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NASA has asked commercial space companies for help servicing or boosting the aging Hubble Space Telescope, which faces declining orbit and no current method for astronaut repair since the shuttle program ended. The agency's constrained budget leaves it unable to fund a dedicated servicing mission on its own.
NASA says Voyager 1, launched in 1977, will reach a distance of one light-day from Earth—about 16 billion miles—at 5:16:07 a.m. EST on Nov. 18, 2026. Its twin, Voyager 2, which took a different trajectory past Uranus and Neptune, is expected to reach the same milestone in November 2035.
NASA livestreamed the exit of its second CHAPEA crew—Ross Elder, Matthew Montgomery, Ellen Ellis and James Spicer—from its 3D-printed Mars habitat in Houston after 378 days of simulated Mars operations. During their stay, the crew performed mock spacewalks, maintained the habitat, grew plants and endured simulated communication delays and resource constraints. NASA is now accepting applications for a follow-up year-long experiment, the Moon and Mars Exploration Analog, set to begin no earlier than August 2027.
Apple Maps has begun obscuring satellite views of several NASA and U.S. Space Force and Air Force installations, including Wallops Flight Facility, Stennis Space Center, Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Vandenberg Space Force Base, and Whiteman and Ellsworth Air Force Bases. The change appeared without any Apple announcement, and coverage is inconsistent—some sensitive sites like Dyess and Barksdale Air Force Bases remain unblurred, as do large Navy installations such as Pearl Harbor and Norfolk. Google Maps has not made similar changes to these locations.
NASA released a Request For Information on Thursday seeking commercial ideas for extending Hubble's life, including capturing the telescope to boost it above 373 miles, servicing its systems, or guiding it to a controlled reentry. Companies have until November 30 to respond, and any mission would need to happen by 2032 without damaging the observatory. NASA says it is not yet committing to purchase such a mission but wants to gauge industry interest and cost.
Satlyt, a startup building software to turn satellites into distributed data-processing networks, completed a test this month in partnership with the University of Houston on a NASA-funded research project. The test simulated four computers, four users and eight services, with one physical satellite computer running the software to allocate tasks based on available compute and communication, then sending results to Earth. Satlyt's software is already installed on three orbiting satellites, though NASA has not selected the company for any specific mission.
NASA's Perseverance rover reached 45.22 kilometers (28.10 miles) of total driving distance on Mars on Oct. 11, 2026 (Sol 2006), surpassing the previous record for farthest distance driven on another celestial body. The rover's engineering twin on Earth received a plaque from Guinness World Records marking the achievement, according to JPL Chief Engineer Vandi Verma.
A report examines how SpaceX's relationship with NASA and the US government has shifted over roughly 25 years, from the company needing federal contracts to survive to NASA now depending heavily on SpaceX for launches and crew transport. Former NASA deputy administrator Lori Garver said she still struggles to envision a future where SpaceX stops flying its Dragon and Falcon vehicles for the agency, even as evidence points toward a partial separation.
NASA administrator Jared Isaacman said the agency is speeding up its Artemis program, reaffirming plans to launch Artemis 3 next summer as a docking-practice mission in Earth orbit, with Artemis 4 slated for 2028 to put astronauts back on the lunar surface for a week. NASA has not yet chosen between SpaceX's and Blue Origin's lunar landers for the eventual landing mission. Isaacman said the agency is cutting meetings and bureaucratic delay, citing the Apollo program's rapid pace as a model.
NASA is aiming to establish a small, self-sustaining city on the moon by the end of the century, as both the US and China pursue lunar base programs. Such a base would need to withstand asteroid impacts, constant radiation, abrasive dust and extreme temperature swings while relying on autonomous robots, nuclear power and local resource use to stay operational.
A Los Angeles non-profit, the Planetary Sunshade Institute, has published a report compiling research from engineers and climate scientists, including contributors linked to NASA, on building a giant sunshade between Earth and the Sun to cool the planet. The report estimates construction could become feasible within 20 to 40 years, contingent on development of heavy-lift rockets capable of carrying millions of tonnes of material into deep space. The study follows a social-media post by Elon Musk suggesting satellites could 'solve global warming' for a billion years, though SpaceX did not confirm any involvement in such research.
NASA has outlined the sequence for Artemis 3, which will launch three heavy-lift rockets from Florida within about two weeks: Blue Origin's New Glenn carrying a test Blue Moon Mark 2 lander, SLS with the crewed Orion capsule, and SpaceX's Starship version 3. Astronauts aboard Orion will dock with Blue Moon Mark 2 to test its systems before undocking, then briefly dock with Starship to check compatibility, without entering it.