Space News & Blog Articles

The FAA has cleared the Falcon 9 rocket to return to flight, freeing NASA and SpaceX to target Feb. 11 for the launch of the Crew-12 astronaut mission to the International Space Station.

"We found an unexpected chemical complexity, with abundances far higher than predicted by current theoretical models."

SpaceX works on the crew access arm at Launch Complex 39A on Wednesday, Feb. 4, 2026. Image: Adam Bernstein/Spaceflight Now

It’s the end of an era as SpaceX transitions all of its planned Dragon flights from Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center to Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.

Master Chief is returning in 2026 with a ground-up remake of the original Halo that's promising new content on top of a totally remade presentation.

New infrared observations reveal that the rare interstellar visitor known as comet 3I/ATLAS has dramatically brightened during its farewell tour of the solar system.

The latest recipient of the Foundation's Live Long & Prosper Tribute Award is Jessica Schonhut-Stasik, an astrophysicist and neurodiversity advocate who is affectionately known as "Girl Spock."

The UK government is to slash by 30 percent its funding for astronomy, particle and nuclear physics in a move branded as disastrous for the field and likely to affect a generation of researchers.

For the fourth time in the last 19 months, the upper stage of SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket experienced a problem during a mission. How long will the vehicle be grounded this time?

Week in images: 02-06 February 2026

Astronomers witnessed a star emitting as much energy in mere moments as our sun puts out in a few months. The dramatic observation gives a direct look into the brutal physics of these stellar events.

A United Launch Alliance Vulcan booster is offloaded from the company’s R/S RocketShip barge at a dock at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. This will be the first Vulcan rocket to launch from the West Coast. Image: United Launch Alliance

United Launch Alliance is staging rockets at launch complexes on both the West Coast and the East Coast for the first time since November 2022.

Crew-12's timeline has been unusually dynamic.

"It highlights gravity's possible hidden complexity and invites a reevaluation of where dark matter effects originate."

The Winter Hexagon encompasses the brightest winter stars. Near Orion, the Big Dog prances and the Hare crouches. And the moonless dark this week opens telescopic deep-sky depths.

Video: 00:03:58

ESA astronaut Sophie Adenot is preparing to launch to the International Space Station for her first space mission: εpsilon.

Image: With the 2026 Winter Olympics officially opening today, the Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission brings us a striking view of northern Italy, highlighting several key Olympic venues.

With fewer cars on the road, planes in the air and factories running, the skies seemed cleaner during the Covid-19 pandemic. However, while there was a decline in pollutants such as nitrogen dioxide, scientists were surprised to see that methane surged in the early 2020s and then dropped – and now they know why.