Space, NASA and Science News

[phkrause]

• 🚀 Artemis II is now headed Earthward, blazing back home at over 1,800 mph. Splashdown is set for Friday evening near San Diego. Get the latest.

[phkrause]

• 🚀 Artemis' final — and perhaps biggest — test is coming up tomorrow: reentry to Earth. The Orion spacecraft will experience temperatures of up to 5,000°F, with the four astronauts inside protected by a heat shield with known flaws. Go deeper.

[phkrause]

⚡️ Catch me up

Graphic: NASA 🪂 Artemis II's splashdown is set for just after 8 p.m. ET tonight off the coast of San Diego. How to watch.   Artemis II’s record-breaking journey around the moon ends with dramatic splashdown HOUSTON (AP) — Artemis II’s astronauts closed out humanity’s first lunar voyage in more than half a century with a Pacific splashdown on Friday, blazing new records near the moon with grace and joy. https://apnews.com/article/nasa-artemis-astronauts-moon-splashdown-16adc5450f0127a0743292ef30b239f1?

[phkrause]

‘Just the beginning’: Artemis II crew splashes down after record-breaking moon flyby

The Artemis II, and the four astronauts aboard the Orion space capsule, splashed down into the Pacific Ocean off the coast of San Diego on Friday night, with all four astronauts in good health.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2026/apr/10/artemis-ii-landing-return-moon-mission?

Mission Accomplished

Artemis II's four astronauts splashed (w/video) about 50 miles off the coast of San Diego just after 8 pm ET yesterday, concluding a roughly 10-day trip around the moon. The Orion capsule reentered Earth's atmosphere at roughly 25,000 miles per hour, enduring temperatures up to 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit—roughly half the heat of the sun’s surface. The successful landing was a relief for some experts who questioned whether the spacecraft's heat shield would stand up against such extreme heat. An identical shield used during the uncrewed Artemis I mission in 2022 suffered unexpected damage upon reentry (w/photos). NASA engineers subsequently revised Artemis II's reentry path to minimize the astronauts' exposure to the heat. Future spacecraft will have different heat shields.  NASA will next turn to Artemis III, a 2027 mission to test lunar landers in Earth's orbit ahead of Artemis IV in 2028, which is expected to land humans on the moon.

[phkrause]

🌎 Welcome home, Artemis!

NASA's Orion spacecraft splashes down in the Pacific Ocean off California's coast yesterday. Photo: Bill Ingalls/NASA via Getty Images NASA's Artemis II crew arrived home to a nation watching their return from a 10-day lunar flyby that took them nearly 250,000 miles from Earth, Axios San Diego's Kate Murphy reports. 🎯 "A perfect bull's-eye splashdown for Integrity and its astronauts," the NASA broadcaster said, after the spacecraft's successful descent into the Pacific Ocean at 8:07 p.m. ET last night. 🌖 The return capped a historic mission serving as a test flight before NASA attempts to land on the Moon in 2028. "We are back in the business of sending astronauts to the Moon," NASA administrator Jared Isaacman said after the splashdown. "This is just the beginning." U.S. Navy divers prepare to deploy from the USS John P. Murtha to recover Artemis II crew members. Photo: Bill Ingalls/NASA via Getty Images An elite U.S. Navy dive team made first contact with the four astronauts and the Orion spacecraft. The team has been training for this rescue mission for over a year, and its success relied on detailed teamwork, planning and rocket science, Marine Corps Lt. Col. Christopher Winn told Axios. The approach was similar to the way capsules from NASA's Apollo missions were recovered by Navy SEALs decades ago, Winn said. A watch party at the San Diego Air and Space Museum yesterday. Photo: Apu Gomes/AFP via Getty Images 🚀 Stunning stat: Artemis came screaming back at 36,174 feet per second — or 24,664 mph, just short of Apollo's record — before slowing to splash down at 19 mph. Go deeper ...

