Anderson confirmed as NASA deputy administrator
Tuesday, 19 May 2026 08:09WASHINGTON — The U.S. Senate confirmed Matt Anderson on May 18 as NASA’s deputy administrator, the second-in-command of the space agency.
Smile launch highlights
Tuesday, 19 May 2026 07:00
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ESA’s Smile satellite launched aboard a Vega-C rocket from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana. The rocket lifted off on at 04:52 BST / 05:52 CEST (00:52 local time) on 19 May 2026.
Smile flew to space on Vega-C flight VV29. At 35 m tall, a Vega-C weighs 210 tonnes on the launch pad and the rocket used three solid-propellant-powered stages to take Smile to orbit before the fourth liquid-propellant stage took over for a precise drop-off around Earth.Smile (the Solar wind Magnetosphere Ionosphere Link Explorer) is a joint mission between the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Chinese
ESA-China SMILE mission lifts off to deliver first global images of Earth’s magnetosphere
Tuesday, 19 May 2026 04:13KOUROU, French Guiana — The SMILE mission developed jointly by the European Space Agency and China has reached orbit after more than a decade of preparations and cooperation.
Smile lifts off on quest to reveal Earth’s invisible shield against the solar wind
Tuesday, 19 May 2026 04:00
The Smile spacecraft lifted off on a Vega-C rocket from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana at 04:52 BST / 05:52 CEST (00:52 local time) on 19 May 2026. The launch marks the beginning of an ambitious mission to better understand solar storms, geomagnetic storms, and the science of space weather.
European imaging companies step in to fill warzone gap
Monday, 18 May 2026 18:33MILAN – As U.S. satellite imagery companies have pulled back from sharing visuals of Iran and the broader area around the Gulf conflict, European Earth-observation firms are moving to fill the vacuum.
Four NASA payloads to fly on Astrolab’s first lunar rover
Monday, 18 May 2026 17:00WASHINGTON — Astrolab’s first lunar rover will carry four NASA payloads on a mission planned to launch later this year.
Inside Golden Dome’s push to court commercial tech firms and investors
Monday, 18 May 2026 13:00Behind the classified architecture is a struggle over affordability, industrial scale and whether commercial space economics can work for national defense
Tomorrow.io adds $35 million to DeepSky funding round
Monday, 18 May 2026 11:08Weather intelligence provider Tomorrow.io has added $35 million to its latest funding round, bringing the total to $210 million to accelerate development of a next-generation constellation for gathering atmospheric data.
House bill restores funding for TraCSS
Monday, 18 May 2026 11:03A House appropriations bill would reverse plans by the administration to stop development of a civil space traffic management system.
New CSF Report Sees Up To 7,000+ Satellites Launched Annually By Mid 2030’s, Highlights The Challenges With US Launch Infrastructure
Monday, 18 May 2026 11:00
WASHINGTON, D.C., May 18, 2026 — The Commercial Space Federation (CSF), in partnership with Rational Futures (RF), announced the release of SCRUBBED: America’s Launch Capacity Challenge, a data-driven assessment of potential […]
The next war will be won — or lost — in orbit
Monday, 18 May 2026 10:00We in the West have learned many things from the conflict in Ukraine. Four years on from its full-scale invasion — the war in fact having started in 2014 — we find ourselves, or should find ourselves, with a far better grasp of the nature of war, and a far greater sense of the dangers […]
Inspector Smile, chapter 3: the countdown begins
Monday, 18 May 2026 07:00
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Inspector Smile, chapter 3: the countdown begins Landing sideways
Monday, 18 May 2026 06:30
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A large boulder, a treacherous crater or a gust of wind could jeopardise a smooth landing on Mars. Before the ExoMars Rosalind Franklin rover mission launches for the Red Planet in 2028, a replica of the landing platform went through worst-case touchdown conditions – and survived.
Thinking of every possible landing scenario, European engineers dropped a full-scale model onto a sled to test its stability in case the spacecraft touched down at an angle. A magnetic sledge released the lander at varying speeds – up to four metres per second –on a platform tilted at 20 degrees.
In every test, the four legs of the descent module absorbed the impact.
These sled-based tests were the final series of the landing platform drop test campaign conducted at the ALTEC facilities in Turin, Italy.
“This campaign proves how robust the ExoMars landing system is. The tests delivered critical
Zenk Space raises $26 million, targets June debut launch
Monday, 18 May 2026 01:22China’s Zenk Space has secured 180 million yuan ahead of the planned June debut of its Zhihang-1 kerolox rocket, the company’s first orbital launch attempt.