Kellie Gerardi is preparing for her second spaceflight. And the secret tool up her sleeve? Motherhood.

Nearly three years ago, space researcher, online STEM creator and author Kellie Gerardi flew to suborbital space on a Virgin Galactic tourist flight. With this flight, she not only became a private astronaut, but one of the first 100 women to fly to space. Today, she's preparing to leave Earth once again with her second flight. And as Gerardi prepares to fly and conduct new research in microgravity, she sat down with Space.com to discuss space, motherhood and how much we have left to learn.

"I think motherhood eventually has to become a bigger part of the conversation if we're serious when we talk about humanity having a sustained presence beyond Earth," Gerardi told Space.com. "If we're talking about people living and working in space for longer periods, then reproductive health, pregnancy, postpartum physiology, childcare, and family life aren't just peripheral issues anymore."

Space and motherhood

Gerardi has been a serious player and public figure in the space industry for a number of years. From overseeing mission operations at Palantir Technologies to working as a payload specialist and bioastronautics researcher for the International Institute for Astronautical Sciences (IIAS), she has been conducting experiments in microgravity and working across the industry for quite some time. And over the years, she has also developed an expansive online community with whom she shares STEM videos and content about her daily life.

But while Gerardi has posted a number of fun-loving videos with her two daughters, she doesn't just share the big wins and highlights. Across social media platforms, she has also been incredibly candid with the public about her struggles with motherhood, loss, infertility and IVF (in-vitro fertilization). Among her videos discussing her life as an astronaut and researcher, she has shared incredibly personal details, bringing the public along with her as she undergoes incredibly challenging moments.

"I just remember thinking about how so many of us navigate this entire fertility odyssey invisibly while handling their careers, their families, and everything else, and I just wanted to make that a little more visible and hopefully destigmatize the topic a little bit," Gerardi shared.

"Science teaches you that a disappointing result is information, not identity. You look at the data, change variables, adjust the protocol, and try again. That doesn't mean I was able to intellectualize my way out of grief, but I do feel like I was able to borrow a little bit of the same mindset when it came time to put one foot in front of the other again, and to try to look a bit more dispassionately at the odds and our options going forward," she added.

As Gerardi prepares to return to space with her second Virgin Galactic flight, she is part of the "Mom, and More" campaign from the brand Momcozy. The campaign, which also includes Olympian Allyson Felix and Reshma Saujani, founder of Girls Who Code, "celebrates the idea that motherhood can expand what's possible for us while still leaving room for all the other passions or ambitions that make us who we are," Gerardi said.

Preparing for the future of human spaceflight

Gerardi's candid videos about her struggles have also sparked a larger conversation about motherhood as well as space exploration, especially as we look to the future. Longer-term space travel will require serious conversations about motherhood, family and health. Whether it's a long-term mission to the moon or a lifelong mission to Mars, future women astronauts will have to consider everything from menstrual cycles (which astronauts today already handle), pregnancy, motherhood, menopause and other aspects of their health.

But even in the near future, there is so much we have yet to learn about the intersection between motherhood and human spaceflight. In fact, one research team planning to study menstruation in space will be the first to ever conduct a dedicated study on the subject.

"If we're serious about building a future where more people can live and work in space, then we'll need data that reflects a much broader range of human bodies and experiences," Gerardi said. "My own experiences in motherhood have made me even more interested in questions around women's health and reproductive health in particular. There's still so much we simply don't know yet, and there's a lot of meaningful research ahead of us, and I find that really exciting!"

Pumping in zero-G

Gerardi is part of that movement to improve our understanding. From her first spaceflight to her continuing work with microgravity experiments through IIAS, she is pushing this science forward. In fact, in June of this year, she became the first person to pump breast milk in microgravity. While this was "quite the unique experience," as she put it, this was also an incredible learning moment that can help our growing understanding of the human body in microgravity.

At eight weeks postpartum, Gerardi flew on a microgravity research campaign and "given the timing of that research campaign in relation to my recent delivery, we were also curious about the postpartum body, lactation, and breastmilk expression in microgravity," she said.

"There really wasn't an evidence base for whether commercially available wearable pumps would function normally, whether milk could be safely contained, and whether altered gravity would affect comfort or milk expression, or even whether it could affect the composition of breast milk," Gerardi said.

