Space & Time

Paris, France [December 11, 2025] – Released today, Novaspace’s latest FSS Operators: Benchmarks & Performance Review unveils a year of transformation for satellite operators. 2025 is redefining the rules of The post 2025: The Turning Point for Satellite Operators appeared first on SpaceNews.

Images captured by NASA’s Parker Solar Probe as the spacecraft made its record-breaking closest approach to the sun in December 2024 have now revealed new details about how solar magnetic fields responsible for space weather escape from the sun—and how sometimes they don’t.

Researchers at the University of Hawaiʻi Institute for Astronomy (IfA) are helping reshape how scientists study the sun. The UH-led team has developed a new artificial intelligence (AI) tool that can map the sun’s magnetic field in three dimensions with unprecedented accuracy, supporting research tied to the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope built and managed by the NSF National Solar Observatory (NSO) on Haleakalā.

There are already tens of thousands of pieces of large debris in orbit, some of which pose a threat to functional satellites. Various agencies and organizations have been developing novel solutions to this problem, before it turns into full-blown Kessler Syndrome. But many of them are reliant on understanding what is going on with the debris before attempting to deal with it.

The moon’s surface may be more than just a dusty, barren landscape. Over billions of years, tiny particles from Earth’s atmosphere have landed in the lunar soil, creating a possible source of life-sustaining substances for future astronauts. But scientists have only recently begun to understand how these particles make the long journey from Earth to the moon and how long the process has been taking place.

Other space companies are likely to move toward the public markets now that Elon Musk is openly signaling plans to pursue a SpaceX IPO next year, hoping to ride the wave of momentum behind a potentially record-breaking listing. The post SpaceX IPO plan sets stage for a surge of other space listings appeared first on SpaceNews.

Astronomers have produced the first continuous, two-dimensional maps of the outer edge of the sun’s atmosphere, a shifting, frothy boundary that marks where solar winds escape the sun’s magnetic grasp. By combining the maps and close-up measurements, scientists from the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian (CfA) showed that the boundary grows larger, rougher and spikier as the sun becomes more active. The findings could help scientists improve models showing how the sun affects Earth, and better predict atmospheric complexity for other stars.

Most smaller galaxies may not have supermassive black holes in their centers, according to a recent study using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory. This contrasts with the common idea that nearly every galaxy has one of these giant black holes within their cores, as NASA leads the world in exploring the secrets of how the universe works.

In a discovery that’s fit for a movie, Northwestern University astronomers have directly imaged a Tatooine-like exoplanet, orbiting two suns. While obtaining an image of a planet beyond our solar system is already rare, finding one that circles two suns is even rarer. But this new world is extra exceptional. It hugs its twin stars more tightly than any other directly imaged planet in a binary system. In fact, it is six times closer to its suns than other previously discovered exoplanets.

Torrance, California-based K2 was founded in 2022 to build large satellites with more onboard power and volume. The post K2 Space raises $250 million to scale high-power satellite line appeared first on SpaceNews.

The European Space Agency’s Swarm mission detected a large but temporary spike of high-energy protons at Earth’s poles during a geomagnetic storm in November. It did this not with the scientific instruments for measuring Earth’s magnetic field, but with its ‘star tracker’ positioning instruments—a first for the Swarm mission.

The hunt is on for terrestrial exoplanets in habitable zones, and some of the most promising candidates were discovered almost a decade ago about 40 light-years from Earth. The TRAPPIST-1 system contains seven terrestrial planets similar to Earth, and four of them may be in the habitable zone. The star is a dim red dwarf, so the habitable zone is close to the star, and so are the planets. For that reason, astronomers expect them to be tidally-locked to the star.

Compelling evidence that the structure of matter surrounding supermassive black holes has changed over cosmic time has been uncovered by an international team of astronomers.

The award is for Phase 2 of DARPA’s Oversight program. The post BAE Systems wins $16 million DARPA award to advance autonomous satellite tasking appeared first on SpaceNews.

By analyzing the data from the PHANGS-MUSE survey, an international team of astronomers has inspected a nuclear star cluster of the nearby large spiral galaxy Messier 74. The new study presented Dec. 3 on the arXiv pre-print server, provides essential information regarding the properties and nature of this cluster.

