Watch European astronaut make history during spacewalk today

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Sophie Adenot will make spaceflight history today (Aug. 18). The European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut will become the first French woman ever to conduct a spacewalk, an activity she’ll undertake with NASA astronaut Anil Menon. The duo are scheduled to step outside the International Space Station (ISS) for a 6.5-hour excursion today at around 8:35 a.m. EDT (1235 GMT). You can watch it live here at Space.com, courtesy of NASA. Coverage starts at 7 a.m. EDT (1100 GMT). Sophie Adenot is part of the European Space Agency’s 2022 astronaut class.…

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Curiosity Blog, Sols 4975-4981: Happy 14th Landing Anniversary

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Curiosity Navigation Curiosity Home Mission Overview Where is Curiosity? Mission Updates Science Overview Instruments Highlights Exploration Goals News and Features Multimedia Curiosity Raw Images Images Videos Audio Mosaics More Resources Mars Missions Mars Perseverance Rover Mars Curiosity Rover Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Mars Odyssey More Mars Missions Mars Home 6 min read Curiosity Blog, Sols 4975-4981: Happy 14th Landing Anniversary NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity acquired this image, of its onboard APXS instrument measuring target “Tunas Khasa,” using its Front Hazard Avoidance Camera (Front Hazcam). Curiosity captured the image on Sol 4976…

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NASA Selects Companies to Provide Payload Processing Services

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Credit: NASA NASA has selected four companies to provide payload processing facilities under the Spacecraft Processing Operations Contract on‑ramp provision. The provision enables qualified providers to offer commercial payload processing services for agency missions launching from multiple locations where capabilities were not available at the time of the initial contract award. Contract awardees are: All Points Logistics LLC Blue Origin LLC Firefly Aerospace L3Harris Technologies Inc. Through the contract, NASA procures facilities and services required to perform prelaunch processing of spacecraft and associated rocket hardware for delivery to the launch…

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China bounces back from Long March rocket explosion with back-to-back launches (video)

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China just completed not one but two space missions, less than a week after a Long March 7A rocket explosion briefly grounded its fleet. The state-owned China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) returned to flight with the launch of a Long March 12 rocket from the Hainan Commercial Space Launch Site in Wenchang. The rocket lifted off on Aug. 16 at 12:10 a.m. EDT (0410 GMT; 12:10 p.m. local time in China) and delivered a stack of 24 internet-beaming satellites into low Earth orbit (LEO). It was the first…

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NASA Mission Studies Air Pollution Over Ethiopia

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5 min read Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) A busy street in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital, which is the subject of NASA-led air quality research. Ninaras (CC BY-SA 4.0) A NASA-funded air pollution monitoring network has provided one of the most detailed long-term views yet of the role of black carbon, or soot produced by fires, diesel vehicles, and other combustion sources, in Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa. The detailed measurements show how pollution changes by time of day and season, including increases associated with rush-hour traffic and…

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Next Generation of Planetary Scientists Learn Public Engagement Skills

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Explore This Section Science Science Activation Next Generation of Planetary… Overview Resources Opportunities Citizen Science Highlights About Science Activation   3 min read Next Generation of Planetary Scientists Learn Public Engagement Skills Group photo of undergraduate research interns and FORCE leaders standing together beside the high-pressure laboratory equipment. The NASA Science Mission Directorate (SMD) Community of Practice for Education (SCoPE) – part of the NASA Science Activation (SciAct) Program portfolio – enables Earth and Space Science and Engineering Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) – especially NASA-funded SMEs – to efficiently and…

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Colorful Collage of Tarantula Nebula

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Like a collage made of layered sheets of colored cellophane, a vibrant new image layers observations of a famous star-forming nebula from NASA space telescopes. The resulting cosmic “craft” reveals new details about the star formation region known as 30 Doradus, or the Tarantula Nebula.

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APOD: 2026 August 17 – A Golden Corona Eclipse

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APOD Science APOD APOD: 2026 August 17 – A… Today’s APOD Archive Submissions Index Search Calendar RSS Education About Discuss   APOD Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. A Golden Corona Eclipse Explanation: This total solar eclipse appeared not only poetically beautiful but scientifically interesting. Usually the solar corona appears white, and to some observers the corona of last week’s total solar eclipse did appear this pearly color.…

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NASA funds spherical ‘Aerobots’ that could explore the caves of Saturn’s moon Titan

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Spherical “Aerobots” may one day swarm the caves of Titan — a moon of Saturn that NASA says is one of the most Earthlike in our solar system. Titan is covered in rivers, lakes and seas of hydrocarbons, like methane and ethane, as well as a strange “karst” terrain including underground sinkholes and caves. No rover could easily traverse this surface, but flying vehicles may have more success. So a new grant, under the early-stage NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program, aims to create small, flying vehicles that could explore…

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