"Scientifically, it made for interesting studies that we'll be submitting for publication, and personally, it was one of those moments where I just remember thinking that women's bodies are incredible, and there's still so much we have to learn about them in the context of altered gravity and spaceflight. And yes, I was able to bring the 'microgravity milk' home to my baby, which made it even more special," she added.

Learning from motherhood

There is still so much to be learned about the human body as it relates to human spaceflight, and we do not yet know how motherhood will be considered in longer-term space travel. But as mothers have been flying to space since Anna Lee Fisher became the first in 1984, there is much that we can learn from their experiences. Gerardi shared some of the important lessons that she's learned as a mother that have come in handy as an astronaut.

"I think there are probably more parallels between motherhood and operational environments than people realize. Honestly, adaptability is probably at the top of my list. Motherhood is a constant exercise in making plans, fighting reality, and then rapidly reprioritizing without losing your mind," she said.

"Motherhood has made me much better at constantly reassessing priorities," she added." I've moved mountains for work obligations that I later realized weren't that fragile after all. Motherhood gives me a lot of practice at making those assessments in real time. That translates pretty well to research operations. You prepare as best you can, you prioritize and adapt in real-time, and you get comfortable operating without perfect control of all the variables. Those are all pretty useful qualities in life generally."

And in addition to the many lessons that can be learned from being a mother and an astronaut, Gerardi has also found how powerful the representation of seeing a woman like herself achieve her dreams can be for the next generation.

"As a society, I feel like we tell little girls that they can grow up to be anything. We give them astronaut Barbies and American Girl dolls and tell them to dream big, but then when those same little girls grow up and become mothers themselves, suddenly there's often a different expectation around how much space their own ambitions should occupy," Gerardi said. "I don't feel guilty for pursuing my dreams. Becoming their mom made my dreams bolder and my sense of purpose deeper. I feel grateful that I can set an example for my daughters to probe the farthest boundaries of their own potential in this one precious life they get."

The four astronauts of SpaceX’s Crew-12 mission returned to Earth this morning (Oct. 8) after nearly eight months in space.

Crew-12's Crew Dragon capsule, named "Freedom," undocked from the International Space Station (ISS) on Wednesday morning (Oct. 7), beginning a roughly 27-hour trip back to its home planet.

Everything went well during the journey: Freedom splashed down as planned in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Los Angeles today at 11:34 a.m. EDT (1534 GMT). Not long after that, the four astronauts were safely extracted from the capsule aboard a recovery ship. They'll be taken to terra firma for standard medical examinations and to begin the 45-day-long postflight conditioning process, which will help their bodies readjust to life with gravity.

"The crew is doing well. They were all smiles exiting the capsule," Bill Spetch, deputy manager of commercial, NASA’s Low Earth Orbit Program, said during a post-splashdown press conference today. "It's great to have them back after 237 days in space, 235 of those on the space station."

The Crew-12 astronauts are Jessica Meir and Jack Hathaway of NASA, the European Space Agency's (ESA) Sophie Adenot, and Andrey Fedyaev of the Russian space agency Roscosmos. Meir and Fedyaev had each been to space once before, while Crew-12 was the first mission for Hathaway and Adenot.

The quartet launched to the ISS atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on Feb. 13. Their arrival brought the station up to its normal complement of seven crewmembers. It had been operating with a skeleton crew of three since Jan. 15, when SpaceX's Crew-11 mission headed home a month early to deal with a medical issue experienced by one of its astronauts, NASA's Mike Fincke.

That was the first medical evacuation in the long history of the ISS. But it was not an emergency situation, NASA officials stressed at the time, and Fincke is doing fine now here on terra firma. (He retired in August with a total of 549 days in space, the fourth-most ever for a NASA astronaut.)

Crew-12, in turn, was relieved by the four-person Crew-13, which arrived at the ISS last Thursday (Oct. 1). Crew-13 made it to the station less than eight hours after launch — the quickest-ever ISS trip for an American spacecraft. (The world record is just over three hours, by a Russian Soyuz crewed vehicle.)

Crew-13 was originally supposed to launch on Sept. 12. However, an issue with the propulsion system on its Crew Dragon capsule, named "Grace," pushed things back, giving Crew-12 a few extra weeks in orbit.

The Crew-12 astronauts were very busy during their nearly 10 months off Earth, performing a variety of maintenance work and dozens of scientific experiments.

