https://phys.org/space-news/space-exploration/ en-us Space exploration news and updates. Space missions and science news. Planet exploration and more. After the success of Artemis II, longer space journeys are expected, raising new health and nutritional challenges for astronauts. Current space foods rely on dried, shelf-stable items. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-customizable-essential-nutrients-space-missions.html Space Exploration Fri, 15 May 2026 08:58:50 EDT news698054281 On Thursday, NASA issued a Request for Proposal (RFP), seeking industry collaboration for the Mars Telecommunications Network. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-nasa-industry-mars-telecommunications-network.html Space Exploration Fri, 15 May 2026 08:37:42 EDT news698053022 Researchers have developed a mathematical method that enables more precise calculations of the most economical travel routes between the orbits of celestial bodies. To demonstrate this method, they calculated a more efficient path between Earth's and the moon's orbits than any previously described in the scientific literature. The study is published in the journal Astrodynamics. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-mathematical-method-efficient-earth-moon.html Space Exploration Fri, 15 May 2026 05:30:01 EDT news698037277 Spain, one of the few places in the world where a total solar eclipse will be visible in August, has begun preparations for an event it hopes will shift tourism away from the beaches and toward the countryside. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-spain-gears-august-total-solar.html Space Exploration Thu, 14 May 2026 19:00:02 EDT news697983210 There's a new space race to the moon, and this time the ambitions are not just to visit but to stay. NASA's Artemis program aims to establish a long-term human presence on the lunar surface in the 2030s. China, India, Japan and a number of private companies all have lunar mission programs of their own. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-future-missions-moon-sustainable.html Space Exploration Thu, 14 May 2026 12:27:49 EDT news697980421 Just a few hours before the Orion spacecraft crossed the sky en route to the moon on April 1, mechatronics engineer Rodrigo Trevisan Okamoto received confirmation he had been waiting for since the Artemis 2 mission was announced in 2023. The email from NASA stated that the crew of the first crewed mission to orbit the moon in half a century would carry a device developed by Okamoto and his team at Condor Instruments, a São Paulo-based startup. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-wristwatch-device-enables-health-astronauts.html Space Exploration Wed, 13 May 2026 23:40:01 EDT news697904627 Nasa is developing ways to use nuclear power to send spacecraft to their destinations. Nuclear propulsion could greatly reduce the journey time to Mars, perhaps cutting a voyage of more than six months to three or four months. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-nasa-big-nuclear-journey-mars.html Space Exploration Wed, 13 May 2026 12:48:49 EDT news697895284 With a small blue crane, four researchers hoist a cylindrical fuel cell, which looks like a stack of flattened silver and gold soda cans bundled together, into the air and lower it into a rectangular cart on wheels. A tangle of tubes and wires spirals away from the system, where nearly 270 sensors and 1,000 components are nestled inside. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-nasa-fuel-cell-pave-energy.html Space Exploration Mon, 11 May 2026 19:40:03 EDT news697729122 From navigation to solar weather forecasting, many different areas of research require space-based sensors to measure Earth's magnetic field as accurately as possible at any given moment. So far, however, existing sensors have consistently struggled with effects including drift, interference from the spacecraft itself, and the harsh conditions of orbit. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-resilient-quantum-sensor-earth-magnetic.html Space Exploration Mon, 11 May 2026 14:00:05 EDT news697711981 Aerospace engineers have to consider numerous factors when designing a spacecraft, but one that comes up more and more often is the need to design against micrometeoroids and orbital debris (MMOD). While most designers understand the threat, designing structural solutions capable of withstanding the hypervelocity impacts these undercontrolled pieces of material can cause can take a significant bite out of a mission's mass budget. A new paper from Binkal Kumar Sharma of the University of Bremen and Harshitha Baskar, an independent researcher, provides a detailed review of cutting-edge options for defending against those deadly particles. The study is published on the arXiv preprint server. