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Tag: spacecraft

  • NASA unveils close-up pictures of the comet popping by from another star

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    CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — NASA unveiled close-up pictures on Wednesday of the interstellar comet that’s making a quick one-and-done tour of the solar system.

    Discovered over the summer, the comet known as 3I/Atlas is only the third confirmed object to visit our corner of the cosmos from another star. It zipped harmlessly past Mars last month.

    Three NASA spacecraft on and near the red planet zoomed in on the comet as it passed just 18 million miles (29 million kilometers) away, revealing a fuzzy white blob. The European Space Agency’s two satellites around Mars also made observations.

    Other NASA spacecraft will remain on the lookout in the weeks ahead, including the Webb Space Telescope. At the same time, astronomers are aiming their ground telescopes at the approaching comet, which is about 190 million miles (307 million kilometers) from Earth. The Virtual Telescope Project’s Gianluca Masi zoomed in Wednesday from Italy.

    The comet is visible from Earth in the predawn sky by using binoculars or a telescope.

    “Everyone that is in control of a telescope wants to look at it because it’s a fascinating and rare opportunity,” said NASA’s acting astrophysics director, Shawn Domagal-Goldman.

    The closest the comet will come to Earth is 167 million miles (269 million kilometers) in mid-December. Then it will hightail it back into interstellar space, never to return.

    ESA’s Juice spacecraft, bound for Jupiter, has been training its cameras and scientific instruments on the comet all month, particularly after it made its closest pass to the sun. But scientists won’t get any of these observations back until February because Juice’s main antenna is serving as a heat shield while it’s near the sun, limiting the flow of data.

    Named for the telescope in Chile that first spotted it, the comet is believed to be anywhere from 1,444 feet (440 meters) across to 3.5 miles (5.6 kilometers) across. Observations indicate that the exceptionally fast-moving comet may have originated in a star system older than our own — “which gives me goose bumps to think about,” said NASA scientist Tom Statler.

    “That means that 3I/Atlas is not just a window into another solar system, it’s a window into the deep past and so deep in the past that it predates even the formation of our Earth and our sun,” Statler told reporters.

    NASA officials were quick to dispel rumors that this friendly solar system visitor, as they called it, might be an alien ship of some sort. They said that because of the federal government shutdown, they weren’t able to respond to all the theories cropping up in recent weeks.

    The space agency is always on the hunt for life beyond Earth, “but 3I/Atlas is a comet,” said NASA’s associate administrator, Amit Kshatriya.

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    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.

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  • China’s stranded astronauts to return from space station

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    FILE – Journalists film Chinese astronauts for the upcoming Shenzhou 20 mission, from left, Wang Jie, captain Chen Dong and Chen Zhongrui wave at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China, Wednesday, April 23, 2025. (AP Photo/Andy Wong, file)

    The Associated Press

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  • Blue Origin launches huge rocket carrying twin NASA spacecraft to Mars

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    CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Blue Origin launched its huge New Glenn rocket Thursday with a pair of NASA spacecraft destined for Mars.

    It was only the second flight of the rocket that Jeff Bezos’ company and NASA are counting on to get people and supplies to the moon — and it was a complete success.

    The 321-foot (98-meter) New Glenn blasted into the afternoon sky from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, sending NASA’s twin Mars orbiters on a drawn-out journey to the red planet. Liftoff was stalled four days by lousy local weather as well as solar storms strong enough to paint the skies with auroras as far south as Florida.

    In a remarkable first, Blue Origin recovered the booster following its separation from the upper stage and the Mars orbiters, an essential step to recycle and slash costs similar to SpaceX. Company employees cheered wildly as the booster landed upright on a barge 375 miles (600 kilometers) offshore. An ecstatic Bezos watched the action from Launch Control.

    “Next stop, moon!” employees chanted following the booster’s bull’s-eye landing. Twenty minutes later, the rocket’s upper stage deployed the two Mars orbiters in space, the mission’s main objective. Congratulations poured in from NASA officials as well as SpaceX’s Elon Musk, whose booster landings are now routine.

    New Glenn’s inaugural test flight in January delivered a prototype satellite to orbit, but failed to land the booster on its floating platform in the Atlantic.

    The identical Mars orbiters, named Escapade, will spend a year hanging out near Earth, stationing themselves 1 million miles (1.5 million kilometers) away. Once Earth and Mars are properly aligned next fall, the duo will get a gravity assist from Earth to head to the red planet, arriving in 2027.

    Once around Mars, the spacecraft will map the planet’s upper atmosphere and scattered magnetic fields, studying how these realms interact with the solar wind. The observations should shed light on the processes behind the escaping Martian atmosphere, helping to explain how the planet went from wet and warm to dry and dusty. Scientists will also learn how best to protect astronauts against Mars’ harsh radiation environment.

    “We really, really want to understand the interaction of the solar wind with Mars better than we do now,” Escapade’s lead scientist, Rob Lillis of the University of California, Berkeley, said ahead of the launch. “Escapade is going to bring an unprecedented stereo viewpoint because we’re going to have two spacecraft at the same time.”

    It’s a relatively low-budget mission, coming in under $80 million, that’s managed and operated by UC Berkeley. NASA saved money by signing up for one of New Glenn’s early flights. The Mars orbiters should have blasted off last fall, but NASA passed up that ideal launch window — Earth and Mars line up for a quick transit just every two years — because of feared delays with Blue Origin’s brand-new rocket.