Researchers using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope have detected the strongest evidence yet for an atmosphere on a rocky planet outside our solar system.

In this episode of Space Minds, host Mike Gruss sits down with Matt Magaña, President of Space, Defense & National Security at Voyager Technologies, to explore one of the most consequential national security space stories of 2025: Golden Dome. The post Building the future of space defense appeared first on SpaceNews.

In a glimpse of the early universe, astronomers have observed a galaxy as it appeared just 800 million years after the Big Bang—a cosmic Jekyll and Hyde that looks like any other galaxy when viewed in visible and even ultraviolet light but transforms into a cosmic beast when observed at infrared wavelengths.

For years, both the Trump Administration and Congress have clearly stated that returning Americans to the moon before China in the 2028-2030 timeframe is a national priority. It is central to United States leadership in space, to global influence and to the future of human exploration.  Yet across the space community, a sobering recognition has The post The U.S. race to the moon: Why Plan B cannot wait appeared first on SpaceNews.

LENEXA, KS – Enduralock is pleased to announce the successful completion of form, fit, and function testing for its OneLink™ satellite docking connector in Arkisys’ 1G robotic ground test facility The post Enduralock Validates OneLink™ Prototype in Zero-G Simulation appeared first on SpaceNews.

Video: 00:12:24 ESA’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (Juice) is on an epic eight-year journey to Jupiter. It left Earth in April 2023 and is due to arrive at the gas giant in 2031. 2025 has been another big year for Juice. It made its closest approach to the Sun and flew close by Venus for a gravity boost to help it on its way. This second episode of ‘The journey of Juice’ takes us on a journey of our own, discovering what Juice – and the humans behind it – have experienced this year. In a clean room at ESA’s technical centre, thermal engineer Romain Peyrou-Lauge shows us the technologies that protect Juice from the intense heat of the Sun during this period. In Uppsala, Sweden, scientists get together for a ‘science working team’ meeting to discuss the scientific aspects of the mission. Juice Project Scientist Olivier Witasse talks about how important it is to continue working as a team to prepare for Juice’s precious time spent collecting data at Jupiter. The video culminates with operations engineer Marc Costa taking us to the Cebreros station in Madrid for the Venus flyby. There we meet deputy station manager Jorge Fauste, Juice intern Charlotte Bergot and Juice Mission Manager Nicolas Altobelli. This series follows on from ‘The making of Juice’ series, which covered the planning, testing and launch of this once-in-a-generation mission.

ESA Highlights 2025

NASA has lost contact with a spacecraft that has orbited Mars for more than a decade.

The search for past or present life should be the top science objective of future human missions to Mars, a new National Academies report concludes. The post Report identifies science objectives of human Mars exploration appeared first on SpaceNews.

The European Space Agency’s Swarm mission detected a large but temporary spike of high-energy protons at Earth’s poles during a geomagnetic storm in November. It did this not with the scientific instruments for measuring Earth’s magnetic field, but with its ‘star tracker’ positioning instruments – a first for the Swarm mission.

Air travellers will shrink their carbon footprint while reducing flight delays worldwide, thanks to a collaboration between the European Space Agency (ESA), satellite operator Viasat and aerospace company Boeing. Flights to test the space-based technology with new aviation standards from and to the USA and Europe took place in late October and early November.

The findings come from a report by the Consortium for Space Mobility and ISAM Capabilities, or COSMIC The post GEO satellite refueling a priority for national security, commercial markets, new analysis finds appeared first on SpaceNews.

Lt. Gen. Phil Garrant, head of the Space Systems Command, said Five Eyes partners would likely have access to this technology The post L3Harris satellite-jamming system approved for export to close U.S. allies appeared first on SpaceNews.

Lt. Gen. Phil Garrant, who leads the Space Systems Command, said Blue Origin selected the four-flight benchmark and the government agreed The post Blue Origin targets four-flight campaign for New Glenn’s path to Space Force certification appeared first on SpaceNews.

Supernovae aren’t one of the JWST’s main science themes, but the perceptive telescope is full of surprises. Recently, it pinpointed a single star in a galaxy when the universe was only about 730 million years old. It wasn’t just any random star; this one was a supernova responsible for a gamma-ray burst (GRB) detected back in March, 2025.

