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• Jeff Foust
NASA is evaluating whether an engineering model of a Mars rover can be converted into a lunar rover, but a reported cost estimate above $1 billion has drawn a rejection from the agency’s leader. The dispute highlights the financial stakes of reusing existing spacecraft hardware for new planetary missions.
Space Exploration & Science Missions
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NASA is evaluating whether an engineering model of a Mars rover can be converted into a lunar rover, but a reported cost estimate above $1 billion has drawn a rejection from the agency’s leader. The dispute highlights the financial stakes of reusing existing spacecraft hardware for new planetary missions.
Spain has offered up to €1 billion in financial support to persuade the Thirty Meter Telescope project to relocate from its planned site in Hawaii to La Palma in the Canary Islands. The proposal adds a major financial incentive to the long-running contest over where the observatory will be built.
High activity
NASA and Blue Origin have agreed to test New Glenn engines at NASA’s historic Stennis Space Center stand, giving the company an alternative to capacity constrained by the May static-fire explosion at Launch Complex 36 as it works toward a return to flight before the end of 2026.
NASA says its next flagship space telescope, the Roman Space Telescope, is on track for a late-August launch—about nine months ahead of its previous schedule. The update signals progress on remaining development and readiness milestones for the mission.
A spacecraft tasked with raising NASA’s Swift Observatory to a higher orbit suffered a malfunction and began tumbling several days ago. Engineers believe recovery remains possible, even as the setback complicates plans to achieve the observatory’s target orbit.
The Exploration Company says it has selected Siemens Xcelerator software to speed development of its reusable Nyx cargo spacecraft. The company cites reduced design complexity and improved engineering collaboration across its development workflow as key reasons for the move.
A spent SpaceX Falcon 9 upper stage is expected to strike the Moon near Einstein Crater on Aug. 5 at roughly 8,700 kilometers per hour. Scientists plan to study the resulting crater and ejecta, while the event highlights unresolved questions around lunar impact research and space law.
Sophia Space said it received an award on July 30 for a patent it shares with the California Institute of Technology, covering large, modular space-based data centers. The filing targets in-orbit compute and storage architectures intended to support scalable space services.
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