    Named after John Glenn, the first American to orbit the world, New Glenn is five times bigger than the New Shepard rockets sending wealthy clients to the edge of space from West Texas. Blue Origin plans to launch a prototype Blue Moon lunar lander on a demo mission in the coming months aboard New Glenn.

    Created in 2000 by Bezos, Amazon’s founder, Blue Origin already holds a NASA contract for the third moon landing by astronauts under the Artemis program. Musk’s SpaceX beat out Blue Origin for the first and second crew landings, using Starships, nearly 100 feet (30 meters) taller than Bezos’ New Glenn.

    But last month NASA Acting Administrator Sean Duffy reopened the contract for the first crewed moon landing, citing concern over the pace of Starship’s progress in flight tests from Texas. Blue Origin as well as SpaceX have presented accelerated landing plans.

    NASA is on track to send astronauts around the moon early next year using its own Space Launch System, or SLS, rocket. The next Artemis crew would attempt to land; the space agency is pressing to get astronauts back on the lunar surface by decade’s end in order to beat China.

    Twelve astronauts walked on the moon more than a half-century ago during NASA’s Apollo program.

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    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.

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  • Solar storms delay launch of Blue Origin’s big new rocket with Mars orbiters for NASA

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    CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Intense solar storms responsible for breathtaking auroras across the U.S. delayed the launch of Blue Origin’s big new rocket Wednesday.

    Already grounded by poor weather, the New Glenn rocket was poised to blast off Wednesday afternoon with two Mars orbiters for NASA from Florida. But five hours before the targeted liftoff, it was called off because of the heightened solar activity.

    Worried about the possible impact of increased radiation on its Mars-bound spacecraft, NASA decided to postpone the launch until conditions improve. No new launch date was set.

    This will be only the second flight of a New Glenn rocket, which made its debut in January. At 321 feet (98 meters), it is considerably larger and more powerful than the New Shepard rockets Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin is launching from Texas with passengers.

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    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.

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  • NASA takes one step closer to launching quiet supersonic jets

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    A supersonic jet plane designed to make very little noise took flight for the first time this week, cruising over the southern California desert just after sunrise in what could be the first step toward much faster commercial travel, according to NASA.

    NASA and the U.S. weapons and aerospace manufacturer Lockheed Martin successfully tested a jet Tuesday that is capable of traveling faster than the speed of sound.

    Supersonic jets may seem futuristic, but aircraft have been capable of flying that fast since the 1940s. The problem is that ultra fast planes are banned for commercial travel over land because they make an explosive — and frightening — “sonic boom” that disturbs the public.

    If NASA and Lockheed Martin can successfully lower the volume, the new jets could slash travel time between places like New York City and Los Angeles roughly in half, opening up an entirely new air travel industry.

    The X-59 is capable of flying faster than the speed of sound with what Lockheed Martin described as only a “gentle thump.” Tuesday’s test flight was still slower than the speed of sound and was intended primarily to test the plane’s structural integrity. Still, it was celebrated as a significant step toward the widespread use of supersonic travel.

    The compact, 100 foot (30 meter) plane launched from the Lockheed Martin Skunk Works facility in Palmdale, about 60 miles (100 km) north of Los Angeles, coasted over the desert and landed near NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center about 40 miles (64 km) away.

    The first airplane to move faster than the speed of sound — or 767 mph (1,235 kph) — took off nearly 80 years ago in 1947, according to NASA. But flights at that speed were banned over land in the United States soon in response to polling. Residents complained that the noise reverberated through large cities, rattling windows and startling the public.

    There were transatlantic supersonic flights with British Airways and Air France starting in the 1970s, but those were halted in 2003 after a fatal crash three years earlier tanked demand for the expensive service.

    NASA and Lockheed Martin have for years been working on a solution that would circumvent the noise and lead to regulatory change, in large part to make commercial supersonic travel within the United States possible.

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  • International Space Station marks 25 years of nonstop human presence in orbit

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    CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — It’s an unprecedented space streak: 25 years of people living off-planet without even a moment’s pause.

    The International Space Station marks a quarter-century of continuous occupancy this weekend, boasting a guest list of nearly 300 — mostly professional astronauts but also the occasional space tourist and movie director. The first full-time residents opened the hatch on Nov. 2, 2000.

    With only five years left at the scientific outpost, NASA is counting on private companies to launch their own orbiting stations with an even bigger and wider clientele.

    Here’s a look at what has been and what is ahead:

    NASA’s Bill Shepherd and Russia’s Sergei Krikalev and Yuri Gidzenko took off in a Russian Soyuz rocket from Kazakhstan on Oct. 31, 2000. They reached the dark, humid, three-room station two days later and spent almost five months on board, making the place not only functional but hospitable.

    Shepherd, a former Navy SEAL who retired in 2002, serves on a space station advisory committee with Krikalev, now a high-ranking Russian space official.

    While relations between the U.S. and Russia are “quite bad” on the national level, “person to person and even space agency to space agency, they’re actually quite good,” Shepherd told The Associated Press.

    By NASA’s count, 290 people from 26 countries have visited the space station. Seven are up there right now, representing the U.S., Russia and Japan.

    Most of the visitors have flown courtesy of their homelands.

    The first to pay his own way — California businessman Dennis Tito — launched with the Russians in 2001 over NASA’s objections. Hungry for cash, Russia continued flying private clients, including a Russian movie crew in 2021.