[phkrause]

Sprint to the Moon

The space race, explained The space race was an intense rivalry between the US and the Soviet Union to establish dominance in space exploration during the early Cold War. Both countries aimed to showcase technological skill and gain prestige by reaching milestones in a field once seen as science fiction.   The competition was also a consequence of the larger struggle for political and nuclear dominance, as the US and the Soviet Union each feared the other would gain a military edge through space technology.   The Soviet Union took an early lead, with a series of firsts: launching the first artificial satellite, sending the first animal into space, and then the first human, and performing the first spacewalk. The US then recovered through significant investment and renewed political focus. In 1969, the US reached the race's pivotal milestone when Apollo 11 landed astronauts on the moon—widely regarded as the ultimate victory in the space race. ... Read our full explainer on the Space Race here. Receive our Science & Tech newsletter every Tuesday: Sign up here.   Also, check out ...  > Today's space race is focused on a permanent lunar outpost. (Listen) > The first living creatures sent to space were fruit flies, dogs, cats, and monkeys. (Explore) > How the first moon landing was saved. (Listen) > A short-lived 1960s space race theme park in Alabama. (Read)

[phkrause]

🚀 Artemis homecoming

Photo: NASA The Artemis II astronauts posed with their Orion spacecraft, which they named Integrity, in the well deck of USS John P. Murtha following their splashdown Friday evening off the coast of San Diego. The astronauts — commander Reid Wiseman, Christina Koch, Canada's Jeremy Hansen and pilot Victor Glover — returned to Houston yesterday afternoon to a jubilant welcome from the hundreds who took part in NASA's lunar comeback. Watch the welcome-back ceremony.

[phkrause]

🚀 1 science thing: What's next for NASA

With Artemis II safely back on Earth, NASA is turning to its next big goal: fresh bootprints on lunar soil before the end of the decade, Alex Fitzpatrick writes.

• That was once expected with Artemis III. But NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman recently changed the schedule.

🛰️ Artemis III will now involve testing one or both of SpaceX and Blue Origin's lunar landers in Earth orbit, sometime in 2027.

• Neither is ready yet, and delays are possible.

🦅 🌖 The next crewed Moon landing is now set for Artemis IV in early 2028.

Between the lines: President Trump is proposing big cuts to NASA — mostly targeting its science programs, not human spaceflight.

• See NASA's plan.

[phkrause]

Roman Telescope Reveal

NASA unveiled its Roman Space Telescope yesterday, an instrument that could allow researchers to observe an area of the cosmos 100 times larger than the Hubble Space Telescope. See the telescope here. Roman could help scientists find exoplanets by identifying distortions in starlight that may indicate a planet passing in front of stars. The telescope also aims to answer questions about the formation of the universe as well as dark matter and dark energy (what’s the difference?). The observatory, estimated to cost over $4B, will be launched on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy from Florida as soon as this fall.  Separately, researchers published a study yesterday on findings from Mars’ Curiosity rover. Samples collected from the planet’s Gale Crater revealed over 20 chemicals, including a molecule containing nitrogen that resembles proto-DNA. Further research is needed to determine if the compounds came from a meteorite, geological processes, or ancient organisms.

[phkrause]

• ☄️ An interstellar comet that flew past Earth last December probably came from a cold, isolated corner of the galaxy, scientists said today. Comet 3I/Atlas, which could be up to 11 billion years old, is now past Jupiter as it leaves our solar system. Go deeper.

ps:Truely amazing that they can just say how old something is!!

[phkrause]

• 🪐 NASA boss Jared Isaacman wants to "make Pluto a planet again." That's outside the agency's control, but he told lawmakers this week: "We are doing some papers right now on ... a position that we would love to escalate through the scientific community to revisit this discussion." Go deeper.

[phkrause]

Astronomers believe they've detected an atmosphere around a tiny, icy world beyond Pluto

A new study suggests that a tiny, icy world beyond Pluto harbors a thin, delicate atmosphere that may have been created by volcanic eruptions or a comet strike. Just 300 miles or so across, this mini Pluto is thought to be the solar system’s smallest object yet with a clearly detected global atmosphere bound by gravity, said lead researcher Ko Arimatsu of the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan. Read more.

RELATED COVERAGE ➤

Here’s why May the 4th is celebrated as Star Wars Day across the galaxy

[phkrause]

New Artemis trove

Photo: NASA NASA this week uploaded a massive trove of new images taken by the Artemis II crew on last month's lunar flyby. The Moon and Earth are seen from Artemis II's Orion spacecraft. Photo: NASA Some of the 12,000+ new photos offer a rawer glimpse through the Orion space capsule's windows, as in the image above. Explore the archive.