The contract will focus on signals intelligence for U.S. Air Force platforms. The post Voyager wins $21 million Air Force contract for AI-driven signals processing appeared first on SpaceNews.

NATO has picked 150 companies from 24 of its member countries to join its Defence Innovation Accelerator for the North Atlantic next year, including more than two dozen with ties to the space sector. The post Multiple space companies join NATO’s DIANA defense accelerator appeared first on SpaceNews.

As on-orbit capabilities grow more advanced, ground systems are undergoing a transformation of their own.  Ground network specialist ST Engineering iDirect, with headquarters in Herndon, Virginia, is investing in new The post Delivering the next generation of cloud-native, multi-orbit ground systems appeared first on SpaceNews.

Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) scientists are collaborating with researchers at UT San Antonio to study how space weathering can alter the lunar surface materials to help interpret regional and global far-ultraviolet (FUV) maps of the moon.

For 10 months, a SETI Institute-led team watched pulsar PSR J0332+5434 (also called B0329+54) to study how its radio signal “twinkles” as it passes through gas between the star and Earth. The team used the Allen Telescope Array (ATA) to take measurements between 900 and 1,956 MHz and observed slow, significant changes in the twinkling pattern (scintillation) over time.

The cosmos has served up a gift for a group of scientists who have been searching for one of the most elusive phenomena in the night sky. Their study, presented in Science Advances, reports on the very first observations of a swirling vortex in spacetime caused by a rapidly rotating black hole.

The vision of mining space for resources is no longer science fiction. The moon’s proximity to Earth and the presence of precious resources make it an increasingly attractive prospect for exploitation.

If you feel a thrill every time we discover something new about the cosmos, then November 25th may have been a noteworthy day to you. That’s the day that NASA completed assembly of the Nancy Grace Roman Telescope. The two main segments of the powerful space telescope were joined together in the large clean room at Goddard Space Flight Center that day. This means that the telescope is on track for launch as early as Fall 2026.

A new research collaboration that fuses fashion and science is set to send bacteria into space—and the outcomes could create radiation-sensitive fabrics capable of preventing skin cancer on Earth and protecting space explorers on the moon.

Two defense technology companies from Norway and Germany have joined forces to bolster Europe’s sovereign intelligence and communications capabilities, with plans to start deploying small satellites in about three years. The post Helsing and Kongsberg plot multi-mission European defense space network appeared first on SpaceNews.

Much remains to be known about the chemical composition of small asteroids. Their potential to harbor valuable metals, materials from the early solar system, and the possibility of obtaining a geochemical record of their parent bodies makes them promising candidates for future use of space resources.

A research team led by Professor Woong-bae Zee at Sejong University has uncovered compelling evidence that the distinctive warped shapes of many disk galaxies are closely tied to both their surrounding satellite systems and the vast cosmic web in which they reside.

China continued a surge in launch activity with a pair of missions Tuesday, adding to an opaque satellite series and launching new remote sensing satellites. The post China launches new TJS satellite, commercial Kinetica-1 lofts 9 spacecraft appeared first on SpaceNews.

GOLDEN, CO — A university team has found that small orbital debris could emit radio bursts as they collide or approach each other in space. The signal can be detected with large radio dishes on Earth, as well as satellites in orbit.  This new intelligence agency-funded research is focused on gauging the interaction of orbital debris The post Colliding space debris produces radio bursts, raising prospect of ‘debris weather’ alerts appeared first on SpaceNews.

SAN FRANCISCO – British startup Odin Space raised $3 million in a seed round to begin commercializing tiny sensors to map and analyze sub-centimeter orbital debris. With its first sensor launched in 2023 on D-Orbit’s ION orbital transfer vehicle, Odin demonstrated its ability to detect debris that’s generally too small to track but still capable The post Odin Space raises $3 million in seed funding appeared first on SpaceNews.

Irish planetary scientists have christened a spider-like feature on Jupiter’s icy moon Europa as “Damhán Alla,” which translates to “spider” or “wall demon.”

A team of astronomers including George Washington University physics Ph.D. student Eliza Neights recorded an extraordinary cosmic outburst this July which likely heralds a new kind of stellar explosion. With a flood of data from sources including NASA satellites, the team observed a gamma-ray burst (GRB), the most powerful class of cosmic explosions. But while most GRBs are over in a minute, this one continued for days.

