Space

Featured image: Satellite ground station in Namibia handed over by China in February 2026. Credit: Xinhua/Reuters The United States is on track to permanently lose influence over Africa’s rapidly expanding space industry to China, and the window for meaningful competition is closing, according to a stark new analysis published by SpaceNews. Writing in the space […]

The expansion of the universe is still accelerating under the influence of dark energy, and astronomers are breathing a collective sigh of relief. A new study published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society has systematically refuted a 2025 claim that dark energy might be weakening — a finding that would have upended cosmology’s […]

NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, long considered the crown jewel of American spaceports, is facing a quiet but accelerating crisis: its 1960s-era infrastructure is buckling under the weight of commercial super heavy rocket operations, and the agency lacks the funding to keep up. A new report from NASA’s Office of Inspector General (IG-26-010) paints a stark […]

NASA’s bold proposal to send a fleet of three next-generation helicopters to Mars aboard a nuclear-powered spacecraft has planetary scientists deeply divided: the technology is tantalizing, but the lack of cost transparency and the risk of cannibalizing funding for other Mars missions has fueled a roiling controversy within the science community. Unveiled in March 2026, […]

Commercial tracker detects subsatellite deployment at 593-kilometer altitude, extending a pattern of orbital secrecy HELSINKI — China’s secretive reusable spaceplane has released an unidentified object into orbit during its fourth mission, commercial space surveillance firm LeoLabs reported Monday, adding another chapter to the enigmatic Shenlong program’s expanding orbital activity. LeoLabs detected the unknown object in […]

Rocket Lab quietly launched a small satellite from New Zealand on Friday in a high-flying military exercise to test the US Space Force’s ability to rapidly respond to a crisis in low-Earth orbit — and in doing so shattered the record for the fastest responsive space mission ever flown. The launch was scarcely announced in […]

White House aims to unify and accelerate US quantum space infrastructure amid growing competition with China WASHINGTON, D.C. — The White House has issued an executive order aiming to unify and accelerate U.S. development of quantum technologies, including space systems that could enable next-generation navigation, sensing, and secure communications. President Donald Trump signed the order […]

GOLDEN, Colorado — Scientists are laying the scientific and technical groundwork for one of humanity’s most audacious goals: transforming Mars from a frozen desert into a world where life can thrive. And they are starting small — with less than 1 kilogram (2.2 pounds) of artificial particles released into the Martian sky. Researchers gathered here […]

SpaceX has achieved a milestone that underscores just how thoroughly the company has reshaped the space industry: as of June 12, 2026, it has launched more satellites than every other organization on Earth combined since the dawn of the Space Age in 1957. The tally, compiled by investor and former space-industry executive Christian Keil, puts […]

For more than a decade, a faint spherical glow of gamma rays emanating from the heart of the Milky Way has divided astrophysicists. Known as the Galactic Center Excess (GCE), this high-energy signal has been interpreted as either the long-sought fingerprint of dark matter annihilation or the combined light of tens of thousands of rapidly […]