NASA
Every Cosmic Herald story on NASA — missions, launches, discoveries, and the business of space, newest first.
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Commercial
NASA Hands Blue Origin $700 Million to Build a Mars Communications Orbiter
NASA picked Blue Origin over a competing Rocket Lab bid for a ~$700 million contract to build a Blue Ring-based Mars telecom orbiter due at the Red Planet by 2030.
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Commercial
Sierra Space Books National Security Customers for Dream Chaser's First Flight
Sierra Space says its long-delayed Dream Chaser spaceplane will carry national security, civil and NASA cargo payloads together on one debut flight from Kennedy Space Center to Vandenberg.
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Commercial
NASA Adds Blue Origin, Firefly, and L3Harris to $100M Spacecraft Processing Contract
NASA on-ramped four companies — All Points Logistics, Blue Origin, Firefly Aerospace, and L3Harris — to a $100 million payload processing contract that expands where commercial providers can prep spacecraft for launch.
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Commercial
Blue Origin Pins New Glenn Pad Explosion on a BE-4 Oxygen Valve
Blue Origin says a single malfunctioning main oxygen valve on a BE-4 engine destroyed New Glenn and 48 Amazon Leo satellites in May, with fixed hardware due late August and flights targeted before year's end.
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Commercial
Intel Unveils 'Starfire,' Its First Space-Grade System-on-Chip for Government Satellites
Intel Government Technologies is entering the orbital computing market with Starfire, an 18A-process SoC aimed at giving satellites the onboard horsepower for AI-driven image analysis and anomaly detection.
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Commercial
Starship Flight 13 Nails Its First Intact Splashdown — and Drops 20 Real Starlink Satellites
On Flight 13, SpaceX put an intact Starship in the water for the first time and deployed 20 working Starlink V3 satellites — its first real payloads — even as the Super Heavy booster came down hard after an incomplete landing burn.
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Commercial
NASA Reopens Stennis' B-2 Stand to Hot-Fire New Glenn's Hydrogen Upper Stage
NASA and Blue Origin have agreed to prep the historic B-2 test stand at Stennis to hot-fire New Glenn's two-engine, LOX/LH2 second stage this fall — a move that ties the rocket's readiness directly to Artemis.
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Commercial
The Last of the Shuttle Engines: Four RS-25s Arrive at Michoud for Artemis III
L3Harris delivered four RS-25 engines with 36 shuttle flights between them to NASA's Michoud facility on July 22, 2026 — the final flight of Space Shuttle Main Engine heritage hardware before Artemis V switches to newly built, 3D-printed engines.
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Commercial
Lightning Hit a Long March 3B 30 Seconds Off the Pad — and the Rocket Kept Flying
Amateur video caught a lightning bolt hitting a Long March 3B/E about 30 seconds after it left Xichang on July 23. The Tianlian II-06 relay satellite reached orbit anyway — and the footage raises an uncomfortable question about how differently launch ranges treat weather risk.
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Commercial
America's First Robotic Satellite Mechanic Reaches the Pad
A Falcon 9 is set to launch Northrop Grumman's MRV-1 and three Mission Extension Pods on July 21, carrying DARPA's RSGS payload — the first U.S. multi-mission robot built to inspect, repair, upgrade, relocate and refuel satellites in geosynchronous orbit.
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Commercial
The World's Spaceports: Why Rockets Launch Where They Do
Latitude, launch azimuth, and downrange safety corridors dictate where a rocket can lift off. A tour of Cape Canaveral, Vandenberg, Baikonur, Kourou, Wenchang, and Mahia shows the physics — and the history — behind each choice.
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Commercial
Vast's Haven-1 in 2026: a 3D-printed space station preparing to host orbital manufacturing
Vast's Haven-1 station is now targeting Q1 2027 after its Haven Demo pathfinder flew 49 test objectives. The single-module outpost carries metal 3D-printed hardware — and its manufacturing network now spans orbital bioprinting, drug crystallization, and pharma production partners.