Then there were the spacewalks. Meir performed four of them, bringing her lifetime total to seven. And on Aug. 18, Adenot stepped outside the ISS, becoming the first French woman ever to walk in space. She did two more over the next two weeks, including one with Meir, which was just the sixth all-female extravehicular activity in the station's history.

Adenot also set a record on Crew-12, spending more time in space continuously (237 days) than any other ESA astronaut ever had. Luca Parmitano set the previous record of 201 days back in 2019-2020.

The Crew-12 astronauts felt a mix of emotions about their homecoming, as big transitions are always bittersweet. Indeed, Meir gave us a sense of this a few weeks back.

"What I'm looking forward to most is seeing my three-and-a-half-year-old daughter,” Meir said during a Sept. 16 call with reporters from the station.

"I'm so looking forward to seeing nature again," she added, "feeling the breeze on my face, the wind rustling through the leaves, experiencing all those things that we don't have up here. But I will very, very much miss being weightless all the time and the incredible views that we have."

Splashdown didn't wrap up all Crew-12 activities today. NASA and SpaceX will talk about the mission this afternoon, during a press conference scheduled to start at 1:15 p.m. EDT (1715 GMT). The briefing will also discuss the planned Oct. 13 launch of SpaceX's robotic CRS-35 cargo mission to the ISS. Participants are:

• Bill Spetch, deputy manager of Commercial, NASA's Low Earth Orbit Program
• Dr. Liz Warren, deputy chief scientist, NASA's Low Earth Orbit Program
• Lee Echerd, senior mission manager, Customer Operations and Integration, SpaceX
• Andreas Mogensen, leader, Human Exploration Group, (ESA)

Editor's note: This story was updated at 8:30 a.m. ET on Oct. 7 with news of successful undocking. It was updated again at 6 p.m. ET that day to correct its headline, which previously said the Crew-12 astronauts have spent nearly 10 months in space. It was updated again at noon ET on Oct. 8 with news of successful splashdown.

This past Thursday (Oct. 1), four brave souls launched off our planet, headed to an orbiting laboratory where they will spend the next six months living and working.

What is it?

SpaceX's Crew-13 mission for NASA launched last week, sending four astronauts on a journey from Earth to the International Space Station (ISS). They lifted off on a Crew Dragon capsule atop a Falcon 9 rocket.

The crew consists of NASA astronauts Jessica Watkins and Luke Delaney, Canadian Space Agency astronaut Joshua Kutryk and Roscosmos cosmonaut Sergey Teteryatnikov. Watkins is commanding the mission, and it is her second time to space. Crew-13 is the first mission for the other three.

Crew-13 was originally supposed to launch on Sept. 12, but an issue with its Crew Dragon delayed things a bit. The mission launched from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, reaching orbit just 10 minutes later and the ISS in less than eight hours. No American spacecraft had ever chased down the orbiting lab in less time.

This photograph shows the moment of launch in striking black and white infrared, which really highlights the intense heat and power coming from the rocket.

Why is it incredible?

This image captures the drama and power of spaceflight. With smoke billowing out from under the rocket's fiery engines, it is incredible to think that in the tiny capsule on the very top of the rocket sit four human beings, strapped in, leaving our planet behind.

Rocket launches are exciting, but there is something especially amazing about sending people to outer space that separates these events from the others.

And, like other crewed missions, these astronauts have a big job ahead of them. They'll work alongside the other astronauts on the ISS on a variety of science experiments and perform maintenance on the station itself.

SpaceX just launched NASA's first mission numbered "13" in more than 50 years.

Crew-13, the 13th flight of the company's Crew Dragon capsule flying under the agency's commercial crew contract, lifted off at 11:10 a.m. EDT (1510 GMT) on Thursday (Oct. 1) from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.

Commander Jessica Watkins and pilot Luke Delaney of NASA, mission specialist Joshua Kutryk with the Canadian Space Agency and mission specialist Sergey Teteryatnikov of Roscosmos are on their way to a rendezvous and docking with the International Space Station, beginning their planned five-and-a-half-month expedition.

Their time on the orbiting outpost will begin with a brief handover period with the outgoing Crew-12 astronauts, as would be expected for anyone familiar with the normal procession of numbers. But that was not always the case throughout NASA's history.

Triskaidekaphobia

NASA's first human space program to reach a 13th numbered flight was Apollo. The April 1970 mission was planned to be the third time U.S. astronauts landed on the moon, but as now is famously known, Apollo 13 was derailed by an inflight explosion that made the flight's primary goal returning Jim Lovell, Jack Swigert and Fred Haise safely to Earth.

