NASA
Every Cosmic Herald story on NASA — missions, launches, discoveries, and the business of space, newest first.
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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.
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Commercial
Astroscale Raises New Capital as Orbital Debris Removal Becomes Big Business
Japanese-founded Astroscale secures fresh funding to scale its debris removal operations, riding a wave of commercial space investment that signals the orbital sustainability market is finally maturing.
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Astronomy
The Jellyfish Has a Sibling: Fermi Telescope Uncovers Evidence of a Rare Double Supernova
Sixteen years of gamma-ray data reveal a faint supernova remnant hiding in the Jellyfish Nebula's glare — and both explosions may trace back to the same doomed binary star system.
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NASA & Agencies
India's Jio Unveils Sovereign LEO Constellation Plan as $10–15 Billion Bet on Connecting India From the Skies
Jio Platforms filed IPO papers alongside plans for a 1,600-satellite sovereign broadband constellation, challenging Starlink and OneWeb in India's increasingly contested orbital market.
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Missions
Voyager Space Moves to Acquire Astrobotic, Betting Big on Commercial Lunar Delivery at Scale
Voyager Space's acquisition of lunar lander company Astrobotic signals a new phase of consolidation in commercial space, as the CLPS contractor looks to scale up operations with deeper corporate backing.
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Science & Discovery
Webb and Hubble Team Up to Reveal an Ancient Relic of the Milky Way's Formation
Terzan 5 isn't a globular cluster after all. Webb and Hubble data reveal four generations of stars spanning 10 billion years, reclassifying it as a rare 'bulge fossil fragment' that survived the Milky Way's chaotic assembly.
