SpaceNews.com
• Jeff Foust
In his first months as NASA administrator, Jared Isaacman has shaken up several of the agency’s key programs, with Artemis, the SR-1 mission and robotic lunar landings all facing a 2028 imperative. The available reporting identifies the programs but provides no further detail on the changes or their schedules.
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NASA’s Artemis IV mission could rely on SpaceX’s Starship as its lunar lander, but the vehicle’s scale and propellant needs make the mission architecture complex. The number of refueling launches required—and how they would be distributed between two separate orbits—remains unknown.
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NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman has addressed the debate over the Hubble Space Telescope’s long-term future as the agency seeks commercial input on possible paths forward. Its request for information asks companies to assess options ranging from reboosting or servicing the observatory to carrying out a controlled deorbit.
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In his first months as NASA administrator, Jared Isaacman has shaken up several of the agency’s key programs, with Artemis, the SR-1 mission and robotic lunar landings all facing a 2028 imperative. The available reporting identifies the programs but provides no further detail on the changes or their schedules.
NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said a new experimental aircraft will be announced at the Max Power Airshow. Asked about a “missing” SR-71, he deflected, saying it was “not the one you’re thinking about,” leaving the aircraft’s identity and the details of the announcement unclear.
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An agency investigation concluded that a computer glitch and a faulty gyro likely led to the loss of NASA’s MAVEN orbiter nearly a year ago. The finding identifies the probable technical causes of the spacecraft’s loss, though the provided report summary gives no further detail on the failure sequence or mission impact.
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NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope found that interstellar object 3I/ATLAS has ice unlike familiar solar-system comets and more like bodies beyond Neptune. Separate Hubble and Webb observations of faint outer-solar-system objects are revealing clues to the solar system’s earliest history.
A change in party control of Congress after the midterm elections could challenge the longstanding bipartisan consensus behind civil space policy, putting NASA’s legislative and funding environment in focus. The outcome may shape how reliably the agency can pursue priorities across shifting political control.
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Four volunteers emerged from a 160-square-meter habitat at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston after 378 days simulating life on Mars. The experiment was designed to help prepare for future long-duration crewed missions, with the participants living in isolation in a windowless environment.
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