https://phys.org/space-news/space-exploration/ en-us Space exploration news and updates. Space missions and science news. Planet exploration and more. Students in Cornell's Space Systems Design Studio (SSDS) have released mission results for two unique light-sail experiments. These sails are slightly larger than a pizza box and harness momentum from photons to accelerate to high velocities. With ChipSats onboard—gram-scale spacecraft that fit in the palm of your hand—the sails can become free-flyers. They origami-fold into CubeSats for launch and completely separate when deployed, allowing them to be far smaller and lighter than traditional solar sails. The ChipSats provide all ground communications and steering capabilities for a fraction of the mass and cost. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-student-missions-deploy-free-flying.html Space Exploration Mon, 21 Sep 2026 17:10:02 EDT news709227061 Scientists have discovered a crater on the moon that's bigger than the Roman Colosseum and is the result of a powerful impact two years ago that initially went undetected. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-nasa-spacecraft-huge-crater-moon.html Space Exploration Thu, 17 Sep 2026 04:12:32 EDT news708837122 The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope hasn't yet reached its Sun–Earth L2 orbit, and it already has some good news. NASA has announced that the mission has enough fuel to potentially double its mission length. Though initially scheduled for five years of observations, followed by a five-year extended mission, the entire mission could now reach 22 years. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-years-nancy-grace-roman-space.html Space Exploration Wed, 16 Sep 2026 13:40:02 EDT news708770581 SpaceX announced Tuesday that it was planning to send its flagship rocket, Starship, into orbit, a key step in its project to one day reach the moon or Mars. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-spacex-orbital-flight-starship-rocket.html Space Exploration Wed, 16 Sep 2026 04:17:52 EDT news708751044 The United States has confirmed for the first time that it has deployed weapons in space, a remarkable revelation after previous warnings about countries such as Russia possibly weaponizing a global frontier long agreed in treaties to be used for only peaceful purposes. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-acknowledges-deployed-weapons-space.html Space Exploration Wed, 16 Sep 2026 04:08:20 EDT news708750450 Scientists from Trinity College Dublin have developed a way to unravel changing weather patterns on distant worlds. Using this approach, they discovered that the weather on a well-studied brown dwarf, SIMP 0136, previously linked to northern lights-like phenomena, is largely shaped by just two dominant processes: changes in temperature and the vertical structure of its clouds. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-world-years-reveals-jupiter-weather.html Space Exploration Wed, 16 Sep 2026 03:00:01 EDT news708599341 Choosing an orbit for a satellite always comes with trade-offs. Very low Earth orbit (VLEO), between 100–450 km (62–280 miles), has distinct advantages. Remote-sensing cameras can take better pictures, communications and radar require less power, and atmospheric drag automatically cleans up dead satellites. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-plasma-fuels-thin-air.html Space Exploration Mon, 14 Sep 2026 20:40:01 EDT news708611542 The discovery of water in dark craters at the moon's poles has sparked a "moon rush" to establish bases there, followed by villages, cities and heavy industry. How sustainable is this rush? https://phys.org/news/2026-09-cities-moon-isnt-scientists.html Space Exploration Mon, 14 Sep 2026 00:00:02 EDT news708349073 An eye surgeon with a passion for space since childhood predicts that as astronauts start to make journeys to the moon and Mars in the near future, eye surgery in space will eventually become a necessity. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-cataract-surgery-space-surgeon.html Space Exploration Sun, 13 Sep 2026 09:20:01 EDT news708350221 We've found more than 5,500 exoplanets so far. Dozens of them are in the habitable zones of their parent stars, where, at least in theory, they could host an ocean. But we've never definitively found a liquid ocean on another planet. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-nasa-great-observatory-oceans-distant.html Space Exploration Sun, 13 Sep 2026 09:00:04 EDT news708336640 The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's (JAXA) Hayabusa2 spacecraft reached another milestone this summer, a first for space agencies. On Sunday, July 5, the probe conducted the first successful laser-ranging experiment during a flyby of asteroid Torifune, the first exploration target of Hayabusa2's Extended Mission. This latest milestone will advance the capabilities of JAXA and other space agencies as they pursue future missions involving near-Earth asteroids (NEAs) and other deep-space objects. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-japan-hayabusa2-laser-ranging-asteroid.html Space Exploration Sat, 12 Sep 2026 17:00:02 EDT news708178334 Thanks to JAXA, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, and its sample-return capabilities, we're on the cusp of receiving our first sample from the Martian system—not from Mars itself, but from its largest moon, Phobos. JAXA's Martian Moons eXploration (MMX) mission is set to launch in October. It will reach Phobos in 2027 and, if successful, return a sample from the moon to Earth in 2031. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-surface-atlas-phobos-mmx-mission.html Space Exploration Fri, 11 Sep 2026 09:20:04 EDT news708331622 Mars is a terrible place to build a house. It's bitterly cold, blasted by radiation and a near vacuum. Not to mention that the building materials, even for a modest shelter, could spend months hurtling through space before construction begins. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-scientists-3d-houses-mars-yeast.html Space Exploration Thu, 10 Sep 2026 11:00:01 EDT news708089999 Key figures from Europe's space industry and other international players have converged on Paris to discuss how to advance the continent's ambitions in a global market dominated by the United States. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-europe-space.html Space Exploration Wed, 09 Sep 2026 15:50:01 EDT news708186928 The two NASA astronauts who led the Artemis II moonshot earlier this year are stepping away from spaceflight. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-artemis-ii-moonshot-astronaut-nasa.html Space Exploration Wed, 09 Sep 2026 15:35:49 EDT news708186911 Senegalese engineers in hairnets and white gloves are carefully assembling a nanosatellite at a French lab—another step toward fostering their own space industry back home. