-1 e allows for a fuller picture of the potential atmosphere on that planet.
An artist’s rendering of TRAPPIST-1, with TRAPPIST-1 depicted in the lower right.
NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Joseph Olmsted (STScI)
“Webb’s infrared instruments are giving us more detail than we’ve ever had access to before, and the initial four observations we’ve been able to make of planet e are showing us what we will have to work with when the rest of the information comes in,” said Néstor Espinoza of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland, a principal investigator on the research team. Espinoza and the research team recently published two scientificpapers outlining their initial results.
Researchers “feel confident” that TRAPPIST-1 e does not have a primary atmosphere. A primary atmosphere would be made of hydrogen and helium that would have been present when the planet was formed. But the star the planet orbits is “very active,” with “frequent flares,” NASA said, which create stellar radiation that may have “stripped off” that primary atmosphere. However, TRAPPIST-1 e may have built up a “heavier secondary atmosphere.” Many planets, including Earth, have done this, NASA said. Further research with the Webb telescope and its instruments will determine the types of atmosphere and its makeup.
There are also many possibilities for water on the planet. There may be none at all, NASA said. TRAPPIST-1 e might also contain an ocean or wide swath of water. One side of the planet is always in darkness, so there may also be ice, NASA said. If there is liquid water on the planet, the NASA researchers say there would also be a greenhouse effect, where gases like carbon dioxide keep the atmosphere stable and warm the planet.
“We are really still in the early stages of learning what kind of amazing science we can do with Webb. It’s incredible to measure the details of starlight around Earth-sized planets 40 light-years away and learn what it might be like there, if life could be possible there,” said Ana Glidden, a post-doctoral researcher at Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, who led the research on possible atmospheres for planet e, in NASA’s news release. “We’re in a new age of exploration that’s very exciting to be a part of,” she said.
Kerry Breen is a news editor at CBSNews.com. A graduate of New York University’s Arthur L. Carter School of Journalism, she previously worked at NBC News’ TODAY Digital. She covers current events, breaking news and issues including substance use.
Scientists revealed Wednesday that Mars’ innermost core appears to be a solid hunk of metal just like Earth’s.Related video above: NASA volunteers exit space agency’s simulated Mars habitat in Texas after 376 days (07/08/2024)The Chinese-led research team based its findings on seismic readings from NASA’s InSight lander on Mars, which recorded more than 1,300 marsquakes before shutting down in 2022. The spacecraft landed on a broad plain near Mars’ equator in 2018.Previous studies pointed to liquid at the heart of the red planet. The latest findings indicate the inner core, while small, is indeed solid and surrounded by molten metal — a liquid outer core.The Martian inner core extends from the planet’s center out to a radius of approximately 380 miles (613 kilometers), according to the scientists whose findings appeared in the journal Nature.It’s likely composed of iron and nickel, the same ingredients as Earth’s core, but quite possibly also enriched with lighter elements like oxygen.Mars’ liquid outer core is bigger, stretching from 380 miles (613 kilometers) to as much as 1,100 miles (1,800 kilometers) from the planet’s center.Crystallization of Mars’ inner core may have occurred in the past and still be occurring today, one of the lead investigators, Daoyuan Sun of the University of Science and Technology of China, said in an email.Mars’ core initially would have been entirely liquid. It’s unclear whether the liquid outer core contains any solid material like droplets or whether there might be “a mushy zone” near the boundary between the inner and outer cores, he added.For their study, Sun and his team relied primarily on 23 marsquakes recorded by InSight, all of them relatively weak. The epicenters were 740 miles to 1,465 miles (1,200 kilometers to 2,360 kilometers) away from the lander.”Our results suggest that Mars has a solid inner core making up about one-fifth of the planet’s radius — roughly the same proportion as Earth’s inner core. However, this similarity may be just coincidental,” Sun said.While praising the results, the University of Maryland’s Nicholas Schmerr, who was not involved in the study, said questions regarding Mars’ core are far from settled. With InSight out of action, there will be no new recordings of marsquakes to further reveal the red planet’s insides, he noted.”There are a lot of details about the exact shape of the inner core and composition of the inner and outer core of Mars that will require a network of InSight-like seismometer stations to resolve,” Schmerr said in an email.More detailed modeling is necessary to develop a clearer picture of how the inner core formed and “what it reveals about the history of Mars’ magnetic field,” said Sun.At present, Mars lacks a magnetic field, possibly because of the slow crystallization of the planet’s solid core, Schmerr added.___The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) —
Scientists revealed Wednesday that Mars’ innermost core appears to be a solid hunk of metal just like Earth’s.
