Space agency and policy news from Cosmic Herald — NASA, ESA, ISRO, China's CNSA, budgets, and the politics of spaceflight.
Mauritius became the 70th Artemis Accords signatory on July 17, 2026 — the seventh African nation and the 11th country to sign this year — and framed its accession around protecting oceans and coastlines rather than lunar exploration.
Read the story →Serbia became the 69th Artemis Accords signatory on July 16, 2026, and the 10th nation to join this year — while also holding membership in China's rival lunar station program, a growing pattern of dual participation.
ISRO validated the cold-gas uprighting system, umbilical separation mechanism, and apex cover structure for Gaganyaan's crew module, clearing a key hurdle before India's first crewed spaceflight.
Nearly 50 days into a planned one-year stay, Shenzhou-23's three-person crew — including Hong Kong's first astronaut — is running biomechanics and brain-function studies aboard China's Tiangong space station.
Skyroot Aerospace's Vikram-1 sits fully stacked at Sriharikota with a July 12–August 4 window to become India's first privately built and launched orbital rocket.
NASA confirms astronaut Anil Menon, a former SpaceX flight surgeon and Space Force colonel, will make his first spaceflight July 14 aboard Soyuz MS-29, pending a critical spacewalk to fix the ISS robotic arm.
ISRO dropped a dummy-loaded main parachute from 2.5 km over Madhya Pradesh on July 7, the fifth test in a series meant to qualify the ten-parachute system that will bring Gaganyaan's crew module down into the sea.
JAXA and Singapore's brand-new National Space Agency signed a memorandum in Tokyo covering quantum satellite links and industrial cooperation — NSAS's first international agreement, three months after it was founded.
Six silver spheres that washed ashore near Townsville over the weekend are pressure vessels from a foreign rocket body, the Australian Space Agency says, warning residents not to touch any similar debris.
ISRO ground-fired the SOLVE solid motor for 10 hours at Sriharikota on July 3, 2026, clearing a key checkpoint for the sub-orbital vehicle that will validate Gaganyaan's 10-parachute descent system.
ESA and EUMETSAT have opened media accreditation for the late-August 2026 Ariane 6 launch of MTG-I2, a geostationary weather satellite whose Lightning Imager will watch storms form across 80% of the planet in real time.
Lawmakers grilled NASA's and NOAA's top space weather officials on grid, GPS, and communications risks the same week an X1.1 flare and G3 storms lit up July 4th skies with aurora.
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