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• Jeff Foust
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.
Space Exploration & Science Missions
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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.
Researchers mapped Moon regolith to improve understanding of its physical properties for building long-lasting habitats. The work focuses on how planetary-surface materials can inform site selection, foundation design, and construction methods for future lunar infrastructure beyond Earth.
NASA says the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is scheduled to launch Aug. 30 aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy. The observatory will travel nearly 1 million miles from Earth to reach the same orbital “sweet spot” as the James Webb Space Telescope, enabling wide-field science aimed at discoveries currently impossible from existing assets.
Katalyst Space says it has encountered technical problems with the attitude control system on its recently launched LINK spacecraft. The issue arose on a mission intended to rescue NASA’s Swift, prompting attention on in-orbit guidance and control performance for spacecraft-servicing operations.
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