All articles tagged with #nasa
NASA selected Blue Origin to design, build, launch and operate the Mars Telecommunications Network (MTN), a $700 million relay spacecraft that will provide high‑ bandwidth communications and navigation for Mars missions; MTN is expected to be in operation at Mars by 2030, with delivery to NASA by December 31, 2028, and will likely launch on Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket.
NASA launched the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope on Aug. 30, 2026, and a 100-day cruise to the L2 point is being tracked in near real time online. Mission controllers are conducting commissioning and a mid-course burn to fine‑tune its trajectory toward L2. Once in position, Roman will map billions of galaxies with a wide-field camera, returning about 1.4 terabytes of data daily over its five‑year prime mission, with first detailed images expected by December and surveys starting in January 2027.
NASA awarded Blue Origin a $700 million contract to develop a Mars communications orbiter, slated for launch in just over two years, with Blue Origin proposing a variant of its Blue Ring spacecraft for the mission.
SpaceX's Falcon Heavy roared to life with 27 Merlin engines during the Aug. 30, 2026 launch of NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, sending the observatory toward a stable point at Lagrange Point 2 for early online operations and future science on dark energy and exoplanets; Space.com designated the image as the Space Photo of the Day for Sept. 2, 2026.
NASA awarded Blue Origin a contract potentially worth up to $700 million to develop a Mars Telecommunications Network—a high‑performance orbiter to relay science data, imagery, navigation, and mission communications for spacecraft around Mars—by the end of 2028, a step toward supporting Artemis-era exploration and eventual crewed missions.
NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope launched on Aug 30 and is en route to a Sun–Earth Lagrange point, where its coronagraph will directly image exoplanets and its spectroscopy mode will probe atmospheres, while broader sky surveys aim to shed light on dark energy and the fate of the universe, in coordination with Webb, Euclid, Rubin, and Hubble.
NASA astronaut Jessica Meir and ESA’s Sophie Adenot completed a six-hour, 49-minute spacewalk to replace the ISS’s Harmony Node 2 forward-port planar deflector (used for docking) and the CP3 HD camera, replacing the older unit coated with thruster residue. Meir torqued 46 bolts near the AMS and relocated power/thermal jumpers, while Adenot carried out exterior science checks before an issue with mobility in her left shoulder briefly paused the EVA. The outing was the sixth all-female spacewalk in history; Meir now has seven EVAs and Adenot three, as they contributed to ongoing ISS maintenance and upgrades.
APOD's Aug 28, 2026 image from ESO's Paranal Observatory in Chile stacks 300 frames of 25 seconds each to trace star trails around the south celestial pole, illustrating Earth's rotation at about 1,500 km/h as seen from 25°S, with the AT 3 telescope visible in the foreground.
Two astronauts—NASA's Jessica Meir and ESA's Sophie Adenot—will conduct history's sixth all-female spacewalk from the International Space Station today, around 8:30 a.m. ET and lasting about 6.5 hours, to replace a retroreflector on the Harmony module, install data-relay jumper cables, prep the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer radiator, and swap a high-definition camera on the station's truss. Adenot wears the red-striped suit as crew member 1; Meir wears an unmarked suit as crew member 2. Coverage begins at 7:00 a.m. ET and can be watched on Space.com or NASA feeds. Meir has participated in three of the five prior all-female ISS EVAs, and Adenot’s EVA marks France’s first such mission.
NASA’s space germination tests with corn show that microgravity erases the plant’s directional cue, causing roots and shoots to grow in tangled patterns even as tissue remains healthy; scientists caution the five-day snapshot and connect findings to similar orientation issues in Arabidopsis and gene-expression studies, informing future space farming designs and the Open Science Data Repository that supports long-duration missions to Mars.
NASA is shifting away from new Mars landers or rovers in the near term and betting on aerial drones, led by the SkyFall helicopters that will ride to Mars with the SR-1 Freedom nuclear‑electric propulsion testbed. SkyFall, a three‑helicopter demonstrator (plus a spare) planned for launch as early as late 2028, will separate from SR‑1 and autonomously land, carrying science payloads like a ground‑penetrating radar and transmitting data via orbiters. The mission foregoes a full rover payload, highlighting a push for a repeatable helicopter platform amid budget constraints and a broader move toward commercial partnerships for Mars exploration.
APOD explains that lunar eclipses are visible from the Earth-facing hemisphere during the event, can be seen with the naked eye, and are popular to photograph; the image featured was taken from Portugal, illustrating that such eclipses last for hours and don’t require special equipment to enjoy.
NASA's Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory has resumed science observations with the XRT and UVOT after a private rescue mission failed to boost its orbit, leaving the Burst Alert Telescope offline. With no propulsion, Swift's orbit continues to decay, and NASA says boosting Swift is off the table; the agency now expects the observatory to reach a critical altitude in 1–2 months and likely reenter later this year, while it continues to scan the cosmos and issue alerts from its remaining capabilities.
NASA plans Artemis 3 for 2027 to achieve the next crewed lunar landing, building on the successes of Artemis 1 and Artemis 2 and leveraging the Orion crew vehicle and SLS, as teams continue accelerating the U.S. program to return humans to the Moon.
NASA's Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory has resumed two of its three science instruments (XRT and UVOT) after a private rescue mission aimed at boosting its orbit failed; the Burst Alert Telescope remains offline. NASA abandoned the orbital-boost plan following attitude-control issues with LINK, and Swift now relies on low-drag operations. With no propulsion to counter atmospheric drag, its orbit is decaying and is expected to reach a critical altitude in 1–2 months, likely resulting in reentry and burn-up later this year, though the telescope will continue to observe the cosmos until then.