Base of the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket where the tail service masts feed propellants into the rocket’s core stage. Image: Michael Cain/Spaceflight Now.
NASA is loading liquid hydrogen aboard its Space Launch System moon rocket at the Kennedy Space Center on Thursday for an unpublicized but crucial test of the repairs made to a leaky umbilical that derailed a countdown rehearsal on Feb. 2.
Astronomers want to collect as much data as possible using as many systems as possible. Sometimes that requires coordination between instruments. The teams that run the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and the upcoming Atmospheric Remote-sensing Infrared Exoplanet Large-survey (Ariel) missions will have plenty of opportunity for that once both telescopes are online in the early 2030s. A new paper, available in pre-print on arXiv, from the Ariel-JWST Synergy Working Group details just how exactly the two systems can work together to better analyze exoplanets.
The strange clouds formed due to the freezing air sweeping southwards over Florida in early February.
Dan Trachtenberg's third Predator movie is the most substantial evolution of the sci-fi franchise to date and boldly embraces other genres' strengths.
The annular solar eclipse will see the moon cover the majority of the solar disk, surrounding it in a fiery halo.
The atmospheres of exoplanets have been a focal point of the field lately, with the James Webb Space Telescope taking a look at as many as it can manage. But time on the world’s most powerful space telescope is valuable, and getting a complete picture of any such atmosphere is difficult without that significant time commitment. So a multidisciplinary team of researchers have come up with an alternative mission that is very specialized at capturing as much information as they can about exoplanet atmospheres, but also with a fraction of the budget of flagship missions like JWST. The mission, known as the EXoplanet Climate Infrared TElescope (EXCITE), has one feature the JWST doesn’t though - a gondola.
An anomalous plume is visible from one of the Vulcan’s solid rocket motors during the launch of the USSF-87 mission on Feb. 12, 2026. Image: Adam Bernstein/Spaceflight Now.
United Launch Alliance said an issue affected one of the four solid rocket boosters that helped propel its Vulcan rocket into space Thursday on a mission for the United States Space Force. Despite the problem the rocket, making only its fourth flight, continued on its planned trajectory, the company said.
For nearly a quarter-century, the nonprofit B612 Foundation has helped scientists track dangerous asteroids and educated the public about the threats space rocks pose to Earth.
Scientists used the European Space Agency's Cheops satellite to discover that the planetary system around the star LHS 1903 challenges current planet formation theories with the unusual order of its planets. Surprisingly, the most distant outer planet might be rocky and seems to have formed later – in a different environment than the other planets around the star.
This awesome sci-fi movie has just landed on Hulu and Disney+. Savor all the action with this streaming offer that saves you 23%.
Data from NASA’s long defunct Magellan radar-imaging mission to Venus has made the first indirect detection of a large lava tube (pyroduct) on the Western flank of our sister planet’s massive Nyx Mons shield volcano.
It's finally happened: Elon Musk has announced that SpaceX, the company he founded in 2002 with the goal of creating the first self-sustaining city on Mars, will no longer be focusing on Mars. As he announced on Feb. 8th via X, the social media platform he acquired in 2023, the company will now focus on creating a self-sustaining city on the Moon. Musk cited several reasons for this pivot, including a shorter development timeline ("less than 10 years, whereas Mars would take 20+ years"), faster transit times, and more regular launch windows.
The European Space Agency (ESA) will take part in the upcoming Munich Security Conference (MSC), one of the world’s leading forums for international security policy. ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher will join senior political leaders, industry executives and security experts to highlight how space systems underpin Europe’s competitiveness, resilience and strategic autonomy.
Liftoff of the USSF-87 mission occurred at 4:22 a.m. ET on Thursday (Feb. 12).
China just took another step toward landing astronauts on the moon, acing a key abort test with its Mengzhou crew capsule and pulling off a soft splashdown with the returning rocket.
United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan rocket, designation V-005, is seen at the pad at Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station prior to the launch of the USSF-87 mission for the U.S. Space Force. Image: Michael Cain/Spaceflight Now
United Launch Alliance is gearing up for a predawn launch of its Vulcan rocket on Thursday morning, the companies first flight of the year.
At the center of the Egg Nebula is its yolk: a deteriorating sun-like star.
The discovery is just the latest to come from the asteroid sample, which dates back to the dawn of the solar system.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying 25 Starlink satellites launched from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2026.
Astronomers might have found a moon half the mass of Jupiter orbiting in a nearby system, based on the wobbles of its host world.
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