Both before and after the flight, the crew had little concern about their mission being numbered 13. They were aware of the superstition — that "13" was an unlucky number — but if they paid any attention to it, it was to make a joke.

"I never thought of it in a superstitious sense, that we would have a problem on 13," said Haise, the mission's lunar module pilot, in a 50th anniversary interview with collectSPACE.com in 2020. "I had no sense at all, nor do I relate to the launch time [13:13 CST] and all the other thirteens that people have tried to tie to things as being connected with the flight."

Jim Beggs reportedly felt differently. The NASA administrator when the agency reached its next 13th numbered mission in 1984, Beggs was against tempting fate.

"'There's not going to be [another] Apollo 13 or a Shuttle 13," he said, according to Bob Crippen, commander of the space shuttle's STS-41C mission, in a NASA oral history interview.

Giving in to triskaidekaphobia — the fear of the number 13 — Beggs ordered NASA to adopt a new but convoluted numbering system for all shuttle missions after STS-9.

"Hence, what would have been STS-13 became STS-41-C, where the '4' was the fiscal year [1984], the '1' was the launch site [Kennedy Space Center in Florida] and 'C' the order of launch [C was the third planned flight of the year]," said Crippen.

Beggs left office after the Challenger tragedy in 1986 and with him went the complex number and letter system. The first mission to return the space shuttle to flight — the 26th in the program's history — was designated STS-26.

It comes after 12

Before SpaceX's Crew-13, the closest NASA had come to having to consider the question was Expedition 13, the 13th crew to take up residency on the ISS. It was not, however, a solely American crew, with only a NASA astronaut, a Russian commander and German flight engineer aboard.

Other missions were not strictly the 13th, such as STS-113, which flew to the International Space Station in 2002, or were not American and so were not NASA's to decide. Russia's Soyuz TMA-13M and Soyuz MS-13 flew without so much as a black cat getting in their way.

"We were joking a lot about being number 113," Ken Bowersox, STS-113 commander, told the press at the time. To play it safe, though, the crew's mission patch used the Roman numerals (CXIII) instead.

As for Crew-13 astronauts, they seem be unfazed by reintroducing "13" to the order of U.S. missions, going so far as to style their official crew insignia after the emblem worn by the Apollo 13 astronauts.

"We took a lot of inspiration from the Apollo 13 crew as Crew-13," said Watkins, answering a question from the press gathered for their pre-launch arrival at the Kennedy Space Center. "We have a couple of nods in terms of just the Roman numerals, the golden color [and] the dragon looking upward."

"We really wanted to honor their legacy, honor their resilience and their grit and bring a little bit of that with us on our crew," she said. "We stand on the shoulders of giants."

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket now sits on the launch pad, ready to blast off carrying NASA's Crew-13 mission aboard a Dragon spacecraft.

What is it?

Coming up on Thursday (Oct. 1), NASA will launch its Crew-13 mission to the International Space Station. The mission will launch a crew of astronauts aboard a Crew spacecraft atop a Falcon 9 rocket.

In this new snapshot, you can see the Dragon spacecraft and Falcon 9 rocket stacked and sitting on the launch pad ready to go. in this configuration, mission teams conducted a static fire test with the rocket, checking an important item off of the pre-launch list.

Crew-13 will launch a group of astronauts including NASA astronauts Jessica Watkins and Luke Delaney, Canadian Space Agency astronaut Joshua Kutryk and Roscosmos cosmonaut Sergey Teteryatnikov to the space station. This will be the second spaceflight for Watkins and the first spaceflight for Delaney, Kutryk and Teteryatikov.

Why is it incredible?

Crew-13 is the next mission of NASA's Commercial Crew Program. This ongoing collaboration has brought the space agency together with commercial partners like SpaceX to continue sending a sustained human presence to the space station. It's not so simple sending humans into orbit to live and work, but this partnership between government and the commercial sector has helped to enable more of these crewed missions.

Missions like this send astronauts into orbit to conduct research, test technology and do critical work on the space station on spacewalks. And Crew-13 is no exception.

