Associated Press
• Marcia Dunn
NASA’s lunar spacecraft has captured the clearest imagery yet of the roughly 60-foot-wide crater created when a SpaceX Falcon 9 upper stage struck the Moon at about 8,700 km/h after 19 months adrift. Controllers tilted the spacecraft’s cameras to photograph the site from 60 miles above.
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NASA’s lunar spacecraft has captured the clearest imagery yet of the roughly 60-foot-wide crater created when a SpaceX Falcon 9 upper stage struck the Moon at about 8,700 km/h after 19 months adrift. Controllers tilted the spacecraft’s cameras to photograph the site from 60 miles above.
NASA astronaut Anil Menon and French astronaut Sophie Adenot removed a failed antenna during an Aug. 18 spacewalk at the International Space Station, but ran out of time before installing its replacement. The antenna repair will therefore require a subsequent spacewalk or other planned intervention.
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NASA engineers are reworking the power systems aboard the nearly 50-year-old Voyager spacecraft to conserve energy and keep both probes operating in interstellar space. The changes could extend the mission into the early 2030s, preserving an unprecedented source of long-duration data beyond the solar system.
NASA is testing technologies aimed at reducing dependence on Earth-based infrastructure and improving mobility beyond Earth. The agency demonstrated GPS-free optical navigation on its Starling CubeSat swarm, evaluated wheel designs for lunar bases, and developed a fabric-based ground-penetrating-radar antenna for SkyFall Mars helicopters.
An early-stage NASA grant is supporting the concept of spherical “Aerobots” designed to navigate Titan’s caves, offering a potential approach to exploring environments inaccessible to conventional rovers. The proposed demonstration mission would build on the technology-validation model established by Mars’ Ingenuity helicopter.
Speaking to more than 8,000 people at Colorado’s Red Rocks Amphitheatre on Aug. 3, 2026, the Artemis II crew thanked NASA and its contractors. The mission’s pilot highlighted the responsibility of manually flying Orion, saying he remained “blown away” by the trust placed in him.
NASA expects to award three more lunar task orders through its Commercial Lunar Payload Services program this year. The planned missions include an orbiter intended to replace the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, extending the agency’s lunar observation capabilities as commercial providers take on more exploration work.
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NASA has invited the Indian Space Research Organisation to collaborate on its planned Moon Base Mission, which aims to establish a permanent crewed outpost near the lunar south pole after 2032. The invitation marks a new phase in U.S.-India cooperation on human lunar exploration.
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