Astrolab and Interlune announced plans to collaborate on integrating excavation technology with Astrolab’s FLEX rover platform. Prototype testing is expected to take place at the Texas A&M University Space Institute, currently under construction near NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.

On Thursday, NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman announced changes to the Artemis mission profiles that will lead to at least a one-year delay in returning humans to the lunar surface. However, the agency believes these changes will strengthen the program overall, allowing for faster launch turnarounds and better testing of flight hardware before it’s needed for surface ops.

Virgin Galactic has become one of the most intriguing, controversial, and headline-grabbing players in the commercial space industry. Founded in 2004 as part of Richard Branson’s Virgin Group, the company set out to make space tourism a reality by flying paying customers to the edge of space on reusable suborbital spaceplanes. While its journey has been far from smooth, the company is positioning itself for a comeback in 2026 after an extended operational pause.

NASA has signed a contract with Vast for the sixth private astronaut mission to the International Space Station, with a launch targeted no earlier than summer 2027. The mission is expected to last up to 14 days in orbit and will fly aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft.

As NASA moves deeper into a new era of space-based astronomy, another flagship observatory is quietly approaching the launch pad. The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, designed to survey the universe at a scale no previous space telescope has achieved, has completed assembly and is undergoing final environmental testing ahead of being shipped to Kennedy Space Center in Florida for a planned liftoff as soon as late 2026.

As NASA’s Artemis program moves forward, questions occasionally arise about the role of the Lunar Gateway, the planned lunar-orbiting station intended to support long-term exploration. It remains part of NASA’s publicly stated architecture, but it is also reasonable to examine what Artemis could look like if that element were delayed, scaled back, or ultimately not flown. 

SpaceX is signaling a recalibration of its near-term priorities, placing renewed emphasis on the Moon as the fastest path toward a self-sustaining off-world settlement, while maintaining Mars as a longer-term objective. The shift is being framed not as a retreat from interplanetary ambition, but as a sequencing decision driven by logistics, cadence, and risk reduction. 

When people picture Artemis 2, the first human flight to the Moon in more than 50 years, they usually visualize Orion’s cone-shaped crew capsule riding atop NASA’s Space Launch System, the American heavy-lift rocket that gets it off the pad in Florida. But once Orion is in space, the mission quickly becomes a story of international systems engineering, with one of the most critical pieces being European-built.

In a statement today, Blue Origin announced it was pausing all New Shepard launches for at least two years in order to shift its priorities to its lunar programs in support of national initiatives. This comes as the company has made multiple moves to bolster itself as a new player in national defense and civil space.

When astronomers talk about the “dark universe,” they’re usually referring to things that can’t be seen directly – dark matter, which makes up most of the universe’s mass, and the earliest stages of galaxy formation. Now, astronomers using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope have helped confirm the existence of a rare object that connects both ideas: a starless, gas-rich structure dominated by dark matter, known as Cloud-9.

Blue Origin announced yet another project it had undertaken for its missions for space domination across all sectors. Called Terrawave, it will be a constellation of over 5,000 satellites designed to bring symmetrical, high-speed internet connections worldwide.

After three decades of discovering exoplanets, astronomers are turning to a harder question: which of those distant worlds might truly be capable of supporting life? NASA has taken an early step toward answering it by selecting industry partners to mature key technologies for the proposed Habitable Worlds Observatory, a next-generation space telescope designed to directly image Earth-like planets orbiting nearby stars.

As the International Space Station approaches the end of its operational life later this decade, low Earth orbit is entering a transition that may be just as consequential as the station’s original construction. NASA has made clear that, rather than replacing the ISS with another government-owned outpost, it intends to purchase services from commercially owned space stations, freeing the agency to focus its resources on deep space exploration and the Artemis program.

After a four-mile ride, Artemis 2‘s Space Launch System arrived at its launch site ahead of a pre-launch test that will determine when NASA’s return to human flights to the Moon can begin.

Early Thursday morning, the crew of SpaceX Crew-11 safely splashed down off the coast of California. The crew completed their long-duration mission on the International Space Station but had it cut short by a handful of weeks due to a crew medical concern, warranting an early return.