Related video above: NASA volunteers exit space agency’s simulated Mars habitat in Texas after 376 days (07/08/2024)
The Chinese-led research team based its findings on seismic readings from NASA’s InSight lander on Mars, which recorded more than 1,300 marsquakes before shutting down in 2022. The spacecraft landed on a broad plain near Mars’ equator in 2018.
Previous studies pointed to liquid at the heart of the red planet. The latest findings indicate the inner core, while small, is indeed solid and surrounded by molten metal — a liquid outer core.
The Martian inner core extends from the planet’s center out to a radius of approximately 380 miles (613 kilometers), according to the scientists whose findings appeared in the journal Nature.
It’s likely composed of iron and nickel, the same ingredients as Earth’s core, but quite possibly also enriched with lighter elements like oxygen.
NASA via AP
This Dec. 6, 2018, image made available by NASA shows the InSight lander.
Mars’ liquid outer core is bigger, stretching from 380 miles (613 kilometers) to as much as 1,100 miles (1,800 kilometers) from the planet’s center.
Crystallization of Mars’ inner core may have occurred in the past and still be occurring today, one of the lead investigators, Daoyuan Sun of the University of Science and Technology of China, said in an email.
Mars’ core initially would have been entirely liquid. It’s unclear whether the liquid outer core contains any solid material like droplets or whether there might be “a mushy zone” near the boundary between the inner and outer cores, he added.
For their study, Sun and his team relied primarily on 23 marsquakes recorded by InSight, all of them relatively weak. The epicenters were 740 miles to 1,465 miles (1,200 kilometers to 2,360 kilometers) away from the lander.
“Our results suggest that Mars has a solid inner core making up about one-fifth of the planet’s radius — roughly the same proportion as Earth’s inner core. However, this similarity may be just coincidental,” Sun said.
NASA via AP
This image provided by NASA shows the seismometer on the surface of Mars attached to NASA’s InSight lander, which registered more than 1,300 marsquakes before shutting down in 2022. This is one of the lander’s last photos.
While praising the results, the University of Maryland’s Nicholas Schmerr, who was not involved in the study, said questions regarding Mars’ core are far from settled. With InSight out of action, there will be no new recordings of marsquakes to further reveal the red planet’s insides, he noted.
“There are a lot of details about the exact shape of the inner core and composition of the inner and outer core of Mars that will require a network of InSight-like seismometer stations to resolve,” Schmerr said in an email.
More detailed modeling is necessary to develop a clearer picture of how the inner core formed and “what it reveals about the history of Mars’ magnetic field,” said Sun.
At present, Mars lacks a magnetic field, possibly because of the slow crystallization of the planet’s solid core, Schmerr added.
___
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
A full moon, nicknamed the “Corn Moon,” is slated for Sunday, Sept. 7, but there are several other astronomy events to keep in mind for the month.
The planet Saturn will be at its biggest and brightest of the year, according to NASA. You should be able to spot it with just your eyes, but with a small telescope, you might be able to see its rings. Here’s what Kentuckians should know about catching Saturn and other September celestial occurrences.
NASA says these astronomy events are taking place in September 2025
If you plan to observe the sky this month, NASA says to keep the following dates in mind:
All month: Saturn will be visible throughout September.
Sept. 19: A conjunction between the Moon, Venus and Regulus. Look East during the early pre-dawn hours.
Sept. 21: Saturn is at opposition, meaning Earth will be between the Sun and Saturn, temporarily lining up. Saturn will be at its brightest all year.
Finding Saturn in September 2025
Saturn should be visible all night in late September, according to EarthSky. Look toward the east where it rises in the evening hours close to sunset. The ringed planet will appear in the constellation Pisces.
The launch will not produce a Space Coast sonic boom, as just over eight minutes after launch the rocket's booster will land on the Just Read the Instructions drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean.
