NASA's Anil Menon and CSA's Joshua Kutryk will leave the station on Oct. 29 to install a roll-out solar array, as the crew keeps up bioprinting and furnace research.
SpaceAndSky news desk · 5 min read
Look upThe A-Carinid meteors are flaring again
Coming up in the sky
- OCT26Full Moon: Hunter's MoonRises at sunset and stays up all night
- NOV13Planet paradeMercury, Venus, Mars and Jupiter before dawn, until Dec 4
- NOV16Mars and Jupiter meetAbout 1 degree apart in the morning sky
- NOV16-17Leonid meteor showerPeak night
- NOV20Mercury’s best morning viewFarthest from the Sun in our sky (20°): look before sunrise
- NOV24Full Moon: Beaver MoonRises at sunset and stays up all night
Trending
Mars rovers today: Where Perseverance and Curiosity are and their latest pictures
Two NASA rovers still work on Mars: Perseverance, which just broke Opportunity's driving record,…
When is the next solar eclipse? Dates and viewing regions
The 2026 total eclipse has passed; the next is an annular eclipse on Feb.…
Planets4 bright planetsSaturn most of the nightMercury after sunsetMars before dawnJupiter before dawnWhere to look ›MoonWaxing Gibbous95% lit, waxingRise and set times ›Northern lightsQuietKp 2.3 now, up to 3.7 in the next 24 hours.Your chance tonight ›Space stationNext passChoose your city to see when the ISS passes over you.Live map ›
- Swift ends science after 21 years, with 2,000 gamma-ray bursts logged
- Starship will wait in Earth orbit for Orion; Blue Moon takes a polar route
- Artemis III will park in Earth orbit and dock with two commercial Moon landers
Next launches
Long March 8A launchLong March 8A · China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation
Starlink Group 15-16Falcon 9 Block 5 · SpaceX
Amazon LeoVulcan VC6L · United Launch Alliance
Latest News
A marsquake from 2021 shows Mars’s giant canyon is still slipping
Imperial College London researchers traced a 2021 marsquake detected by NASA's InSight to a deep fault beneath Valles Marineris, the largest canyon system in…
NASA now plans the first Artemis Moon landing on Artemis IV, in 2028
At Kennedy Space Center, NASA leaders said Artemis III will fly four astronauts in low Earth orbit in 2027, and Artemis IV…
Dragonfly flew its Titan landing in software, using every sensor it will carry
On flight-like computers at Johns Hopkins APL, NASA's Dragonfly rotorcraft ran its most complete simulated first flight over Titan's dunes, from scouting…
Virginia will plan its power grid with NASA’s weather and sunlight data
A new Space Act Agreement gives Virginia Energy direct access to NASA's solar, weather and future-risk datasets for grid resilience studies and…
ESA’s AI marked 3,192 craters in one patch of Moon, trained by gamers
ESA's crater-detection model learned from marks made by IMPACT players. In one lunar patch it flagged 3,192 possible craters, from 6 to…
3I/ATLAS carries methane with 13 times more heavy hydrogen than any comet we have measured
Webb spectra of interstellar object 3I/ATLAS show methane with 3.18% heavy hydrogen, higher than any methane measured in the Solar System and…
Featured
Satellite night lights show Isaias darkening Pensacola, and the glow back within days
NASA's Black Marble HD imagery shows lights dropping sharply around Pensacola and U.S. Route 98 after…
Dragon’s 6,300 pounds of cargo opens a science rush on the space station
Five spacecraft are docked at the space station as the crew unloads SpaceX's CRS-35 Dragon and…
Starbase could host up to 456 Starship launches a year, FAA review says
The FAA has opened scoping for an environmental impact statement covering up to 456 Starship-Super Heavy…
Europe’s Moon drill, built to cut a metre down, passes a deployment test
ESA's Prospect drill, due to search for water ice near the lunar South Pole in 2027,…
Perseverance passes 28.10 miles on Mars, beating Opportunity’s record in a third of the time
NASA's Perseverance rover logged 28.10 miles (45.22 kilometers) on sol 2,006, passing Opportunity's 28.06 miles after…
A year in a 3D-printed Mars habitat: NASA’s CHAPEA crew nears the exit
Four volunteers have lived as if on Mars for 365 days inside a Houston habitat. They…
Leaving Earth soon
Full launch schedule ›- OCT25China Aerospace Science and Technology CorporationLong March 8A launchLong March 8Aaround 01:00 UTCOne to watch
- OCT27SpaceXStarlink Group 15-16Falcon 9 · Communications04:45 UTC
- OCT29United Launch AllianceAmazon LeoVulcan VC6L · CommunicationsTime not set yet
- OCT30SpaceXStarlink Group 15-18Falcon 9 · Communications04:02 UTC
Times in your time zone. Launch times change often; the schedule refreshes every few minutes.