NASA shared the launch data available for its Artemis 2 mission to return astronauts to the lunar surface for the first time in over 50 years. There are a lot of stipulations regarding when Artemis 2’s SLS rocket can launch, which also means there are far fewer days than you may think.

NASA announced on January 8 that it will return its SpaceX Crew-11 mission to evacuate a crew member from the ISS after he suffered a medical concern on January 7.

We’re getting closer and closer to the beginning of launch operations for NASA’s Artemis 2 mission around the Moon; the first crewed mission to the Moon since the 1970s. The rocket, NASA’s Space Launch System, will begin its launch readiness with its rollout to Launch Complex 39B in just a few weeks.

When Planet and Google confirmed their collaboration on orbital data centers, the announcement landed quietly, but its implications reach beyond a single partnership. Planet, best known for operating the world’s largest fleet of Earth-imaging satellites, is now working with Google on a research effort that examines whether computing infrastructure typically housed on Earth can function in orbit. 

NASA’s Artemis 2 mission is getting closer and closer, being just over a month away, and that means the rocket is getting ready for launch. The Space Launch System received some special decal work for its launch in February; “America 250” can be seen in a recent NASA picture on both the rocket’s boosters.

In what was supposed to be a charge into the new future of lunar exploration and electric vehicles, NASA’s Artemis program has once again taken a step into the past. TechCrunch reports that the agency, alongside other government agencies, will no longer use Canoo’s EV vans for crew transport of Artemis astronauts.

China’s upcoming Chang’e-7 mission, targeted for launch later this year, is officially framed as a scientific investigation of the Moon’s south pole. But viewed in context, it also represents a calculated step in a rapidly intensifying global race to establish long-term presence at the lunar poles, where science, technology development, and geopolitical competition increasingly intersect.

In what could be the most shocking news of 2025, Tory Bruno, long-time CEO of United Launch Alliance, resigned and joined competitor Blue Origin last month. Bruno will now head up Blue Origin’s National Security Group, a specialty of ULA that Bruno helped hone during his leadership.

At the intersection of biotechnology and space manufacturing, LambdaVision recently closed a $7 million seed funding round to accelerate development and space-based manufacturing of its protein-based artificial retina. This injection of capital, led by Seven Seven Six and Aurelia Foundry Fund, with participation from Seraphim Space, extends the company’s operational runway into 2027 and underpins plans to scale production of next-generation vision-restoring implants in low Earth orbit. 

As Earth’s orbital environment becomes increasingly crowded and contested, the ability to respond rapidly in space is emerging as a critical technological challenge. Gravitics’ newly unveiled Diamondback orbital carrier introduces a novel approach to this problem, one that treats orbit not as a destination, but as an operational domain requiring persistent infrastructure.

While robotic missions like China’s upcoming Chang’e-7 are expected to map resources and test technologies at the Moon’s south pole, NASA’s Artemis 2 mission represents a different but equally critical pillar of the modern lunar race: the return of humans to deep space beyond low Earth orbit. Scheduled for launch no earlier than February 6, 2026, Artemis 2 will be the first crewed mission of the Artemis program and the first human journey beyond Earth orbit since Apollo 17 in 1972.

A new phrase has been quietly circulating through space-industry discussions over the past year: Orbital data centers. The idea sounds futuristic – server farms in orbit – but it is gaining attention for a very practical reason. Space is producing more data than Earth can efficiently handle.

In what was very much a not-normal confirmation process, today marks day one of Jared Isaacman‘s tenure as NASA Administrator. The billionaire and commercial astronaut will now be able to take over the reins and begin managing the largest space agency in the world.

As humans prepare to build long-term bases on the Moon and eventually on Mars, most attention naturally focuses on rockets, habitats, and life-support systems. Yet some of the most valuable partners in creating sustainable worlds beyond Earth may be among the smallest creatures we know: insects. Though they cannot play any ecological role aboard the International Space Station, they may become essential to agriculture and recycling in future off-world settlements.

Saturday, Elon Musk made a long post to his social media site, X, discussing a future where AI computation is moved to satellites for quicker relays. In it, he mentioned the upgrade to a “Kardashev II civilization.” What is a type II civilization?

