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German startup Orbital Matter says its Replicator-2 satellite used an onboard 3D printer to extrude and UV-cure a half-meter rigid plastic beam while in orbit, a process the company likens to mixing cement and water. The satellite, launched on a SpaceX rideshare this summer, carried four such printers, though one of two units meant to deploy a flexible solar array failed due to an anomaly.
The European Space Agency's Euclid telescope, while surveying deep space far from the solar system's ecliptic plane, incidentally captured images of a previously unknown comet. Mikko Pöntinen of the University of Helsinki, working with the Solar System Objects Science Working Group, used software designed to detect moving objects to spot a streak across several images, later confirmed as comet C/2026 S1 (Euclid), located roughly 1.3 billion kilometers from Earth.
ESA's Hera spacecraft, launched in October 2024, is set to rendezvous next month with the Didymos-Dimorphos asteroid pair that NASA's DART mission struck in 2022. The probe has already captured images of Didymos, though the asteroids currently appear as only a few pixels in its camera. Hera will examine the aftermath of DART's impact, which shortened Dimorphos's orbital period around Didymos by roughly 32 minutes.
Space agency officials and researchers, including ESA director general Josef Aschbacher and Bangor University's Simon Middleburgh, describe plans and challenges for establishing a sustainable lunar base. They point to the moon's value for studying the solar system's origins, hosting telescopes free of atmospheric interference, and serving as a low-gravity launch point for deeper space missions. Significant engineering problems remain, including protection from radiation, dust, asteroids and extreme temperatures, plus the need for self-sustaining resources and autonomous robotic construction.
NASA has scrapped the Lunar Gateway station and the Mars Sample Return mission as it redirects resources toward a Moon Base near the lunar south pole, intensifying competition with China. Administrator Jared Isaacman says international partners, including the European Space Agency, must now offer "meaningful contributions" that fill gaps NASA or US companies aren't already addressing, and he has rejected an ESA proposal for a European cargo lander.
At the first International Space Summit in Paris on September 10, European leaders including Ursula von der Leyen and Emmanuel Macron called for the continent to build its own launch and crewed spaceflight capacity rather than relying on NASA and firms like SpaceX. The event took on added significance after reports that the White House discouraged US companies such as SpaceX and Blue Origin from attending, which one former satellite executive called a wake-up call.
China's Yaogan 50-02 reconnaissance satellite, which had settled into an unusual retrograde orbit roughly 590 miles up, broke apart months after launch. The US Space Force has tracked 43 fragments now circling Earth at altitudes between 372 and 683 miles, and the cause of the breakup remains unannounced, though astronomer Jonathan McDowell speculated it could be a battery explosion or a debris strike.
The European Space Agency is pressing ahead with its Envision mission to Venus after NASA signaled it likely can't deliver the US-built synthetic aperture radar it had promised under a 2024 partnership agreement. That radar was meant to be the spacecraft's main tool for mapping the planet's volcanic surface through its thick sulfuric-acid clouds at ten times the resolution of NASA's 1990s Magellan mission. ESA's project scientist says development will continue at full pace regardless.
Odin Space is selling adhesive vibration sensor strips that satellites can use to detect and measure debris impacts, addressing the mystery behind many small-satellite failures. Meanwhile, Atlanta-area company Atomic-6 is working on lighter alternative shielding to replace or improve upon traditional aluminum panels and Whipple shields used to protect spacecraft from high-speed debris strikes.
ESA astronaut Sophie Adenot, currently serving as a flight engineer on the International Space Station during her Epsilon mission, wore a Delta insignia badge modeled on the one worn by actor Anson Mount as Captain Pike in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. She recorded a video tribute marking 60 years since Star Trek's debut, linking the franchise's themes of exploration and cooperation to real-world space science, and both ESA and Paramount shared the clip on Instagram.
German startup Isar Aerospace successfully sent its two-stage Spectrum rocket into low Earth orbit from a spaceport in Norway, marking the first entirely commercial orbital launch from continental Europe. The achievement follows a failed attempt last March, when the rocket crashed into the sea just 30 seconds after liftoff. CEO Daniel Metzler called it a new chapter for European spaceflight and sovereign access to space.
ESA's BepiColombo mission, a joint effort with Japan and the US costing nearly $2 billion, has released the Mercury Transfer Module that powered and propelled the spacecraft since its 2018 launch. The jettison follows nine gravity-assist flybys of Earth, Venus, and Mercury designed to slow the craft enough for Mercury's gravity to eventually capture it into orbit later this year.