    NASA now embraces space tourism, inviting private crews for two-week stays. Dropping by the station a few months ago were the first astronauts in decades from India, Poland and Hungary, accompanied by the station’s first female commander, Peggy Whitson. “Space brings people together,” she noted.

    Operations may look easy and ho-hum as astronauts come and go, but “there’s nothing routine about it,” former NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said at a recent presentation.

    Among the more serious stumbles: a spacewalker’s near-drowning, a docking that sent the station into a wild spin, persistent cracks and air leaks, and the ever-growing threat of space junk.

    Shepherd is surprised it’s still going strong. “The fact that it’s more than twice its design life on a lot of things is pretty remarkable,” he said.

    Space station life has improved drastically since Shepherd and his crew toughed it out.

    “It’s a four-star hotel now,” he said. “You couldn’t ask for better accommodations, at least in space.”

    Now the size of a football field with multiple labs, the station has an internet phone for astronauts’ personal use and a glassed-in cupola, or dome, for prime Earth views and performances.

    Canada’s guitar-playing astronaut Chris Hadfield famously performed David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” and other tunes from that perch more than a decade ago.

    Experimental hothouses also have added color and zip, yielding chile peppers and zinnias. An espresso machine even got a brief tryout, as did a cookie-baking oven. But there’s still no shower or laundry — sponge baths only, with dirty clothes tossed instead of washed.

    Astronauts have gotten married and welcomed newborn children while serving on the space station. One of the new space dads — Mike Fincke — is up there again, more than 20 years after he dialed in from orbit to his wife’s delivery room.

    Station residents have also dealt with heartbreak. An astronaut’s mother was killed in a car accident in 2007. And in 2011, Scott Kelly was midway through a five-month stay when his sister-in-law, U.S. Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, was shot in the head and survived.

    Others have had to cope with delayed returns, the most recent and extreme case involving stuck astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams. Their planned weeklong test flight of Boeing’s new Starliner capsule turned into a station stay of more than nine months, with NASA switching to SpaceX for the return trip.

    Thousands of experiments have been conducted, many on the astronauts themselves. Medical tests took on increased urgency several years ago when an astronaut discovered a blood clot in one of their jugular veins. Doctors oversaw treatment from afar until the patient was safely back home.

    NASA also launched a twins study with the Kelly brothers. Scott Kelly took part in NASA’s first yearlong expedition in 2015 and 2016, comparing his body with identical twin Mark’s on the ground. Mark Kelly also contributed to astronomy, leading a shuttle mission to deliver and install a cosmic particle detector. Upgrades are planned next year.

    NASA is paying SpaceX nearly $1 billion to boot the space station from orbit in early 2031. The company will launch a heavy-duty capsule to dock with the station and steer it to a fiery reentry over the Pacific.

    Before that happens, Axiom Space will remove the module it plans to send to the station. That free-flying module will form the nucleus of Axiom’s own space station. Other companies are working on their own concepts.

    NASA wants to avoid a gap between the International Space Station and its successors, preserving America’s continued human presence in orbit.

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    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.

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  • Japan successfully launches new cargo spacecraft to deliver supplies to ISS

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    TOKYO — Japan’s space agency successfully launched Sunday its most powerful flagship H3 rocket, carrying a newly developed unmanned cargo spacecraft for its first mission to deliver supplies to the International Space Station.

    The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency said the HTV-X1 spacecraft successfully lifted off atop the No. 7 H3 rocket from Japan’s Tanegashima Space Center in the country’s south and confirmed it entered targeted orbit 14 minutes after liftoff.

    The spacecraft was separated and placed into a planned orbit, JAXA said. If everything goes smoothly, it is expected to arrive at the ISS in a few days to deliver supplies. Japanese astronaut Kimiya Yui, currently at the ISS, is set to catch the craft with a robot arm in the early hours of Thursday.

    The HTV-X is the successor to JAXA’s unmanned H-II Transfer Vehicle, known as Kounotori, or stork in Japanese, which flew nine missions to the ISS between 2009 and 2020.

    The new freighter can carry a bigger payload and supply power during flight, enabling the transport of lab samples that require storage at low temperatures.

    The HTV-X is designed to be connected to the ISS for up to six months to deliver supplies and retrieve waste from the ISS, then conduct technical missions while making an orbital flight after leaving the station, this time for three months.

    Sunday’s launch also marks a successful debut for H3 rocket’s most powerful version, with four rocket boosters and a bigger fairing, a top compartment for payloads, officials said.

    JAXA President Hiroshi Yamakawa called Sunday’s launch “a major step forward” that demonstrated Japan’s capability of delivering supplies to space, which serves as “the basis of autonomous space activity.”

    Iwao Igarashi, head of the Space Business Department at Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, responsible for developing H3 with JAXA and operating rocket launches, said Japan’s track record of on-time launch and accuracy in delivering payloads and the newly modified rocket prove they can accommodate a range of customer needs. He said his company plans to expand its launch facility.

    H3 rocket replaces Japan’s long-beloved mainstay H-2A rocket, which made its final flight in June, as a new flagship model designed to be more cost-competitive in the global space market. The H3 has so far made six consecutive successful flights after a failed debut attempt in 2023, when the rocket had to be destroyed with its payload.

