NASA
Every Cosmic Herald story on NASA — missions, launches, discoveries, and the business of space, newest first.
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Missions
What Artemis II Taught NASA: Real Orion Flight Data Now Shapes the Moon-to-Mars Blueprint
Real Orion flight data from Artemis II is now directly shaping NASA's Moon-to-Mars architecture, as engineers apply lessons from Johnson Space Center's Ion venue to systems that will define how humans reach the Moon — and eventually Mars.
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Commercial
China Schedules Long March 10B Booster Recovery Test in Its Most Direct Challenge to Falcon 9
China has scheduled a Long March 10B launch and booster recovery attempt — Beijing's most ambitious step yet toward domestic reusable launch capability and a structural challenge to SpaceX's Falcon 9.
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Military Space
Congress Eyes $55.5 Billion for Space Force — and the Service Is Already Spending It
The House Appropriations Committee approved $55.5 billion for U.S. Space Force while the service reopens competition for satellite-control antennas — a signal the branch is accelerating ground modernization before the budget is even final.
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NASA & Agencies
NASA's Billion-Dollar Graveyard: How Canceled Exploration Projects Burned the Budget
A new accounting of canceled NASA exploration programs documents billions in combined cost overruns before termination, reigniting pointed questions about project management reform as the agency presses forward with new lunar ambitions.
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Astronomy
TESS Discovers the Puffiest Planets on Record—and They Challenge Everything We Know About Gas Giants
NASA's TESS mission has catalogued TOI-791 b and c, two gas giants orbiting a Sun-like star 1,113 light-years away so inflated relative to their mass that one has the density of cotton candy—shattering records and straining planet-formation theory.
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Missions
Pittsburgh's Moonshot: Astrobotic Unveils Griffin-1 Before Shipping NASA's 'Moon Base 2' Lander to JPL
Astrobotic unveiled its nearly complete Griffin-1 lunar lander — NASA's newly designated 'Moon Base 2' — in Pittsburgh on June 15-16, 2026, before shipping it to JPL for testing ahead of a Q4 2026 Falcon Heavy launch carrying the largest commercial payload ever sent to the Moon.
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Missions
Boeing and NASA Stay Committed to Starliner-1 While a Launch Date Remains Nowhere in Sight
NASA and Boeing reaffirmed their commitment to the Starliner-1 crewed ISS mission, but with no firm launch date set and infrastructure constraints mounting, the program's path forward remains deliberately vague.
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NASA & Agencies
America's Spaceports Are Running Out of Runway: NASA's Inspector General Sounds the Alarm
NASA's Inspector General warns US launch sites are nearing capacity as record commercial and government launch cadence strains America's spaceport infrastructure.
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Science & Discovery
SpaceX Launches Secretive 'Starfall' Reentry Demo — What the Silence Signals
SpaceX flew a Falcon 9 mission called Starfall — described only as a reentry capsule demonstration — and disclosed almost nothing about it. The deliberate operational security around a clearly serious program may signal something significant ahead.
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Military Space
Vantor Picks BAE Systems to Build the Satellites Behind Its Growing Surveillance Constellation
Colorado-based Earth intelligence firm Vantor has awarded BAE Systems a contract to build its next-generation Vantage imaging satellites — 20-centimeter-class spacecraft that reunite the company with the builder of its original WorldView fleet.
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Astronomy
Chandra Spots What May Be a Hidden Supernova Remnant Lurking Near the Galaxy's Heart
A multi-wavelength campaign led by UCLA astronomers has turned up a candidate supernova remnant startlingly close to the Milky Way's central supermassive black hole — one of the nearest ever found to that extreme environment.
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Science & Discovery
Trump Executive Order Pushes NASA Toward Quantum-Secured Space Communications
A new executive order directs NASA to plan quantum communication and sensing infrastructure in orbit, accelerating the push toward theoretically unhackable satellite links.