[phkrause]

Starship Test Flight

SpaceX today will attempt to launch an uncrewed test flight of Starship Version 3, its largest and most powerful rocket yet. The announcement comes after the company canceled a planned test flight yesterday at the last minute. The Elon Musk-owned company is competing with Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin to create the spacecraft that will carry NASA astronauts to the moon's surface—a mission currently planned for 2028. SpaceX launched a combined 11 test flights of its first and second Starship versions from April 2023 to October 2025, with mixed results. Version 3, which features lighter engines, will deploy 22 mock satellites and relight an engine in space before splashing into the Indian Ocean. Musk ultimately aims to make Starship fully reusable and catch it with mechanical arms—a feat that would dramatically reduce launch costs. Watch the first successful test of the arms here. The test flight comes days after SpaceX confirmed plans to go public next month, with a potentially record-setting valuation between $1.75T and $2T. See the numbers behind the IPO here.

[phkrause]

Martian marathon

NASA's Perseverance rover snaps a selfie on May 10, 2025, marking its 1,500th day on Mars. Photo: NASA NASA's Perseverance Rover is about to complete a Martian marathon, having traveled just shy of 26.22 miles. It should cross the proverbial finish line sometime this month, mission manager Robert Hogg tells Reuters. 🪂 The car-sized rover landed on Mars in February 2021, with a primary mission meant to last nearly two Earth years. It's still kicking over five years later — continuing a long tradition of NASA robots and probes well outperforming their initial objectives. (Voyager 1, now in interstellar space, has been transmitting valuable data back to Earth for nearly half a century.) 🔋 Perseverance deputy project scientist Ken Farley tells Reuters: "The rover continues in good health with at least a decade left in its power source ... The duration of the mission will depend on choices NASA makes." The Martian surface photographed by the Ingenuity helicopter during a flight in April 2022 after arriving on Mars attached to NASA's Perseverance rover. Photo: NASA 🦠 The rover's most important discovery so far: a sample from Mars' Jezero Crater that bore signs of ancient microbial life. NASA and the European Space Agency had been planning an ambitious effort to collect samples from Perseverance and return them to Earth. That mission's future is unclear amid questions over funding. Go deeper.

[phkrause]

Moon base plans revealed

An artist's rendering of a potential Moon base near the lunar south pole. Image: NASA NASA is already ordering landers, rovers and drones for its planned Moon base. The space agency announced hundreds of millions of dollars in contracts to four U.S. companies working on gear to support the off-world outpost. 🚗 Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin will make two landers to deliver Moon buggies to a spot near the lunar south pole. They'll be built by Astrolab and Lunar Outpost. Firefly Aerospace will deliver the first drones to the Moon. 👩‍🚀 All this hardware is supposed to arrive before the first Artemis astronauts land on the Moon. That's planned for 2028 at the earliest. 🛰️ Astronauts will first practice docking NASA's Orion capsule with lunar landers from Blue Origin and Elon Musk's SpaceX. That mission — Artemis III — is planned for mid-2027, in Earth orbit. Neither of those landers are ready yet, and that date could slip. 🚀 NASA is then targeting a crewed lunar landing as soon as 2028. That will be followed by missions to build up infrastructure for a long-term lunar base, including a power grid. The agency hopes that such a base will support astronauts for extended visits sometime in the next decade. A rendering of Astrolab's CLV-1 rover on the lunar surface. Image: Astrolab 🔬 NASA administrator Jared Isaacman told reporters that the point of the base is to encourage a lunar economy, conduct scientific research and lay the foundation for a Mars trip. "For those waiting patiently, the grand return is close at hand, and we will not slow down." Go deeper. 🧊 Meanwhile: Indian scientists have found signs of potential water-ice under four craters near the Moon's south pole, Bloomberg reports. (Gift link.)

[phkrause]

📷 Blue Origin explosion

Photo: @JConcilus via AP A Blue Origin New Glenn rocket blew up on the launch pad in Cape Canaveral, Fla., last night during an engine-firing test ahead of a satellite launch next week. No one was hurt. The explosion shook nearby homes and briefly painted the sky orange. Jeff Bezos, Blue Origin's founder, wrote on X: "It's too early to know the root cause but we're already working to find it. Very rough day, but we'll rebuild whatever needs rebuilding and get back to flying. It's worth it." Get the latest.

[phkrause]

Space station leak

Five astronauts were forced to seek shelter aboard a spacecraft attached to the International Space Station as their crewmates attempted to repair a leak. The Russian space agency Roscosmos said the situation does not pose a safety threat.