SpaceNews.com
• Brett Silcox
Space Technologies attempted a commercial mission to extend the life of the Hubble Space Telescope, a spacecraft launched more than two decades ago that was never designed for servicing. The effort was mounted in less than a year, underscoring the difficulty of sustaining aging space infrastructure.
Space Exploration & Science Missions
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Space Technologies attempted a commercial mission to extend the life of the Hubble Space Telescope, a spacecraft launched more than two decades ago that was never designed for servicing. The effort was mounted in less than a year, underscoring the difficulty of sustaining aging space infrastructure.
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With Starship Flight 14 targeted for launch in the coming weeks, SpaceX is expanding facilities and launch infrastructure in Florida. The work is intended to enable Starship operations from Kennedy Space Center’s LC-39A and, eventually, SLC-37, broadening the program’s launch-site capacity.
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Independent safety officials found that NASA’s Orion spacecraft heat shield performed well, despite earlier criticism of its behavior during testing or flight. The assessment also praised changes made by NASA leadership, providing support for the agency’s approach to addressing concerns surrounding the crewed exploration vehicle.
Starcloud cofounders announced Fermi Explorer, a mission targeting Alpha Centauri by 2029 with a stated $15 million budget. The proposal would attempt humanity’s first mission to another star, pairing an exceptionally ambitious interstellar objective with a comparatively modest commercial-space funding envelope.
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NASA estimates the SR-1 Freedom Mars mission will cost $2.1 billion, but that figure does not include helicopters. The program also faces questions about its capabilities in the absence of new landers or rovers, raising uncertainty around the scope of planned Mars exploration.
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Türkiye has signed NASA’s Artemis Accords, becoming the 71st country to join the framework for safe, sustainable civil space exploration. The agreement comes as Ankara advances a national space program that includes plans for a lunar mission, expanding international participation in NASA-led exploration efforts.
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NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope has left Earth aboard its mission to study dark energy and the evolving universe. The 300-megapixel observatory will spend roughly three months traveling to the second Sun-Earth Lagrange point, about one million miles away, before beginning its science mission.
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China says it has completed an Earth–Moon laser communications demonstration, verifying two-way, high-speed optical links across more than 400,000 km. The milestone highlights progress in lunar communications technology as China expands its ambitions for sustained activity and infrastructure around the Moon.
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