Tag: NASA
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NASA Ends Swift Telescope Rescue After Private Servicer Loses Attitude Control
NASA has called off the effort to save the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory after the private spacecraft sent to raise the aging telescope’s orbit failed to overcome persistent attitude-control problems. The Swift Boost mission was intended to demonstrate a new model for satellite servicing: instead of replacing an aging spacecraft, a relatively small commercial vehicle…
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Intuitive Machines Posts Record $206 Million Quarter as Backlog Swells to $1.8 Billion
The quarter capped a stretch of aggressive expansion across commercial, civil, and national security markets. Backlog rose $1.5 billion from year-end 2025, driven by what the company described as record levels of diverse awards. In August, the company closed its acquisition of Goonhilly Earth Station and COMSAT to expand its space-to-ground data services network configured…
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We’ve flown a radiation-blocking vest to the Moon and back, and it worked
Solar storms, like the one in August 1972 that hit during the gap between the Apollo 16 and Apollo 17 missions, throw bursts of protons intense enough to raise an astronaut’s cancer risk or even cause radiation sickness. Earth’s atmosphere and magnetic field absorb this radiation, but crews heading to the Moon or Mars won’t…
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NASA Finishes First Astronaut-Deployed Lunar Instrument Since Apollo
LEMS builds on a legacy of lunar seismic tracking that began with Apollo. Astronauts deployed a network of seismometers on the Moon’s nearside equatorial region between 1969 and 1972, and those instruments operated until 1977, recording about 13,000 moonquakes and other ground vibrations that helped scientists begin to understand the composition of the Moon’s interior.…
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NASA Invites India to Join Lunar Moon Base Programme
The meeting was attended by US Ambassador to India Sergio Gor and ISRO Chairman V Narayanan, who discussed existing and future avenues of collaboration in the space sector. The US Embassy shared a press release on the meeting on Wednesday. The discussions referenced the TRUST Initiative, launched jointly by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US…
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NASA Selects Gravitics for SBIR Award to Develop Orbital Sample Return System
Gravitics, Inc., an orbital infrastructure company, has announced that it was selected by NASA for a 2026 Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I award. The award supports development of the Multiple-Downmass Hangar, a system for affordable and frequent commercial sample return from low Earth orbit. The Multiple-Downmass Hangar is designed to hold multiple return…
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NASA Extends Voyager 2 Science by a Year With “Big Bang” Power Maneuver
Voyager 2 and its twin, Voyager 1, draw electricity from radioisotope thermoelectric generators, which convert heat from decaying plutonium into power. As that plutonium supply diminishes, each spacecraft loses about 4 watts of available power every year. After nearly half a century in space, the Voyagers have very little power to spare, forcing mission controllers…
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Katalyst Slows Tumbling Link Spacecraft as Clock Ticks on NASA’s Swift Rescue
Link launched July 3 on a Pegasus rocket. Weeks later, during post-launch commissioning, the spacecraft lost attitude control and entered what Katalyst on July 28 described as a multi-axis spin. Two of the spacecraft’s three reaction wheels were not functioning after the incident, and its reaction control system thrusters were only partially working. The company…
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NASA Tests Power Fix on Voyager 1 as Twin Probes Diverge After 49 Years
Voyager 1 needs the fix more urgently than its twin did. It has less power in reserve, has already lost more of its original instruments, and in February this year came close to tripping its own emergency shutdown during a routine roll manoeuvre. That event prompted NASA in April to switch off the Low-energy Charged…
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NASA Administrator Tours Idaho Lab Building Reactor for 2028 Mars Mission
Isaacman and a group of NASA executives toured INL’s Materials and Fuels Complex, meeting the scientists and engineers developing nuclear power for space. The visit followed a period of accelerated activity at the laboratory tied to a May 2025 executive order signed by President Donald Trump, which called for at least three nuclear power criticalities…