NASA revealed the crewed X-70 Fractal at Kennedy Space Center. The jet is meant to swap experiments quickly and to try out new flight-control ideas with a pilot on board.
SpaceAndSky news desk · 4 min read
Mission spotlightVoyager 1 went quiet, then called back on its own
Coming up in the sky
- 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
- DEC13-14Geminid meteor showerPeak night, 40-50 an hour under dark skies
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 after sunsetVenus before dawnMars before dawnJupiter before dawnWhere to look ›MoonWaning Crescent14% lit, waningRise and set times ›Northern lightsQuietKp 2.7 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 ›
- Voyager 1 is about to be one light-day from Earth, and NASA wants you to flash a light
- NASA picks 3 firms for up to $1.07 billion to replace aging relay satellites
- Hubble catches a rocky planet slipping behind its star for the first time
Next launches
Long March 2C launchLong March 2C · China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation
Ceres-2 launchCeres-2 · Galactic Energy
USSF-432Falcon 9 Block 5 · SpaceX
Latest News
A drone rehearsed a Moon landing and steered itself away from a bad spot
NASA's SPLICE guidance payload flew simulated lunar descents on a drone, mapping the ground below and diverting if the target looked unsafe.
Antarctic ozone hole is 7th largest on record, yet the layer is still healing
NASA and NOAA say a strong polar vortex made the 2026 ozone hole the seventh largest in 48 years, but it was…
Rocket team launched into a solar flare in progress for the first time
A new alert system pinpoints a flare and predicts how long it will last, so sounding rockets can be fired while there…
Europe’s second MetOp-SG weather satellite is woken up for a year-end launch
After 12 years of development and a sail-assisted voyage to French Guiana, ESA's MetOp-SG-B1 is being switched on for its final checks…
Astronaut photo shows the U.S. Midwest’s city lights under a glowing horizon
NASA's Earth Observatory published an ISS photo of the Midwest's city lights taken at 09:54 UTC on October 18, with green airglow…
Final roll-out solar array: Spacewalk Nov. 5 completes the station’s power upgrade
Canadian astronaut Joshua Kutryk and NASA's Anil Menon are set to install the eighth roll-out solar array on Nov. 5, ending an…
Featured
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…
Swift ends science after 21 years, with 2,000 gamma-ray bursts logged
NASA's Swift observatory made its final observation on Oct. 20 as atmospheric drag pulled it too…
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…
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…
Mars facts: How far away it is, how cold it gets, its weather and the search for life
Mars is a cold, dry, dusty world half Earth's width, between 54.6 and 401.4 million km…
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,…
Leaving Earth soon
Full launch schedule ›- NOV5China Aerospace Science and Technology CorporationLong March 2C launchLong March 2Caround 16:00 UTC
- NOV6Galactic EnergyCeres-2 launchCeres-2around 23:00 UTC
- NOV7SpaceXUSSF-432Falcon 9 · Government/Top Secret00:46 UTC
- NOV8China Aerospace Science and Technology CorporationSatNet LEO Group TBD?Long March 12 · Communicationsaround 20:00 UTCOne to watch
Times in your time zone. Launch times change often; the schedule refreshes every few minutes.
Rocket Launches
India’s GSLV-F18 puts NVS-03 navigation satellite into its planned orbit
- 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
Missions
ESCAPADE’s twin Mars probes swing past Earth with a 9-minute burn on Nov. 7 and 9
- Cygnus XL No. 25 is set to fly Nov. 29, carrying cancer and muscle-loss studies
- Canada funds a $1.5 million push to sniff out Mars’s methane mystery
- Canada’s Kutryk spends 7 hours 11 minutes outside the station on his first spacewalk
Top categories
Guides
How to see it, when it happens, what it means
NASA Jupiter photos: The best Juno images and what they reveal about the giant planet
NASA's Juno spacecraft has photographed Jupiter from closer than any camera before it, and its images show deep…
James Webb Space Telescope images: Where to find them and what they have shown
NASA's image gallery holds every public Webb picture, free to download; here is how the images are made,…
Rocket launch from Vandenberg: Where to watch, how to check times and what to expect
Vandenberg launches can be seen from public roads, beaches and hills near Lompoc; the base, SpaceX and a…
Asteroid 99942 Apophis: How close it passes on April 13, 2029, and how to see it
On April 13, 2029, the asteroid Apophis passes about 32,000 km above Earth, closer than many satellites, and…
The universe doesn’t stand still
Latest discoveries & stories
Red aurora over Germany shows rays linking it to the green glow below
Photos taken over Göttingen and Braunschweig in May 2024 show bright rays running from a red aurora into the green…
Hera’s 10 open questions about Dimorphos, from its crater to its mass
ESA's Hera planetary defence spacecraft reaches the Didymos system this month, with ten open questions about the asteroid DART hit…
A rare ‘doughnut’ typhoon and an ex-typhoon bound for Alaska: NASA shows both at once
NASA satellites caught Super Typhoon In-fa, a rare 'annular' storm, near the Mariana Islands while the remnants of Typhoon Champi,…
Three meteor showers, a Mars-Jupiter pairing and a supermoon fill NASA’s November sky guide
NASA's monthly guide lists two Taurid peaks, the Leonids, Mars near Jupiter before dawn, and the first of three straight…
Greek CubeSat links up with a ground station by laser weeks after commissioning
ERMIS-3, an 8U CubeSat built by the University of Athens, has linked to an optical ground station in Greece, the…
Landsat 8 catches Pennsylvania’s Grand Canyon at peak autumn color
A Landsat 8 image from Oct. 25 shows red and gold forest around Pine Creek Gorge, a valley about 1,500…
G2 storm warning: NOAA expects Kp 6, with aurora possible as far south as New York
NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center issued a warning at 19:08 UTC on Oct. 31 for a moderate G2 geomagnetic storm,…
Rubin doubles the known trailing Neptune Trojans, from two to four
A team led from Queen's University Belfast used early Rubin Observatory data to confirm two new stable Neptune Trojans in…