    Japan sees a stable, commercially competitive space transport capability as key to its space program and national security.

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  • NASA’s Boss Just Shook Up the Agency’s Plans to Land on the Moon

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    Duffy also cites “maybe others” getting involved. This refers to a third option. In recent weeks, officials from traditional space companies have been telling Duffy and the chief of staff at the Department of Transportation, Pete Meachum, that they can build an Apollo Lunar Module–like lander within 30 months. Amit Kshatriya, NASA’s associate administrator, favors this government-led approach, sources said.

    On Monday, in a statement to Ars, a Lockheed Martin official confirmed that the company was ready if NASA called upon them.

    “Throughout this year, Lockheed Martin has been performing significant technical and programmatic analysis for human lunar landers that would provide options to NASA for a safe solution to return humans to the moon as quickly as possible,” said Bob Behnken, vice president of exploration and technology strategy at Lockheed Martin Space. “We have been working with a cross-industry team of companies, and together we are looking forward to addressing Secretary Duffy’s request to meet our country’s lunar objectives.”

    NASA would not easily be able to rip up its existing human lander system contracts with SpaceX and Blue Origin, as, especially with the former, much of the funding has already been awarded for milestone payments. Rather, Duffy would likely have to find new funding from Congress. And it would not be cheap. This NASA analysis from 2017 estimates that a cost-plus, sole-source lunar lander would cost $20 billion to $30 billion, or nearly 10 times what NASA awarded to SpaceX in 2021.

    SpaceX founder Elon Musk, responding to Duffy’s comments, seemed to relish the challenge posed by industry competitors.

    “SpaceX is moving like lightning compared to the rest of the space industry,” Musk said on the social media site he owns, X. “Moreover, Starship will end up doing the whole moon mission. Mark my words.”

    The Timing

    Duffy’s remarks on television on Monday morning, although significant for the broader space community, also seemed intended for an audience of one—President Trump.

    The president appointed Duffy, already leading the Department of Transportation, to lead NASA on an interim basis in July. This came six weeks after the president, for political reasons, rescinded his nomination of billionaire and private astronaut Jared Isaacman to lead the space agency.

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    Eric Berger, Ars Technica

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  • SpaceX launches the 11th test flight of mega Starship rocket

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    SpaceX launched another of its mammoth Starship rockets on a test flight Monday, successfully making it halfway around the world while releasing mock satellites like last time.

    Starship — the biggest and most powerful rocket ever built — thundered into the evening sky from the southern tip of Texas. The booster peeled away and made a controlled entry into the Gulf of Mexico as planned, with the spacecraft skimming space before descending into the Indian Ocean. Nothing was recovered.

    “Hey, welcome back to Earth, Starship,” SpaceX’s Dan Huot announced as employees cheered. “What a day.”

    It was the 11th test flight for a full-scale Starship, which SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk intends to use to send people to Mars. NASA’s need is more immediate. The space agency cannot land astronauts on the moon by decade’s end without the 403-foot (123-meter) Starship, the reusable vehicle meant to get them from lunar orbit down to the surface and back up.

    Instead of remaining inside Launch Control as usual, Musk said that for the first time he was going outside to watch — “much more visceral.”

    The previous test flight in August — a success after a string of explosive failures — followed a similar path with similar goals. More maneuvering was built in this time, especially for the spacecraft. SpaceX conducted a series of tests during the spacecraft’s entry over the Indian Ocean as practice for future landings back at the launch site.

    Like before, Starship carried up eight mock satellites mimicking SpaceX’s Starlinks. The entire flight lasted just over an hour, originating from Starbase near the Mexican border.

    NASA’s acting administrator Sean Duffy praised Starship’s progress. “Another major step toward landing Americans on the moon’s south pole,” he said via X.

    SpaceX is modifying its Cape Canaveral launch sites to accommodate Starships, in addition to the much smaller Falcon rockets used to transport astronauts and supplies to the International Space Station for NASA.

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    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.

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  • SpaceX launches the 11th test flight of its mega Starship rocket with another win

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    SpaceX launched another of its mammoth Starship rockets on a test flight Monday, successfully making it halfway around the world while releasing mock satellites like last time.

    Starship — the biggest and most powerful rocket ever built — thundered into the evening sky from the southern tip of Texas. The booster peeled away and made a controlled entry into the Gulf of Mexico as planned, with the spacecraft skimming space before descending into the Indian Ocean. Nothing was recovered.

    “Hey, welcome back to Earth, Starship,” SpaceX’s Dan Huot announced as employees cheered. “What a day.”

    It was the 11th test flight for a full-scale Starship, which SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk intends to use to send people to Mars. NASA’s need is more immediate. The space agency cannot land astronauts on the moon by decade’s end without the 403-foot (123-meter) Starship, the reusable vehicle meant to get them from lunar orbit down to the surface and back up.

    Instead of remaining inside Launch Control as usual, Musk said that for the first time he was going outside to watch — “much more visceral.”

    The previous test flight in August — a success after a string of explosive failures — followed a similar path with similar goals. More maneuvering was built in this time, especially for the spacecraft. SpaceX conducted a series of tests during the spacecraft’s entry over the Indian Ocean as practice for future landings back at the launch site.

    Like before, Starship carried up eight mock satellites mimicking SpaceX’s Starlinks. The entire flight lasted just over an hour, originating from Starbase near the Mexican border.

