The now-orbiting Shenzhou-23 crew aboard China’s Tiangong space station has recently completed the fifth transfer of material exposure experimental apparatus to the station’s exterior, advancing a series of experiments that have yielded multiple world firsts. Crew members — Zhu Yangzhu, Zhang Zhiyuan and Lai Ka-ying — were sent into space aboard the Shenzhou-23 spacecraft on […]

Virgin Galactic’s newly named spaceship Apeiron departed Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport in Arizona early today mated to Eve, the company’s launch vehicle. The vehicle combo landed at Spaceport America in New Mexico at 12:59 p.m. Mountain Daylight Time. Pilot in Command Michael Masucci and Pilot Dan Alix flew Eve, with Flight Test Engineer Tori Crichton on […]

Suborbital spaceplane-provider, Virgin Galactic, has announced the name of its lead Delta spaceship: Apeiron (App-Err-On). That name was chosen by a public vote and draws upon responses from around the world — including 83 countries and six continents. Aperion stems from the ancient Greek concept of “the boundless.” Also today, Virgin Galactic’s Apeiron will fly […]

The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) has released a new report assessing the scope and breadth of adversary threats in space. The DIA’s 2026 edition — Challenges to Security in Space — details the space defense and military goals, including strategies, plans and intentions, of China, Russia and the emerging space powers of Iran and North […]

Virgin Galactic announced today that the lead Spaceship of its next-generation fleet is set to fly to its operations base at Spaceport America, New Mexico on October 28. The Spaceship, mated to launch vehicle Eve for a captive-carry flight, will depart the company’s Spaceship Factory in Mesa, Arizona. The arrival marks the transition from vehicle […]

The U.S. Department of War has published the seventh release of Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP). Today’s new release of declassified and historical Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP) files is being done under the Presidential Unsealing and Reporting System for UAP Encounters (PURSUE). The seventh release of UAP files is available now on WAR.GOV/UFO – go to: […]

The SETI Institute has designed LaserSETI, technology to keep a constant watch on large parts of the sky, looking for very brief flashes of light. “LaserSETI was designed from the beginning as a global observatory rather than a single telescope,” said Eliot Gillum, Director of LaserSETI at the SETI Institute in Mountain View, California. The […]

When it rains space debris. Two cases of suspected Chinese rocket debris have been reported, in Indonesia and in the United States. Indonesia’s National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN) reports that several bits of debris crashed into an oil palm plantation in Sampit, East Kotawaringin, Central Kalimantan. BRIN researcher, Thomas Djamaluddin, said the object found […]

Earth’s Moon is deserved of wide-spread exploration, far beyond early robotic and human exploration of the lunar south pole – extraterrestrial real estate now within the sights of NASA’s Artemis program, as well as other nations. Outside of that lunar south pole target, yes indeed, the Moon is rife with attractive and scientifically important objectives […]

It is a troublesome wait-a-minute moment in space. Satellite watcher Marco Langbroek in Leiden, the Netherlands, reports that there are worrisome approach maneuvers by Russia’s Cosmos 2612 and a US registered, radar satellite ICEYE-X36. “This RPO (Rendezvous and Proximity Operation) is completely non-consensual,” explains Langbroek. Another maneuver by the Russian spacecraft took place on October […]

Reflect Orbital continues to make progress on placing giant mirrors in Earth orbit to produce and sell sunlight after dark. On October 10, the space startup set up spotlights near Lone Pine, California to simulate the illumination its proposed satellites could provide. The plan by Reflect Orbital is to build and operate orbital mirrors that […]

Russia’s Cosmos-2612 satellite has made a series of maneuvers that have made it almost perfectly co-planar with the radar satellite ICEYE-X36. ICEYE is natively European, founded in Finland. Bart Hendrickx, a longtime observer of the Russian space program, reports that, in the past two days or so, the Russian spacecraft has made a further orbit […]

There is need to redefine the edge of the solar system. That’s the outcome of new work by two leading space scientists. They present a theory that the Milky Way’s gravity, including its dark matter, redraws the Sun’s frontier. Moreover, it allows the Solar Lagrange points L1 and L2 to form “portals” that funnel interstellar visitors […]

Work has reached an accelerated mode in readying three Ingenuity-class helicopters for deployment at Mars by NASA’s Space Reactor‑1 Freedom spacecraft. Slated for launch in 2028, SR-1 Freedom is the first fission nuclear-powered interplanetary spacecraft and is assigned the duty of dropping off the SkyFall entry capsule loaded with the trio of reconnoitering aerial vehicles […]

The suborbital Virgin Galactic’s next generation spaceship is on tap to evaluate sensor systems to collect space weather data during flights. Under a new Cooperative Research and Development Agreement, Virgin Galactic has joined research interests with the Air Force Research Laboratory’s (AFRL) Space Warfare Directorate at Kirtland Air Force Base, New Mexico. Under the 24-month […]

Late last week NASA launched its request for proposals via its “Commercial Low Earth Orbit (LEO) Destination Contract (CLDC).” The October 9 RFP’s principal purpose is for NASA to acquire services from a commercially owned and operated LEO Destination that can provide safe, reliable, and cost-effective end-to-end services to succeed the International Space Station (ISS). […]

China is planning to open the country’s space station to other countries, intended to transform the orbital facility into a global research platform. Yang Liwei, China’s first astronaut and deputy chief designer of the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA), discussed the plan during the now underway 77th International Astronautical Congress in Türkiye’s Mediterranean city of […]

More than 800 gigabytes of Artemis II lunar science data – some of it previously unreleased – was released today, posted to NASA’s Planetary Data System. Most of the images from the mission were previously made public – although this Oct. 7 release is the official data archive with high resolution imagery and robust metadata. […]

Hear from the Artemis II crew about impact flashes — bursts of light caused by pieces of space debris hitting the ground — that they saw while they were on the other side of the Moon, during a planned loss of comms. Here’s what it was like at two key points in the story: when […]

Earth’s Moon is a historical landmark – a celestial body continually peppered with robotic landers shot from our home planet as well as being an in-your-face world dotted with human footprints planted there by a dozen visiting moonwalkers from 1969 to 1972. A recent gathering in Italy of the International Scientific Committee on Aerospace Heritage […]