May 31st, 2026
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The recent loss of Blue Origin’s New Glenn booster that blew up during an on-the-pad engine test drew NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman to visit the blast zone in Florida. “We go where we need to be, and today that was NASA Kennedy,” Isaacman posted on X. He and several senior engineers spent time at Blue […]
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A novel approach to scouting about over the sand dunes of Mars is the Valles Marineris Explorer – or VaMEx in probing Red Planet terms. VaMEx is a project of the German Space Agency at the German Aerospace Center (DLR). The goal of the VaMEx initiative is to blueprint an autonomous, heterogeneous robot swarm for […]
FAA Completes Environmental Review for SpaceX Starfall The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has issued the Final Environmental Assessment for the SpaceX Starfall reentry vehicle. The review evaluated the environmental impacts of reentry, splashdown, and recovery activities. Under the proposal, SpaceX would launch two Starfall missions to Low Earth Orbit or to a sub-orbital trajectory as […]
Following a space station handover ceremony, China’s Shenzhou-21 astronaut crew returned to Earth on Friday (Beijing Time, parachuting into the Dongfeng landing site in north China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. The Shenzhou-21 crew spent seven months in space, setting a new record for the longest in-orbit stay by a Chinese astronaut crew. Shenzhou-21 astronauts Zhang […]
The incident took place at roughly 9 p.m. Eastern Times. The explosion happened as the New Glenn’s seven BE-4 first-stage engines ignited for an on-the-pad test. The lost launcher was slated to support an Amazon Leo mission next week. From NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman: “NASA is aware of the anomaly that occurred tonight at […]
A new report has reviewed the strategic and security implications of placing mass driver technology on the moon. Mass drivers are inherently dual use, the report states, not only for helping create American economic prowess in space, but being large electrically-driven cannons, it’s infrastructure that can flex U.S. military muscle on the moon. The special […]
Two young South Asian women are set to carry out dedicated research on menstruation in space. Manju Bangalore and Priya Abiram are to fly aboard a 2027 suborbital flight via a Virgin Galactic space plane, the research tagged as Operation Period-01 (OP-01). The duo will delve into pioneering research that will help expand reproductive health […]
A few days prior to NASA’s update on its Moon Base plans, China is shifting gears in its own humans on the lunar surface outing. China is establishing an integrated program called the Lunar Exploration Program, melding both its robotic Chang’e lunar probe activities with the country’s human spaceflight program. Zhang Jingbo, spokesman for the […]
The American Foreign Policy Council has released a report, Strategic Implications of Lunar Mass Drivers as a Dual-use Technology. “The economic advantages of mass drivers are inseparable from their security implications, the report notes. “As high throughput launch systems, they are inherently dual use. Mass drivers are in fact, just large electrically driven cannons.” […]
In a statement from Blue Origin, “lunar permanence is only possible with recurring access to the Moon, and it starts this year. Proud to support NASA Moon Base at the lunar South Pole with our Blue Moon MK1 vehicles delivering high-cadence, low-cost access—MK1-101 Endurance (Moon Base 1), followed by MK1-102 VIPER, and two additional MK1 […]