    NASA’s acting administrator Sean Duffy praised Starship’s progress. “Another major step toward landing Americans on the moon’s south pole,” he said via X.

    SpaceX is modifying its Cape Canaveral launch sites to accommodate Starships, in addition to the much smaller Falcon rockets used to transport astronauts and supplies to the International Space Station for NASA.

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    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.

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  • She saw a car-sized object over a Texas farm and found wayward hunk of NASA equipment

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    When Ann Walter looked outside her rural West Texas home, she didn’t know what to make of the bulky object slowly drifting across the sky.

    She was even more surprised to see what actually landed in her neighbor’s wheat field: a boxy piece of scientific equipment about the size of a sport-utility vehicle, attached to a massive parachute, adorned with NASA stickers. She called the local sheriff’s office and learned that NASA, indeed, was looking for a piece of equipment that had gone lost.

    “It’s crazy, because when you’re standing on the ground and see something in the air, you don’t realize how big it is,” she said. “It was probably a 30-foot parachute. It was huge.”

    Walter said she soon got a call from NASA’s Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility, which launches large unmanned, high altitude research balloons more than 20 miles into the atmosphere to conduct scientific experiments.

    Officials at NASA, which is impacted by the ongoing government shutdown, did not return messages Thursday. A message left with the balloon facility also was not immediately returned.

    A launch schedule on the balloon facility’s website shows a series of launches from Fort Sumner, New Mexico, about 140 miles (225 kilometers) west of where the equipment landed.

    Hale County Sheriff David Cochran confirmed that NASA officials called his office last week in search of the equipment.

    Walter said she ultimately spoke with someone at the balloon facility who told her it had been launched a day earlier from Fort Sumner, and uses telescopes to gather information about stars, galaxies and black holes.

    “The researchers came out with a truck and trailer they used to pick it up,” she said.

    But not before Walter and her family, who live in Edmonson, Texas, were able to capture some photos and videos.

    “It’s kind of surreal that it happened to us and that I was part of it,” she said. “It was a very cool experience.”

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  • Interstellar comet swinging past Mars as a fleet of spacecraft looks on

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    CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — A comet from another star system will swing by Mars on Friday as a fleet of spacecraft trains its sights on the interstellar visitor.

    The comet known as 3I/Atlas will hurtle within 18 million miles (29 million kilometers) of the red planet, its closest approach during its trek through the inner solar system. Its breakneck speed: 193,000 mph (310,000 kph).

    Both of the European Space Agency’s satellites around Mars are already aiming their cameras at the comet, which is only the third interstellar object known to have passed our way. NASA’s satellite and rovers at the red planet are also available to assist in the observations.

    Discovered in July, the comet poses no threat to Earth or its neighboring planets. It will come closest to the sun at the end of October. Throughout November, ESA’s Juice spacecraft, which is headed to Jupiter and its icy moons, will keep an eye on the comet.

    The comet will make its closest approach to Earth in December, passing within 167 million miles (269 million kilometers).

    Observations by the Hubble Space Telescope put the comet’s nucleus at no more than 3.5 miles (5.6 kilometers) across. It could be as small as 1,444 feet (440 meters), according to NASA.

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    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.

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  • Study adds to possibility of favorable conditions for life at Saturn’s moon Enceladus

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    CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Scientists have uncovered new types of organics in icy geysers spouting from Saturn’s moon Enceladus, bolstering the likelihood that the ocean world may harbor conditions suitable for life.

    Their findings, reported Wednesday, are based on observations made by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft in 2008 during a close and fast flyby of Enceladus. The small moon, one of 274 orbiting Saturn, has long been considered a prime candidate in the search for life beyond Earth because of its hidden ocean and plumes of water erupting from cracks near its south pole.

    While Enceladus may be habitable, no one is suggesting that life exists.

    “Being habitable and being inhabited are two very different things. We believe that Enceladus is habitable, but we do not know if life is indeed present,” said the University of Washington’s Fabian Klenner, who took part in the study.

    An international team decided to launch a fresh analysis of tiny grains of ice encountered as Cassini flew through the moon’s geysers. The grains were young compared with the much older geyser particles that ended up in one of Saturn’s outermost rings.

    These new grains collided with Cassini’s cosmic dust analyzer at 40,000 mph (64,800 kph), faster than the old ones. The increased speed provided a clearer view of the chemical compounds present, the scientists noted.

    Organic molecules already had been spotted in the old geyser grains, but their age raised questions as to whether they had been altered over the years by space radiation.

    Scientists found some of the same molecules in the fresh grains, confirming they came from the moon’s underground sea, as well as new chemical compounds. The findings were published in Nature Astronomy.

    An ice-encapsulated water world barely 310 miles (500 kilometers) across with a rocky core, Enceladus is suspected of having hydrothermal vents on its ocean floor, quite possibly like those in the Arctic. The moon’s jets of water vapor and frozen particles can stretch thousands of miles (kilometers) into space.

    “We are confident that these molecules originate from the subsurface ocean of Enceladus, enhancing its habitability potential,” the Free University of Berlin’s Nozair Khawaja, the lead author, said in an email.

    The scientists favor new missions to further explore Enceladus. Launched in 1997, Cassini is long gone; the spacecraft was deliberately plunged into Saturn in 2017 following its joint mission by NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency.

    “Having a variety of organic compounds on an extraterrestrial water world is simply phenomenal,” Klenner said in an email.