Rocket Launches
Japan sets Mars moons mission launch for Oct. 19 UTC, with a Phobos sample due home in 2031
- Eight AI computing satellites ride Zhuque-2E in a 10-satellite launch
- Nine launches this week, led by Japan’s H3 sending MMX toward Mars’ moon Phobos
- Gilmour Space finds oxidizer pump faults behind Eris rocket’s 14-second flight
Missions
ispace wins JAXA study for a solar tower to power the Moon’s south pole
- Kutryk’s first spacewalks: Canada’s astronaut, robot arm and voice all play a part
- NASA’s first nuclear-powered Mars spacecraft gets its power-conversion partner
- NASA’s next space relay network is in orbit, built by Viasat and SES instead of NASA
Universe
Webb finds thousands of newborn stars wrapped in smoky clouds of the Large Magellanic Cloud
- ELT mirror passes the halfway mark: 931 segments, nearly 500 already in Chile
- Treble Clef radio shape traced to a black hole outburst and a cluster collision
- ALMA finds rings and gaps in compact planet-forming disks
Top categories
Guides
How to see it, when it happens, what it means
Moon phase today: How the lunar cycle works, with full Moon dates for 2026 and 2027
The Moon cycles through eight phases every 29.5 days; here is how to read tonight's phase, why the…
Which planets have rings? Saturn, Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune compared
Saturn, Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune all have rings, but only Saturn's are bright enough to see in a…
The planets in our solar system in order: Size, distance from the Sun and what sets each apart
Our solar system has eight planets: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, with Pluto reclassified…
Which planets have the most moons? Saturn leads with 293, ahead of Jupiter’s 115
Saturn has the most moons of any planet at 293, followed by Jupiter with 115, Uranus with 29…
The universe doesn’t stand still
Latest discoveries & stories
A mid-infrared telescope sees a flare’s magnetic field drop by about 200 gauss
Chinese astronomers used a mid-infrared solar telescope to measure the field under an X1.5 flare. It weakened during the flare,…
This El Niño tracks 1997’s giant event, and NASA says it may grow bigger
A 35-year run of NASA sea-level satellites shows October 2026 looking much like October 1997, one of the strongest El…
A lost rover, no GPS and a lunar night coming: ESA opens a navigation contest
From 1 November 2026, anyone can try to teach a virtual lunar rover to find its position from a panoramic…
Fires have released a record 32 megatons of carbon in Papua New Guinea
NASA's Earth Observatory reports record fire emissions in Papua New Guinea and the third-highest ever on the Indonesian side, as…
NASA will test Planet’s Tanager hyperspectral data over 250,000 square kilometers
Planet Labs won a NASA evaluation order to supply Tanager hyperspectral imagery, which NASA will assess before deciding whether scientists…
Mars pictures: The best photos from NASA rovers and orbiters, and what each one shows
From Perseverance's 96-image Falbreen panorama to the 1998 Face on Mars, these NASA pictures show how Mars looks, why its…
Hunter’s Moon 2026: When October’s full Moon rises on October 26 and how to see it
The Hunter's Moon is full on Monday, October 26, 2026, and it looks round for about three nights, with the…
Antarctica’s Thwaites Glacier may add up to twice the projected sea level rise
A model from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory finds Thwaites could contribute more to sea level rise by 2100 than some…