"During the mission, the crew will help researchers treat heart disease and Parkinson’s disease by studying human stem-cell derived tissues that can help improve medicine, disease modeling, and pharmaceutical testing," Dana Weigel, manager of NASA's Low Earth Orbit Program at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, said in a statement. "They also will explore crop production, which is important for longer-duration spaceflight missions, help us better understand blood flow abnormalities that we see in space, and test new diagnostic medical equipment for monitoring crew health."

Scientists have taken a closer look at what happens to the human genome in simulated microgravity — and found that it is surprisingly resilient, at least over a single day.

In a new study, researchers at New York University built a custom random-positioning machine that continually changed the orientation of human cells relative to Earth's gravity. Crucially, the team developed algorithms that minimized the fluid currents normally generated inside rotating cell cultures, allowing it to distinguish the effects of simulated microgravity from those of mechanical flow.

After 24 hours, simulated microgravity had not disrupted genome organization or motion, nor produced detectable DNA damage. The nuclear envelope (the membrane that separates genetic material from the rest of a cell) also remained unchanged. But the nucleus increased in volume, and the nucleolus — a structure involved in producing ribosomes — became smoother. By comparison, strong fluid flows elongated the cells and caused DNA damage, a crucial control detail that explains why past experiments might have yielded misleading results.

The short exposure to simulated microgravity, however, cannot reveal what might happen during a months-long journey through deep space. "Such changes could occur during longer exposures and due to DNA damage occurring in space," study senior author Alexandra Zidovska, an associate professor of physics at NYU, said in a statement. Actual spaceflight also exposes cells to radiation and other conditions the experiment did not reproduce.

That said, this study is one step forward in this growing field of research. Scientists are beginning to treat gravity almost like a drug, varying its strength, duration, and frequency on the human body to learn what dose might keep astronauts healthy and whether the same stimulus could help rehabilitate patients on Earth.

NASA-funded "Gravity Dose" studies at Texas A&M University's new human centrifuge will examine responses to lunar and Martian gravity. European bed-rest studies called BRACE and BRAVE have paired centrifuge-generated gravity with exercise. And the GRACER1 clinical trial is investigating artificial gravity and exercise as rehabilitation for people with conditions including stroke and multiple sclerosis.

The NYU experiment does not establish a therapeutic gravity dose, but its technique could help researchers identify which cellular changes truly result from altered gravity — and potentially determine when the genome's short-term resilience begins to give way during long journeys away from Earth.

The study was published on Sept. 23 in the journal Science Advances.

Boeing's Starliner spacecraft will fly astronauts again — but not until 2028.

If all goes according to plan, Starliner will conduct an uncrewed test flight to the International Space Station (ISS) this coming December or January, then carry astronauts up sometime in 2028, NASA announced in an update today (Sept. 28).

It's a vote of confidence for a vehicle that has experienced some serious setbacks on its three test flights to date.

Starliner lifted off for the first time in December 2019, on an uncrewed mission to the ISS called Orbital Flight Test (OFT). The capsule failed to meet up with the orbiting lab, however; it got stranded in the wrong orbit after suffering problems with its onboard timing system.

Starliner made it to the ISS on the uncrewed OFT-2, which launched in May 2022. But it wasn't a perfectly smooth ride: The Boeing vehicle overcame the failure of two of its orbital maneuvering and attitude control thrusters while it chased down the station.

Then came Crew Flight Test (CFT), Starliner's first-ever astronaut mission. CFT launched in June 2024, sending NASA's Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore to the ISS for a planned 10-day stay. Shortly after Starliner deployed from its rocket, however, some issues cropped up — namely, helium leaks and the failure of five of Starliner's 28 reaction control system (RCS) thrusters.

As on OFT-2, Starliner powered through and made it safely to the ISS. But NASA eventually decided not to risk sending Williams and Wilmore back down to Earth on the vehicle. Starliner returned uncrewed in September 2024, and the two astronauts stayed on the ISS for six months beyond that, finally riding home in a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule the following March.

Starliner has been grounded ever since, while SpaceX continues to rack up astronaut missions for NASA. The agency gave commercial crew contracts to both companies in 2014. SpaceX successfully flew its version of CFT in 2020 and is now wrapping up its 12th operational astronaut flight to the ISS for NASA; that mission will end shortly after SpaceX's Crew-13 launches this coming Thursday (Oct. 1).

NASA has long stressed the importance of having more than one private astronaut taxi up and running, however, so it has remained invested in Starliner's success — even after declaring CFT a "Type A mishap," the most serious kind, this past February.

