NASA astronaut Mike Fincke handed over command of the International Space Station to Roscosmos cosmonaut Sergey Kud-Sverchkov at 2:35 p.m. EST today. The traditional Change of Command Ceremony precedes the targeted departure of Fincke with Zena Cardman of NASA, Kimiya Yui of JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency), and Oleg Platonov of Roscosmos aboard the SpaceX Dragon crew spacecraft.
NASA’s Carruthers Geocorona Observatory has achieved its target orbit, positioning the spacecraft to capture the first repeated observations of the ultraviolet glow from Earth’s outer atmosphere, the geocorona. The achievement was confirmed following its third and final orbital maneuver, a 2-minute thruster fire, on Jan. 8. The spacecraft has now entered its intended halo orbit […]
NASA’s IMAP (Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe) reached its destination at Lagrange point 1, or L1, approximately 1 million miles from Earth toward the Sun on Jan. 10. The mission’s operations team sent commands to the spacecraft on the morning of Jan. 9 to begin trajectory maneuvers to enter orbit at L1. Early on the […]
NASA’s Pandora satellite mission controllers received full acquisition of signal from the spacecraft on Jan. 11 on the first ground pass after liftoff from Space Launch Complex 4 East at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. Pandora will study planets outside our solar system – called exoplanets – discovered by other missions to gain information […]
NASA’s Pandora space telescope satellite is in sun-synchronous orbit, preparing to study planets and their respective host stars beyond our solar system. Pandora will spend the next year conducting detailed observations of 20 exoplanets to determine whether any of their atmospheres contain water vapor, hazes, and clouds. It will simultaneously study their stars to discover […]
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying NASA’s Pandora small satellite lifted off at 5:44 a.m. PST Sunday, Jan. 11, from Space Launch Complex 4 East at Vandenberg Space Force Base located on California’s central coast. In addition to Pandora, the rocket carried dozens of satellites, including two CubeSats sponsored by NASA, SPARCS (Star-Planet Activity Research […]
Editor’s Note: This media advisory was updated Jan. 12, 2026 to correct the description of the SPARCS CubeSat. NASA’s Pandora small satellite is preparing to launch to low Earth orbit, where it will study exoplanet atmospheres and their stars. Pandora is part of the Twilight rideshare mission with SpaceX and is set to launch aboard […]
SpaceX is targeting a 57-minute launch window that opens at 8:19 a.m. EST (5:19 a.m. PST) Sunday, Jan. 11, from Space Launch Complex 4 East at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California for launch of its Twilight commercial rideshare mission that includes NASA’s Pandora small satellite. A live webcast of this mission will begin about […]
NASA will provide live coverage of the International Space Station change of command ceremony starting at 2:35 p.m. EST Monday, Jan. 12. on NASA+, Amazon Prime, and the agency’s YouTube channel. As Crew-11 prepares to depart from the space station, NASA astronaut Mike Fincke will hand command of Expedition 74 aboard the orbital complex to […]