SpaceX is once again facing a setback in getting its Starship rocket closer to being operational. Meanwhile, Blue Origin is taking slow but steady steps toward having a capable Mark 1 lunar lander. Would NASA be silly not to switch providers for Artemis 3’s lander?

I’m not sure if ULA’s Atlas V ever got this nickname officially, but I’m going to coin it anyway, the “Queen of Space,” which recently hit another milestone towards its retirement: it is down to just two customers for its remaining 11 flights.

The new year is right around the corner, and with that come new goals, records, and the arrival of new players in the space realm. The most promising to shake things up, Blue Origin, is just now making its new-space prime entrance. What does 2026 have in store for its big rocket, the New Glenn?

A new crew of three launched and arrived at the International Space Station after lifting off from Russia’s Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan early this morning. The crew will replace the existing Soyuz crew on the ISS; both crews consist of two Russian cosmonauts and one NASA astronaut.

CubeSats began as a simple idea: standardize a tiny satellite so anyone could build one and share a rocket. The basic “1U” block is a 10 -centimeter cube. Larger variants – 2U, 3U, 6U, 12U, even 16U – snap together like Legos. 

For all their power, rockets remain at the mercy of the sky. A launch vehicle can withstand hundreds of tons of thrust, heat that rivals the Sun’s surface, and the vibrations comparable to a small earthquake – but a shift in wind or a charged cloud layer can still stop everything on the pad.

Yesterday, Blue Origin successfully launched its second New Glenn rocket from LC-36 in Florida. While a second successful mission is enough to celebrate, what happened at the end of the mission is bigger news for the company and the industry.

Blue Origin is attempting to launch its second New Glenn rocket from LC-36 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. The mission will carry NASA’s ESCAPADE payload to Mars for a tech demonstration of low-cost interplanetary exploration.

Rocket Lab is no longer planning on getting its Neutron rocket to the launch pad for its first flight by the end of this year. Not a surprise to many, but the debut flight of what could be a real Falcon 9 competitor is now scheduled for Q1 of 2026.

For most of the nation last night, the Northern Lights, or officially named the Aurora Borealis, were visible in an awesome display. This is due to a powerful solar storm coming from our Sun; however, that same storm that’s causing the beautiful nighttime display is also causing issues for the space industry who are trying to get rockets launched.

A company that has been out of the limelight for a while, Astra is quietly getting itself ready to re-emerge as a hopeful commercial launch contender. But should we even expect to see Astra rockets fly again?

After an hour and a half attempt, Blue Origin scrubbed its New Glenn NG-2 mission due to weather concerns. It wasn’t the only issue the company ran into during the countdown, but why did weather specifically cause the delay? And when will it launch again?

Blue Origin’s second New Glenn mission, NG-2, is finally on the launch pad and ready for its next flight. This could be a pivotal moment for the company as it is full of multiple firsts and features a NASA mission to Mars.

Last week, NASA Acting Administrator Sean Duffy shared a major accomplishment for President Trump’s space program. The issue is that the accomplishment he was talking about has nothing to do with President Trump’s space plans and began even before President Trump’s first term.

President Trump has renominated private astronaut and tech billionaire Jared Isaacman as NASA Administrator. This comes as both a surprise and is not at all, beating out Acting Administrator Sean Duffy for the job.

While the majority of federal employees are furloughed, awaiting a funding bill to be passed by Congress, NASA teams and contractors are still working towards getting Artemis 2 ready to launch next year. However, that can’t last forever, and an industry official just shared that some parts may begin to grind to a halt.

A new company emerged from space last week that plans to take the manufacturing of one of the most important components of computer chips and put it in space. Why? Not for the weightlessness, but for the vacuum.

SpaceX and the popular card game Cards Against Humanity have settled their lawsuit over the use and destruction of CAH’s private land. The game is hoping to use the proceeds to pay back the fans that helped purchase the land.

The three largest aerospace firms from Europe, Airbus, Leonardo, and Thales, announced they will be combining their space divisions into one yet-to-be-named company, all in hopes of better competing with the US commercial space market.

It’s been nine months into President Trump’s second term, and the government’s most popular and beloved agency is still without proper leadership. Some rumbles have made it sound like that could change soon, but we’re still awaiting official word.