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NASA's satellite imaging teams have documented New Mexico's largest reservoir, Elephant Butte, dwindling to just 1.4% of its capacity due to prolonged drought conditions. Beyond monitoring the water loss, these scientists are working directly with farmers and communities affected by the shortage to help manage the crisis.
NASA's New Horizons spacecraft, currently nearing the outer boundary of the solar system as it heads toward interstellar space, risks losing two of its scientific instruments at this critical juncture. The timing is significant because the probe is approaching a region where continuous data collection is essential for understanding the transition beyond the sun's influence.
NASA has directed Axiom Space to develop a lighter, less complex spacesuit variant called the Sortie Suit for the first crewed Artemis lunar landings, aiming to hit a 2028 target date at the Moon's South Pole. The decision, announced internally by Artemis Program Manager Jeremy Parsons, will see the simplified suit used on both SpaceX and Blue Origin landers, cutting mass and easing integration with the spacecraft.
IEEE has designated the Canadarm, the robotic arm developed by Spar Aerospace and Canada's National Research Council for NASA's space shuttle program, as its 300th Milestone. The device, first flown on Columbia in 1981, helped astronauts move payloads, conduct repairs and inspect shuttles over three decades of service on five orbiters and the International Space Station. The honor was announced at a ceremony held at MDA Space's headquarters, with IEEE Toronto Section having sponsored the nomination.
NASA launched the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope on 30 August aboard a SpaceX rocket, sending it roughly 1.5 million kilometres from Earth to begin observing the Universe. The telescope's 2.4-metre mirror, originally built for surveillance purposes and handed to NASA in 2012, was re-engineered for astronomy and paired with a 300-megapixel infrared camera capable of imaging patches of sky about 100 times larger than the Hubble Space Telescope can capture in one shot.
NASA has selected Blue Origin to build the Mars Telecommunications Network, a deal potentially worth $700 million. The orbiter is due to be operational by December 31, 2028, relaying science data, imagery, navigation details, and mission-critical communications for spacecraft near and on Mars.
Researchers analyzing last November's severe geomagnetic storm found it caused GPS positioning errors exceeding 33 feet across the continental US. The disturbance pushed the Aurora Oval far south of its usual position, creating dense atmospheric irregularities that disrupted the timing of satellite signals passing through the ionosphere.
NASA's Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel reported that after reviewing data from the Artemis II mission, the Orion capsule's heat shield showed only about nine sites of char loss, a dramatic improvement from the more than 100 sites, some over an inch deep, seen after Artemis I. NASA had altered Orion's reentry trajectory rather than redesign the heat shield following the 2022 issues, and the approach appears to have worked as the crew safely splashed down in the Pacific.
A small nonprofit founded by Philip Johnston, Ezra Feilden, and Adi Oltean has detailed plans for a low-cost interstellar probe called Fermi Explorer, aiming to launch within three years for a journey to Alpha Centauri that would take roughly 80,000 years to complete. The team, which released an 81-page plan document, is funding the effort through crowdfunding donations and branded merchandise sales rather than government or corporate backing.
NASA currently has no confirmed new lander or rover missions to Mars, marking the first such gap in over three decades. Instead, the agency is prioritizing SkyFall, a trio of helicopters slated to launch as early as 2028 alongside the nuclear-powered Space Reactor-1 'Freedom' mission, which will test electric propulsion using the repurposed core of the canceled Gateway station. JPL is partnering with AeroVironment, the team behind the Ingenuity helicopter, to build the new aircraft, which will be slightly heavier and carry upgraded rotors.
NASA is inviting people to sign up online for a personal 'pixel' from the first images captured by the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. Each participant provides an email address, which is limited to one pixel per address, and later receives a printable certificate showing their assigned pixel number.
NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope launched Sunday atop a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket, about eight months earlier than planned. The spacecraft separated successfully and is now heading toward the Sun-Earth L2 point, roughly 1 million miles away, where it will settle into a stable orbit alongside Earth over the next three months.