    The European Space Agency is in the early planning stages of a mission to land on Enceladus decades from now. China also has proposed a landing mission.

    NASA has a spacecraft en route to another enticing target to hunt for the ingredients of life: Jupiter’s moon Europa. The Europa Clipper is expected to begin orbiting Jupiter in 2030 with dozens of Europa flybys. ESA also has a spacecraft, Juice, that’s headed to Jupiter to explore Europa and two other icy moons that could hold buried oceans.

    Underground oceans on moons “are perhaps the best candidates for the emergence of extraterrestrial life in our solar system. This work only confirms the need for further studies,” said University of Kent physics professor Nigel Mason, who was not involved in the latest findings.

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    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

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  • A trio of space weather satellites blast off together to study the sun’s violent side

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    CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — A cluster of space weather satellites blasted off Wednesday morning to cast fresh eyes on solar storms that can produce stunning auroras but also scramble communications and threaten astronauts in flight.

    The three satellites soared from Kennedy Space Center shortly after sunrise on the same SpaceX rocket. They aimed for a sun-orbiting lookout 1 million miles (1.6 million kilometers) from Earth, each on its own separate mission.

    Altogether, the satellites from NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, plus related costs, are worth about $1.6 billion. NASA’s Joe Westlake calls it “the ultimate cosmic carpool” by sharing a rocket to save money.

    Heading the lineup is NASA’s Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe, the first to be deployed. It will scrutinize the outer limits of the heliosphere, the protective, solar wind-driven bubble of gas around our solar system.

    As a bonus, IMAP will be capable of providing advance notice of solar storms — a valuable 30-minute heads-up — for astronauts exploring the moon under NASA’s Artemis program. Officials expect the observatory to be fully operational by the time four astronauts fly around the moon and back next year.

    NASA’s smaller Carruthers Geocorona Observatory also is flying, focusing on Earth’s outermost, glowing atmosphere that extends well beyond the moon. It’s named after the late scientist George Carruthers, who invented the ultraviolet telescope left on the moon by the Apollo 16 astronauts in 1972.

    NOAA’s newest space weather observatory will be pushed into full-time, around-the-clock forecasting service. It will keep tab on the sun’s activity and measure the solar wind to help keep Earth safe from threatening flares.

    Officials expect NASA’s satellites to be in position and operational by the beginning of next year, and NOAA’s spacecraft by spring.

    NASA is kicking in more than $879 million for its two missions, while NOAA’s share is $693 million.

    While NASA already has a fleet of sun-observing spacecraft, science mission chief Nicky Fox said these newer missions offer more advanced instruments that will provide more sensitive measurements.

    “Just being able to put all those together to give us a much, much better view of the sun,” she said.

    The goal is to better understand the sun in order to better protect Earth, according to officials. As spectacular as they are, the northern and southern lights will not be the missions’ focus.

    During a preview of NASA’s upcoming Artemis mission around the moon, science officials said Tuesday that these new space weather missions will enhance forecasting and provide vital alerts if major solar activity strikes. If that happens, the four astronauts will take temporary shelter in a storage area under the capsule’s floor to avoid the heightened radiation levels.

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    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.

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  • NASA introduces its newest astronauts: 10 chosen from more than 8,000 applicants

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    CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — NASA introduced its newest astronauts Monday, 10 scientists, engineers and test pilots chosen from more than 8,000 applicants to help explore the moon and possibly Mars.

    For the first time, there were more women than men in a NASA astronaut class. They included a geologist who worked on NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover, a SpaceX engineer who flew on a billionaire-sponsored spaceflight that featured the world’s first private spacewalk and a former SpaceX launch director.

    The group will undergo two years of training before becoming eligible for spaceflight. Acting Administrator Sean Duffy said one of them could become the first person to step on Mars.

    It is the 24th astronaut class for NASA since the original Mercury Seven made their debut in 1959. The previous class was in 2021.

    Only 370 people have been selected by NASA as astronauts, making it an extraordinarily small and elite group composed mostly of men. The latest additions — revealed during a ceremony at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston — will join 41 active U.S. astronauts currently serving in the corps.

    NASA’s flight operations director Norm Knight said competition was stiff and called the newcomers “distinguished” and “exceptional.”

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    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.

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  • Engine trouble forces Northrop Grumman to delay supply delivery to International Space Station

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    CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — A newly launched supply ship has run into engine trouble that is preventing it from reaching the International Space Station.

    Northrop Grumman’s capsule rocketed into orbit Sunday from Florida aboard SpaceX. But less than two days later, the capsule’s main engine shut down prematurely while trying to boost its orbit.

    The Cygnus capsule was supposed to dock Wednesday, delivering more than 11,000 pounds (5,000 kilograms) of cargo. But NASA said everything is on hold while flight controllers consider an alternate plan.

    This marked the debut of Northrop Grumman’s newest, extra large model, known as Cygnus XL, capable of ferrying a much bigger load.

    The shipment includes food and science experiments for the seven space station residents, as well as spare parts for the toilet and other systems.

    Northrop Grumman is one of NASA’s two cargo suppliers to the space station. The other is SpaceX. Russia also provides regular shipments to the 260-mile-high (420-kilometer-high) orbiting lab, with the latest delivery arriving over the weekend.

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    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.

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  • Russian Progress spacecraft arrives at the ISS with 2.8 tons of cargo

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    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).

