Blogs

Three Expedition 74 crew members are packing up cargo and handing over their responsibilities with less than one week to go before returning to Earth. The International Space Station’s three newest crewmates are already in the second week of their mission getting used to life on orbit and researching how microgravity affects the human body.

When NASA’s Psyche spacecraft flew by Mars for a gravity assist on May 15, 2026, it gave the mission team an opportunity to test instruments and prep for science they’ll conduct when reaching the metal-rich asteroid Psyche in 2029, and collect images and a time-lapse video of the Mars encounter.

Crew swap activities are underway aboard the International Space Station as three new crewmates continue getting up to speed with living and working in microgravity and another Expedition 74 trio prepares to return to Earth. Meanwhile, scientific operations are back in full swing aboard the orbital outpost with lab residents studying how weightlessness affects the human body.

You may have noticed that NASA’s X-59 has a shadow— another aircraft trailing it from a safe distance. That sidekick is known as a “chase plane,” and it has an important role in NASA’s Quesst mission. Chase planes are commonly used during the flight testing of major experimental aircraft, providing an extra layer of observation […]

NASA has selected SpaceX to deliver laser communications capabilities for next year’s Artemis III mission, enabling the agency to provide a front row seat for viewers from the Orion spacecraft as four astronauts test rendezvous and docking capabilities between Orion and test versions of commercial human landing systems needed to return astronauts to the Moon in 2028.  To supplement Orion’s existing communications system, NASA will install two of SpaceX’s Starlink mini laser terminals – the same laser […]

The International Space Station is a busy place hosting ten crewmates from NASA, Roscosmos, and ESA (European Space Agency) through the end of July. The expanded Expedition 74 crew is continuing its microgravity research, helping three new arrivals adjust to life in space, and preparing for the departure of another three crew members. NASA flight […]

The solar panels that will help power NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Telescope completed prelaunch cleaning and inspections July 8 at the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Engineers and technicians are following necessary procedures to protect Roman from tiny debris, dust, or other material so that it operates optimally in […]

Teams continue to progress through in-orbit preparations for the robotic servicing spacecraft designed to boost NASA’s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory to a higher altitude.

For decades, scientists have thought that there is a ceiling to how intensely Earth responds to solar storms. However, a NASA-led paper published Wednesday in Nature suggests this upper limit is an illusion. If so, it means solar storms could have far worse effects on our technology than previously thought. Observations have suggested that electric […]