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-african-space-senegal-pursues-homemade.html Space Exploration Wed, 09 Sep 2026 10:20:12 EDT news708166235 Halley's Comet captures the imagination in a way that few other astronomical objects do. When it last made its approach toward the sun (admittedly when this author, who is now middle-aged, was 1 year old in 1986), humanity responded with a fleet of spacecraft known informally as the "Halley Armada." Yet because of the comet's trajectory, those spacecraft were only able to visit their target for a fleeting few hours, leaving planetary scientists wanting more. Now, a new paper by researchers at Khalifa University and their co-authors, available on the arXiv preprint server, describes a mission plan that would allow a spacecraft to rendezvous with this best-known comet for the first time. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-mission-rendezvous-halley-comet.html Space Exploration Tue, 08 Sep 2026 19:00:05 EDT news708088306 As NASA prepares to send humans to Mars as early as the 2030s, University of Mississippi researchers are working on one of the key questions: How will they get back? https://phys.org/news/2026-09-martian-air-yield-methane-rocket.html Space Exploration Tue, 08 Sep 2026 15:20:01 EDT news708092281 There are nearly 1 million pieces of debris larger than 1 centimeter (0.4 inch) in near-Earth orbit. As we continue launching spacecraft and telescopes to explore the universe, this debris poses a significant threat of high-speed impact damage. In the Journal of Applied Physics researchers from Dalian University of Technology in China explored an eggshell-inspired design as a potential spacecraft protection material. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-eggshells-aluminum-material-significant-space.html Space Exploration Tue, 08 Sep 2026 11:00:06 EDT news707991301 Astronauts who undergo long-duration spaceflight aboard the International Space Station often return with health problems that resemble some age-related conditions in people on Earth. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-astronauts-tackle-aging-earth.html Space Exploration Tue, 08 Sep 2026 10:20:08 EDT news708075182 "Seeing the Earth from above is a powerful reminder of our interdependence," said Thomas Pesquet. The words of France's 10th astronaut to head into space are a reminder of how we are "in this together," something the world's aerospace industry players should take heed of as they gather in Paris for the first International Space Summit from Sept. 9–10. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-galileo-copernicus-cleansky-iris-europe.html Space Exploration Mon, 07 Sep 2026 12:20:03 EDT news707991782 Germany's Isar Aerospace launched a rocket into orbit from Norway on Saturday as Europe races to boost its ability to economically send satellites into space independently of the United States. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-germany-isar-aerospace-rocket-orbit.html Space Exploration Sun, 06 Sep 2026 04:00:01 EDT news707884608 A private spacecraft that was supposed to provide a lifeline to NASA's Swift Observatory managed to get close to the sinking telescope and even snap photos two weeks after the rescue was abandoned. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-satellite-nasa-doomed-telescope.html Space Exploration Fri, 04 Sep 2026 10:52:33 EDT news707737920 The Cluster mission danced its final dance as Tango reentered the atmosphere Sept. 1 at 11:30:31 p.m. CEST. The end of the Cluster mission in 2024 marked the start of the reentry data-collection campaign. After four targeted reentries, this is now a proven method of safe end-of-life disposal. It also enabled repeated observation of the reentries by a plane full of scientists, creating a unique reentry data set that will improve our understanding of the destructive process and inform the design of safer, more sustainable satellites in the future. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-cluster-reentry-safer-sustainable-satellite.html Space Exploration Wed, 02 Sep 2026 16:00:03 EDT news707579090 A 13-meter (43-foot) Falcon 9 rocket stage struck the moon last month, leaving a crater about 20 meters (66 feet) wide. In the days before impact, University of Tasmania researchers from the School of Natural Sciences were the first in the world to detect the object by radar, helping refine predictions of where it would land. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-meter-rocket-moon-tasmanian-track.html Space Exploration Wed, 02 Sep 2026 09:40:06 EDT news707550901 When Blue Origin's New Glenn launch vehicle accidentally exploded during a static test fire in May 2026, the explosion generated low frequency soundwaves below the range of human hearing. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-blue-explosion-infrasound.html Space Exploration Wed, 02 Sep 2026 07:40:03 EDT news707543821 A new AI model can monitor satellites and spot anomalies in their behavior, reducing the risk of in-orbit collisions, according to new research published in the journal Expert Systems. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-ai-tool-unusual-satellite-behavior.html Astronomy Tue, 01 Sep 2026 13:00:06 EDT news707470322 Jupiter hosts more than 100 moons, with most attention focused on the four Galilean moons: Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto. This is primarily due to their active geology, including Io being the most volcanically active planetary body in the solar system and Europa having a vast subsurface liquid-water ocean beneath its icy crust. However, Jupiter's smaller, lesser-known moons could provide astronomers with key insights into the history of the solar system because they have remained largely unchanged, unlike the Galilean moons. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-esa-juice-probe-dark-jovian.html Space Exploration Mon, 31 Aug 2026 17:40:05 EDT news707400639 SpaceX has pulled off its biggest salvage operation yet, recovering its most recently launched Starship from the Indian Ocean. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-spacex-recovers-starship-indian-ocean.html Space Exploration Fri, 28 Aug 2026 13:34:56 EDT news707142863 During the Aug. 12 total solar eclipse over Europe, scientists aimed to study a long-standing mystery: why the sun's outer atmosphere, the corona, is far hotter than its visible surface. Capturing the data they needed meant being in exactly the right place at the right time. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-nasa-johnson-moon-shadow-eclipse.html Space Exploration Thu, 27 Aug 2026 11:40:04 EDT news707047621