Earth’s climate has swung between ice ages and warmer periods for millions of years, driven by subtle changes in our planet’s orbit and axial tilt. These variations, known as Milankovitch cycles, occur because Earth doesn’t orbit the sun in isolation. The gravitational pull of other planets constantly tugs at Earth, slowly altering its orbital path, the tilt of its axis, and the direction its poles point.

Gamma-ray bursts (GRB) are some of the most perplexing phenomena in nature. Even though astronomers have detected about 15,000 of them, with a new one each day, they’re still mysterious. They’re the most luminous, energetic explosions in the universe, and typically last only a few milliseconds, or a few minutes, with a handful of them lasting for a few hours.

Star clusters are of great importance in any galaxy: they are the birthplace of new stars, often containing massive stars of 10 solar masses or more. Such massive stars often drive powerful winds; the combined action of all stars in the cluster then leads to the formation of a “superbubble”—a cavity in the interstellar medium.

In March, NASA researchers employed a new camera system to capture data imagery of the interaction between Firefly Aerospace Blue Ghost Mission-1 lander’s engine plumes and the lunar surface.

A research team from the Yunnan Observatories of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), in collaboration with other researchers, has developed a new method to estimate how stellar-mass compact objects (COs)—including black holes, neutron stars, and white dwarfs—accrete matter within active galactic nucleus (AGN) disks. This work provides new insights into the evolution of these objects in extreme cosmic environments.

Uranus and Neptune may not be the icy worlds we’ve long imagined. A new Swiss-led study uses innovative hybrid modeling to reveal that these planets could just as easily be dominated by rock as by water-rich ices. The findings also help explain their bizarre, multi-poled magnetic fields and open the door to a wider range of possible interior structures. But major uncertainties remain, and only future space missions will be able to uncover what truly lies beneath their blue atmospheres.

Space missions are entering a new era defined by complexity: more sensors, more software-driven behavior, more tightly coupled subsystems and more interactions between spacecraft and orbital infrastructure. As these systems evolve, the number of potential failure modes grows — ranging from thermal drift and aging hardware to configuration errors, environmental disturbances, and unfamiliar system behavior. The post How multi-agent AI can strengthen space missions against the unknown appeared first on SpaceNews.

New research reveals that Earth’s solid inner core is actually in a superionic state, where carbon atoms flow freely through a solid iron lattice. This unusual behavior makes the core soft, matching seismic observations that have puzzled scientists for decades. The mobility of these light elements may also contribute energy to Earth’s magnetic field. The findings reshape models of Earth’s interior and could apply to other rocky planets.

SAN FRANCISCO – Benchmark Space Systems’ ASCENT-fueled Macaw thruster performed a 10-minute continuous burn, clearing the way for an on-orbit application of the propulsion technology, the company announced Dec. 10. “Because ASCENT has 50% greater impulse density than other monopropellants, mission planners and spacecraft designers can get the similar delta-v [change in velocity] with less The post Benchmark demonstrates high-throughput ASCENT thruster in hotfire testing at Edwards Air Force Base appeared first on SpaceNews.

NASA has lost contact with a Mars orbiter that has circled the planet for more than a decade, collecting science data and serving as a key communications relay. The post NASA loses contact with MAVEN Mars orbiter appeared first on SpaceNews.

A space solar power startup has emerged from stealth after demonstrating a key technology for its plans to transmit power from space to the Earth. The post Overview Energy demonstrates technologies for space solar power appeared first on SpaceNews.

Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope have captured dramatic helium streams pouring off the super-puff exoplanet WASP-107b, revealing a world with an enormously inflated, weakly bound atmosphere under intense stellar heat. The detection of helium, water, and various chemical compounds—alongside the surprising absence of methane—paints a picture of a planet that formed far from its star but later migrated inward, where scorching radiation now strips its gases into space.

Two Shenzhou-21 astronauts embarked on the mission’s first spacewalk late Monday, inspecting and photographing a damaged spacecraft window which triggered an earlier emergency launch. The post Chinese astronauts inspect debris-damaged Shenzhou-20 spacecraft during spacewalk appeared first on SpaceNews.