    Related Stories:

    — ISS astronauts watch Russian cargo ship burn up in Earth’s atmosphere (photos)

    — Facts about Russia’s Progress cargo ship

    — Roscosmos: Russia’s space agency

    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.

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  • Falcon 9 Milestones Vindicate SpaceX’s ‘Dumb’ Approach to Reuse

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    As SpaceX’s Starship vehicle gathered all of the attention this week, the company’s workhorse Falcon 9 rocket continued to hit some impressive milestones.

    Both occurred during relatively anonymous launches of the company’s Starlink satellites but are nonetheless notable because they underscore the value of first-stage reuse, which SpaceX has pioneered over the past decade.

    The first milestone occurred on Wednesday morning with the launch of the Starlink 10-56 mission from Cape Canaveral, Florida. The first stage that launched these satellites, Booster 1096, was making its second launch and successfully landed on the Just Read the Instructions drone ship. Strikingly, this was the 400th time SpaceX has executed a drone ship landing.

    Then, less than 24 hours later, another Falcon 9 rocket launched the Starlink 10-11 mission from a nearby launch pad at Kennedy Space Center. This first stage, Booster 1067, subsequently returned and landed on another drone ship, A Shortfall of Gravitas.

    This is a special booster, having made its debut in June 2021 and launching a wide variety of missions, including two Crew Dragon vehicles to the International Space Station and some Galileo satellites for the European Union. On Thursday, the rocket made its 30th flight, the first time a Falcon 9 booster has hit that level of experience.

    A Decade in the Making

    These milestones came about one decade after SpaceX began to have some success with first-stage reuse.

    The company first made a controlled entry of the Falcon 9 rocket’s first stage in September 2013, during the first flight of version 1.1 of the vehicle. This proved the viability of the concept of supersonic retropropulsion, which was, until that time, just theoretical.

    This involves igniting the rocket’s nine Merlin engines while the vehicle is traveling faster than the speed of sound through the upper atmosphere, with external temperatures exceeding 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit. Due to the blunt force of this reentry, the engines in the outer ring of the rocket wanted to get splayed out, the company’s chief of propulsion at the time, Tom Mueller, told me for the book Reentry. Success on the first try seemed improbable.

    He recalled watching this launch from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California and observing reentry as a camera aboard SpaceX founder Elon Musk’s private jet tracked the rocket. The first stage made it all the way down, intact.

    “I remember watching the live video and seeing the light of the engine on the ocean,” Mueller said. “And holy shit, it was there. The rocket came down, landed in the ocean, and blew up. That was unreal. It worked the first time. I was like, get the barge ready. Get the landing legs ready. This shit works.”

    It would take a good deal more tinkering and experimentation, but by December 2015, SpaceX had landed its first rocket on a pad along the Florida coast. The first drone ship landing followed in April 2016. A little less than a year after this, SpaceX reflew a Falcon 9 stage for the first time.

    Silencing the Doubters

    Many people in the industry were skeptical about SpaceX’s approach to reuse. In the mid-2010s, both the European and Japanese space agencies were looking to develop their next generation of rockets. In both cases, Europe with the Ariane 6 and Japan with the H3, the space agencies opted for traditional, expendable rockets instead of pushing toward reuse.

    As a result, both of these competitors for commercial satellite launches are now about a decade behind SpaceX in terms of launch technology. If the ambitious Starship rocket is successful, that gap could widen further.

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    Eric Berger, Ars Technica

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  • SpaceX Starship Finally Pulls Off a Successful Test Flight

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    Elon Musk and his SpaceX team can breathe a collective sigh of relief. After days of postponements, Starship was finally able to launch its tenth test could flight from the launch pad in Starbase, Texas.

    SpaceX’s largest and most powerful rocket lifted off this Tuesday, August 26 at 7:30pm ET, reached an altitude of 192 kilometers, and embarked on a suborbital trajectory at more than 26,000 kilometers per hour towards the Indian Ocean, where the spacecraft splashed down an hour after liftoff.

    Tuesday’s Starship liftoff generated anticipation far above other recent SpaceX test flights, with more than 1.8 million viewers watching the livestream on the company’s X account. Why so much interest? For one, the catastrophic failure on June 18 that resulted in the huge explosion and destruction of Starship vehicle 36, among other past mishaps. The program has also drawn protests by activists and citizens in Texas alarmed by the environmental impact of testing and maneuvering in and around Starbase. The Mexican government has also decried the amount of debris that has ended up in its territory.

    Starship also plays an important role in Musk’s ambitions to colonize Mars, and its success is integral to its relationship with the US government—its biggest customer.

    Starship was designed as a fully reusable space transportation system. It consists of two parts: the Super Heavy, a booster powered by a set of 33 Raptor engines that provides the necessary thrust to leave Earth; and Starship, the spacecraft that would be responsible for carrying crew and cargo to outer space.

    Starship’s tenth flight test not only flew halfway around the world, it was also responsible for deploying eight Starlink simulators, artifacts similar in size to the next generation of Starlink (V3) satellites. The simulators were successfully deployed when the Starship reached an altitude of 190 kilometers over the Atlantic Ocean within half an hour of liftoff. Tests were also performed on other elements of the vehicle, including the Super Heavy’s ability to perform a successful splashdown over the waters of the Gulf of Mexico within minutes of liftoff.

