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.
arstechnica.com
· 2026-10-07
NASA has made publicly available a comprehensive collection of lunar images and data gathered during the Artemis II crewed flight. The information was collected by the four astronauts aboard the spacecraft and is expected to aid future lunar surface missions.
nature.com
· 2026-10-07
NASA is moving thousands of contractor jobs, many in roles like Mission Control, into civil servant positions. The shift revisits a practice from the Apollo era, when such roles were staffed directly by NASA employees rather than outside firms. Former flight director Gerry Griffin recalled that during Apollo missions, NASA retained direct responsibility for mission-critical roles, a practice that eroded over subsequent decades, notably during the space shuttle program.
arstechnica.com
· 2026-10-06
Shares of SpaceX surged nearly 8% on Monday, reaching levels not seen since mid-June, following positive analyst notes and recent historic launches. The rally has elevated Elon Musk's net worth to over a trillion dollars once again. Analysts from Morgan Stanley highlighted upcoming AI product releases, Starship progress, and new contracts as key drivers for the stock's growth, with a target price of $300.
cnbc.com
· 2026-10-05
Milt Windler, one of four Mission Control flight directors during the Apollo 13 crisis in 1970, has died at age 94, according to a family notice posted online. He joined NASA as a flight director in 1968, leading shifts for Apollo 8's lunar orbit, Apollo 10, the Apollo 12, 14 and 15 moon landings, and all three crewed Skylab missions.
arstechnica.com
· 2026-10-03
Tim Conners, NASA's former lead propulsion engineer on the Blackbird program in the 1990s, spoke with The War Zone about NASA's apparent work to return SR-71 Tail 844 to flight. The interview follows reporting that satellite imagery showed Tail 844 missing from Armstrong Flight Research Center since at least May, and that NASA has contacted former SR-71 personnel about rejoining the effort. NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman had earlier teased a new high-speed, high-altitude X-plane using a silhouette resembling the Blackbird.
twz.com
· 2026-10-03
NASA administrator Jared Isaacman said SpaceX intends to phase out its Falcon and Dragon systems as it focuses on Starship, prompting NASA to consider purchasing two additional crewed launches from Boeing's Starliner. NASA also announced it will spend $359 million to help Boeing rebuild the reaction control thrusters blamed for problems on Starliner's last mission.
futurism.com
· 2026-10-02
NASA's Swift observatory, in orbit for over two decades, is losing altitude and expected to drop below 185 miles by early to mid-October, a point at which operations and science observations will likely stop. A robotic spacecraft built by contractor Katalyst Space Technologies, launched in July to boost Swift's orbit, instead began spinning uncontrollably and burned up reentering Earth's atmosphere. NASA has since reactivated Swift's Burst Alert Telescope and resumed automatic pointing at gamma ray bursts, actions it says have accelerated the satellite's orbital decay.
futurism.com
· 2026-10-01
Katalyst Space Technologies built and launched a satellite called Link under a $30 million, nine-month NASA contract to boost the Swift Observatory into a higher orbit before it decayed. Link launched July 3 but suffered a malfunction weeks later that sent it spinning out of control, and NASA confirmed in August the rescue attempt was off. Swift, launched in 2004, lacks its own propulsion and remains at the mercy of atmospheric drag.
arstechnica.com
· 2026-10-01
NASA's SpaceX Crew-13 mission is set to launch October 1 at 11:10AM ET from Cape Canaveral, carrying commander Jessica Watkins, pilot Luke Delaney, CSA astronaut Joshua Kutryk and Roscosmos cosmonaut Sergey Teteryatnikov to the ISS. The crew will relieve Crew-12, who briefly sheltered in their capsule in June after an air leak was detected on the station, and NASA says the docking will be the fastest in US space station history at seven hours and 50 minutes.
engadget.com
· 2026-10-01
Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp said the company's first external capital raise has not yet closed and has attracted strong investor demand, calling it "oversubscribed." He spoke at a Washington tech summit, days after the Wall Street Journal reported the company had already raised $10 billion at a $140 billion valuation, with Jeff Bezos contributing $2 billion to the round. Limp did not confirm those figures or say how much Bezos has invested in total since founding the company in 2000.
cnbc.com
· 2026-09-30
SpaceX has told NASA and private space station developers including Axiom Space, Voyager Space, and Vast Space that it intends to stop flying Crew Dragon and Falcon 9 missions to low-Earth orbit after supporting the International Space Station through 2030. The move threatens the crew transportation backbone for NASA's two-decade effort to build a commercial human spaceflight market in orbit.
arstechnica.com
· 2026-09-29
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