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-material-science-spacecraft-impact-armor.html Space Exploration Mon, 11 May 2026 13:40:05 EDT news697716182 A daring mission to lift NASA's sinking Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory is now one step closer to launch this June. On May 4, Katalyst Space Technologies completed environmental tests of its LINK robotic servicing spacecraft at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. LINK will meet up with Swift and attempt to raise its orbit. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-katalyst-nasa-goddard-swift-boost.html Space Exploration Mon, 11 May 2026 12:00:13 EDT news697714982 The European Space Agency (ESA) and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) have signed a Memorandum of Cooperation to deepen collaboration in planetary defense, alongside a dedicated agreement for collaboration on the Rapid Apophis Mission for Space Safety (Ramses) to the near-Earth asteroid Apophis. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-asteroid-apophis-skim-earth-joint.html Space Exploration Fri, 08 May 2026 17:00:03 EDT news697454559 A new study, published in Science Advances, has refined some important details about the moon's largest and oldest impact crater, which stretches more than 1,200 miles (2,000 km) on the far side of the moon. The new details can help guide some of the planning for NASA's upcoming Artemis mission to the moon, which is planned for 2028. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-moon-largest-impact-crater-priceless.html Space Exploration Fri, 08 May 2026 13:50:01 EDT news697463270 Researchers at National Jewish Health have published new findings demonstrating that short-duration spaceflight may not significantly impact lower extremity joint structures, while also identifying a promising, noninvasive tool to monitor astronaut musculoskeletal health on future long-duration missions. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-spaceflight-astronauts-joints-unchanged-days.html Space Exploration Fri, 08 May 2026 13:40:05 EDT news697465261 NASA's home for experimental flight is welcoming more flyers to its already high-performing fleet as it continues to support science and aeronautics test missions—continuing the legacy of pioneers like Neil Armstrong. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-fleet-nasa-armstrong-legacy-flight.html Space Exploration Fri, 08 May 2026 08:40:01 EDT news697447202 In-situ Resource Utilization (ISRU) is our best bet for "living off the land" for a future Martian base, but tracking down those resources is no easy task. As of now, we have two options—send a rover to a specific location to scout it, or monitor it from orbit. Since rovers are expensive, and there are an absolute ton of sites that we would eventually want to scout, doing so from orbit would seem a better option. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-fusion-high-definition-mars-temperature.html Space Exploration Wed, 06 May 2026 15:40:09 EDT news697298521 Four humans recently looped around the moon. Their vessel, an Artemis capsule, was a thin metal shell whose life-support system kept them alive: it provided a carefully balanced atmosphere, a closed water loop, a finite supply of food, and a means for disposing of human waste. The life support was not optional. It was a necessity. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-earth-spaceship.html Space Exploration Wed, 06 May 2026 13:00:02 EDT news697280702 Solar emissions exert 'drag' on space junk orbiting Earth. From historical measurements across a period of 36 years, researchers have now shown that space junk begins to fall down much faster once the sun's activity across the solar cycle reaches approximately 67% of its peak. This result, which is expected to hold for station-keeping satellites too, is important for better planning of space missions that avoid collisions. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-space-junk-falls-earth-faster.html Space Exploration Wed, 06 May 2026 01:00:01 EDT news696781021 The new focus on manned missions to the moon and Mars presents countless pressing challenges, including keeping humans alive in hostile environments. What happens when an astronaut or space tourist has a cardiac emergency millions of miles from the nearest hospital? https://phys.org/news/2026-05-cpr-simulator-space-tracks-differences.html Space Exploration Tue, 05 May 2026 19:40:01 EDT news697204081 Also known as Endurance, MK1 is an uncrewed cargo lander. It's a commercial demonstration mission to advance Human Landing System capabilities in support of NASA's Artemis program. The tests in Chamber A represent a public-private partnership model, with Blue Origin conducting work through a reimbursable Space Act Agreement. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-blue-moon-lander-nasa-vacuum.html Space Exploration Tue, 05 May 2026 11:20:04 EDT news697192021 A new publication from Bielefeld University sets a benchmark in optimization research. Together with an international team, Professor Michael Römer from the Faculty of Business Administration and Economics has developed a mathematical framework that solves a complex problem from space logistics exactly for the first time: the optimal planning of a route to visit several asteroids under conditions that are as close to reality as possible. The study is published in the INFORMS Journal on Computing. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-mathematical-framework-asteroid-route.html Space Exploration Mon, 04 May 2026 12:40:04 EDT news697112882 The Eta Aquarid meteor shower soon will light the sky with debris from Halley's comet. But a bright moon will spoil the fun this year, making the display harder to glimpse. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-bright-moon-dim-eta-aquarid.html Space Exploration Sun, 03 May 2026 06:40:22 EDT news697009166 Exoplanet science and the search for life beyond Earth continue to advance at break-neck speeds, with the number of confirmed exoplanets by NASA rapidly approaching 6,300, with 223 of those exoplanets being designated as terrestrial (rocky) exoplanets. With the promise of discovering an increasing number of Earth-sized exoplanets increasing every day, new telescopes from across the world have the opportunity to contribute to this incredible field. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-canada-poet-mission-earth-sized.html Space Exploration Sat, 02 May 2026 18:00:01 EDT news696681018 Millions of people watched the historic launch of Artemis II and were captivated by the mission's 10-day journey around the moon as NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch, and CSA (Canadian Space Agency) astronaut Jeremy Hansen ventured farther into space than any human before. Part of the public's ability to experience the mission in high-definition was due to laser communications. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-nasa-laser-terminal-views-artemis.html Space Exploration Fri, 01 May 2026 20:40:01 EDT news696844161 The astronauts on Artemis II's trip to the moon in April 2026 didn't just have an amazing journey through space. They also saw something extraordinary. They were the first humans to see a total solar eclipse from space. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-eclipse-earth-aweinspiring-astronauts-space.html Space Exploration Fri, 01 May 2026 14:00:17 EDT news696856262 There are tens of thousands of near-Earth objects (NEOs) that represent some of the most easily accessible resources in the solar system. Planning trajectories to rendezvous with these miniature worlds is notoriously difficult, and requires a massive amount of computational power to calculate. But a new paper from astrodynamicist Alessandro Beolchi of Khalifa University of Science and Technology and his co-authors offers a much less computationally intensive way to find these trajectories, and has the added bonus of finding much less energy-intensive paths to boot. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-trajectories-asteroids.html Space Exploration Fri, 01 May 2026 13:20:07 EDT news696850261 You're on the fourth human mission to Mars, and you're told the Odyssey spacecraft designed to take you there will be the smoothest ride you'll ever take. It features a newly christened electric propulsion engine which was in the late stages of testing during the first three missions. The mission starts and the spacecraft travels at a crawl, and you wonder if it's broken. A week goes by and you're now traveling at more than 400,000 kilometers (250,000 miles) per hour, and your mind is blown as to how fast you're going, how quickly that happened, and that this mission might be more awesome than you thought. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-lithium-plasma-key-mars-propulsion.html Space Exploration Fri, 01 May 2026 12:20:06 EDT news696847982 Expose an animal to extreme physical stress, and the expectation is simple: It will break down. But when UC Riverside scientists subjected fruit flies to forces many times stronger than Earth's gravity—a condition called hypergravity—the insects did something unexpected. They survived. They even mated and reproduced. Their movements and behaviors changed dramatically and then, over time, they recovered. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-hypergravity-fruit-flies-recover.html Space Exploration Fri, 01 May 2026 09:40:03 EDT news696845581 Laser sail propulsion is an idea that won't go away. By aiming powerful Earth-based lasers at tiny spacecraft with light sails, tiny spacecraft can be accelerated to near-relativistic speeds without carrying fuel or an energy source, and without carrying any kind of propulsion system at all. There are clear advantages to this idea, if it can be implemented. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-relativistic-swarm-image-proxima-meter.html Space Exploration Thu, 30 Apr 2026 14:20:08 EDT news696769921 Europe's most powerful rocket Ariane 6 successfully released 32 satellites into orbit Thursday for Amazon's internet constellation, which is bidding to rival Elon Musk's giant Starlink. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-european-rocket-amazon-internet-satellites.html Space Exploration Thu, 30 Apr 2026 10:00:06 EDT news696757927