    As the Starship prepared for re-entry at 26,660 kilometers per hour, the vehicle showed some damage to its outer shell. However, one hour and six minutes after liftoff, it was able to reach its destination in one piece, until it attempted to land in a vertical position over the ocean, which resulted in the anticipated destruction of vehicle 37. An explosive close to an exciting day for the SpaceX team, with a lot of data to analyze on the horizon.

    This story originally appeared on WIRED en Español and has been translated from Spanish.

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    Javier Carbajal

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  • Liftoff: NASA’s Europa Clipper Sails Toward Ocean Moon of Jupiter

    Liftoff: NASA’s Europa Clipper Sails Toward Ocean Moon of Jupiter

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    NASA’s Europa Clipper has embarked on its long voyage to Jupiter, where it will investigate Europa, a moon with an enormous subsurface ocean that may have conditions to support life.

    The spacecraft launched at 12:06pm EDT Monday aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from Launch Pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Central Florida.

    The largest spacecraft NASA ever built for a mission headed to another planet, Europa Clipper also is the first NASA mission dedicated to studying an ocean world beyond Earth. The spacecraft will travel 1.8 billion miles (2.9 billion kilometers) on a trajectory that will leverage the power of gravity assists, first to Mars in four months and then back to Earth for another gravity assist flyby in 2026. After it begins orbiting Jupiter in April 2030, the spacecraft will fly past Europa 49 times.

    “Congratulations to our Europa Clipper team for beginning the first journey to an ocean world beyond Earth,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. “NASA leads the world in exploration and discovery, and the Europa Clipper mission is no different. By exploring the unknown, Europa Clipper will help us better understand whether there is the potential for life not just within our solar system, but among the billions of moons and planets beyond our Sun.”

    Approximately five minutes after liftoff, the rocket’s second stage fired up and the payload fairing, or the rocket’s nose cone, opened to reveal Europa Clipper. About an hour after launch, the spacecraft separated from the rocket. Ground controllers received a signal soon after, and two-way communication was established at 1:13pm with NASA’s Deep Space Network facility in Canberra, Australia. Mission teams celebrated as initial telemetry reports showed Europa Clipper is in good health and operating as expected.

    “We could not be more excited for the incredible and unprecedented science NASA’s Europa Clipper mission will deliver in the generations to come,” said Nicky Fox, associate administrator, Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “Everything in NASA science is interconnected, and Europa Clipper’s scientific discoveries will build upon the legacy that our other missions exploring Jupiter — including Juno, Galileo, and Voyager — created in our search for habitable worlds beyond our home planet.”

    The main goal of the mission is to determine whether Europa has conditions that could support life. Europa is about the size of our own Moon, but its interior is different. Information from NASA’s Galileo mission in the 1990s showed strong evidence that under Europa’s ice lies an enormous, salty ocean with more water than all of Earth’s oceans combined. Scientists also have found evidence that Europa may host organic compounds and energy sources under its surface.

    If the mission determines Europa is habitable, it may mean there are more habitable worlds in our solar system and beyond than imagined.

    “We’re ecstatic to send Europa Clipper on its way to explore a potentially habitable ocean world, thanks to our colleagues and partners who’ve worked so hard to get us to this day,” said Laurie Leshin, director, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “Europa Clipper will undoubtedly deliver mind-blowing science. While always bittersweet to send something we’ve labored over for years off on its long journey, we know this remarkable team and spacecraft will expand our knowledge of our solar system and inspire future exploration.”

    In 2031, the spacecraft will begin conducting its science-dedicated flybys of Europa. Coming as close as 16 miles (25 kilometers) to the surface, Europa Clipper is equipped with nine science instruments and a gravity experiment, including an ice-penetrating radar, cameras, and a thermal instrument to look for areas of warmer ice and any recent eruptions of water. As the most sophisticated suite of science instruments NASA has ever sent to Jupiter, they will work in concert to learn more about the moon’s icy shell, thin atmosphere, and deep interior.

    To power those instruments in the faint sunlight that reaches Jupiter, Europa Clipper also carries the largest solar arrays NASA has ever used for an interplanetary mission. With arrays extended, the spacecraft spans 100 feet (30.5 meters) from end to end. With propellant loaded, it weighs about 13,000 pounds (5,900 kilograms).

    In all, more than 4,000 people have contributed to Europa Clipper mission since it was formally approved in 2015.

    “As Europa Clipper embarks on its journey, I’ll be thinking about the countless hours of dedication, innovation, and teamwork that made this moment possible,” said Jordan Evans, project manager, NASA JPL. “This launch isn’t just the next chapter in our exploration of the solar system; it’s a leap toward uncovering the mysteries of another ocean world, driven by our shared curiosity and continued search to answer the question, ‘are we alone?’”

    Europa Clipper’s three main science objectives are to determine the thickness of the moon’s icy shell and its interactions with the ocean below, to investigate its composition, and to characterize its geology. The mission’s detailed exploration of Europa will help scientists better understand the astrobiological potential for habitable worlds beyond our planet.

    Managed by Caltech in Pasadena, California, NASA JPL leads the development of the Europa Clipper mission in partnership with the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The main spacecraft body was designed by APL in collaboration with NASA JPL and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, and NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. The Planetary Missions Program Office at Marshall executes program management of the Europa Clipper mission.

    NASA’s Launch Services Program, based at NASA Kennedy, managed the launch service for the Europa Clipper spacecraft.

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