November 4th, 2026
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NASA’s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory careened into the Earth’s atmosphere on Wednesday, Nov. 4, almost 22 years after launch. The U.S. Space Force confirmed that the Swift spacecraft re-entered Earth’s atmosphere at 7:39 a.m. EST Wednesday over the North Sumatra region of Indonesia, at approximately 3.4 degrees north latitude and 98.6 degrees east longitude. According […]
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NASA’s twin Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers (ESCAPADE) will perform a “powered” flyby of Earth, combining Earth’s gravity with an engine burn, to slingshot itself toward Mars. The first spacecraft will conduct its flyby and engine burn around 5 a.m. EST on Saturday, Nov. 7. The second will do so two days later, […]
Alex Innanen, an atmospheric scientist at York University, notes that the NASA Curiosity Mars rover at Gale Crater has been keeping an eye on martian clouds. These high-altitude clouds are characteristic of the sky above the robot’s exploration zone. “Autumn means the return of high-altitude twilight clouds, which the low sun angle at sunset illuminates […]
China continues to chart its first crewed Moon landing before 2030, detailing current plans last weekend during the Seventh Manned Space Symposium in Beijing. The two-day symposium drew more than 800 experts and scholars to explore how digital and intelligent technologies can advance human spaceflight. Uncrewed test flights of the Mengzhou crewed spacecraft and the […]
It came from outer space, exploding high above the South Atlantic off the coast of Argentina. That April 1 event was an incoming meteor – also termed as a bolide – was observed by both U.S. space-based military and civil sensors. Hush-hush U.S. government satellite sensors detected the speedy fireball cutting through our atmosphere. The […]
An upcoming and uncontrolled reentry of the NASA’s Swift observatory is expected to occur in the next few days. The Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory reentry into Earth’s atmosphere signals a number of issues. One of those was a botched rescue mission to keep the orbiting telescope in high-flying, sky surveillance mode. Following the termination of […]
The now-orbiting Shenzhou-23 crew aboard China’s Tiangong space station has recently completed the fifth transfer of material exposure experimental apparatus to the station’s exterior, advancing a series of experiments that have yielded multiple world firsts. Crew members — Zhu Yangzhu, Zhang Zhiyuan and Lai Ka-ying — were sent into space aboard the Shenzhou-23 spacecraft on […]
Virgin Galactic’s newly named spaceship Apeiron departed Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport in Arizona early today mated to Eve, the company’s launch vehicle. The vehicle combo landed at Spaceport America in New Mexico at 12:59 p.m. Mountain Daylight Time. Pilot in Command Michael Masucci and Pilot Dan Alix flew Eve, with Flight Test Engineer Tori Crichton on […]
Suborbital spaceplane-provider, Virgin Galactic, has announced the name of its lead Delta spaceship: Apeiron (App-Err-On). That name was chosen by a public vote and draws upon responses from around the world — including 83 countries and six continents. Aperion stems from the ancient Greek concept of “the boundless.” Also today, Virgin Galactic’s Apeiron will fly […]
The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) has released a new report assessing the scope and breadth of adversary threats in space. The DIA’s 2026 edition — Challenges to Security in Space — details the space defense and military goals, including strategies, plans and intentions, of China, Russia and the emerging space powers of Iran and North […]