And a joint Boeing-NASA team has addressed the issues that beset CFT, agency officials told us today. For example, the company traced the helium leaks to valve problems — specifically, degradation that occurred after exposure to nitrogen tetroxide, the oxidizer in Starliner's propulsion system.

"That is why the material of the seal was changed," Dana Weigel, manager, of NASA's Low Earth Orbit Program, said during a press conference today.

"We also realized we needed to select seals that were on the larger side of the tolerance spectrum," she added. "Boeing has implemented all of those changes on the Starliner-1 spacecraft already."

Starliner-1 is the upcoming uncrewed test flight to the ISS. Starliner-2 is the crewed mission that's targeted to lift off in 2028 — likely in the middle of that year, Boeing representatives said today.

Engineers have also taken steps to ensure that a CFT-like thruster anomaly doesn't afflict future Starliner flights.

"We determined that the crew module thruster anomaly is the result of corrosion," Weigel said.

"This is created by residual hydrazine propellant combined with atmospheric exposure — specifically, the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere — and so Boeing has put in place procedures to flush out the hydrazine, and also to flow a continuous purge to isolate those thrusters from the environment," she added.

Not all of these changes will be tested on Starliner-1, which explains why there will be such a long gap between it and Starliner-2.

"Following the flight [Starliner-1], NASA and Boeing will complete the service module thruster valve design modification," agency officials said in a statement today.

"Boeing also will implement other improvements across the spacecraft, including installation of new crew module thrusters, batteries and minor modifications to the parachute system for increased performance and reliability in support of system certification," they added.

We already know one person who's flying on Starliner-2: NASA announced today that veteran agency astronaut Woody Hoburg will command the mission. (There's no word yet on his crewmates.)

Hoburg expressed confidence in Starliner and the Boeing-NASA teams that will be working on the vehicle in the leadup to Starliner-2.

"I've flown a lot of types of aircraft, and let me tell you, Starliner is a pilot's spacecraft," he said during today's press conference. "Starliner gives the crew real capabilities to respond to off-nominal events. These were exercised during CFT, and along with our expert flight control team, the manual control capabilities on Starliner were critical to achieving a safe docking despite numerous thruster failures."

Boeing's commercial crew contract currently runs through Starliner-6. Starliner-1 through Starliner-4 will launch atop United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rockets, as OFT, OFT-2 and CFT all did. But the venerable Atlas V is out of production and on the road to retirement, so Starliner-5 and Starliner-6 will have a different rocket ride — ULA's new Vulcan Centaur.

Vulcan still hasn't been certified to launch crewed missions, however, so some work will be required on that end as well. And NASA will be footing some of the bill.

"So, both the spacecraft upgrades — including the thrusters and everything you've heard summarized today — plus the Vulcan certification, that is $359 million [dollars]," Weigel said during the press conference.

Today's Starliner update came on the heels of some other commercial crew news. On Sept. 19, NASA announced that it has awarded SpaceX $946 million to fly three additional ISS astronaut missions: Crew-15, Crew 16 and Crew-17, which are all expected to launch by 2030.

SpaceX plans to retire Crew Dragon and its workhorse Falcon 9 rocket around that same time. The company thinks its fully reusable Starship megarocket will be humming along by then, taking care of all its spaceflight needs.

That may well be the case: Starship reached orbit for the first time ever today, deploying the first 26 satellites for SpaceX's planned 100,000-strong Starlink V3 megaconstellation.

No need for a quick spray of Windex to get a clear view of this situation.

There's a growing need for windows for rubbernecking space travelers, whether they're making suborbital hops, staying in Earth orbit or conducting far-flung sojourns to the moon and beyond.

Retrofire back decades ago when the first Mercury space capsule offered a tiny porthole for its single seat occupant, Alan Shepard. Similarly, the first human in space, cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, had but a small window to take in the view.

Oddly, in those early years of pioneering space treks, nobody knew what microgravity would do to the human eye and a person's vision. Talk about floaters!

That aside, sightseeing in space has meant an evolution of safe and sound windows and tackling the engineering challenges to produce them. But what's the outlook ahead for space voyagers?

Earthgazing

"Based on my experience of interviewing professional and commercial astronauts, I would say that the windows are key to the 'Overview Effect' experience," said Frank White, who coined the phrase and is author of "The Overview Effect: Space Exploration and Human Evolution" (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1987).

White called attention to the deep shift in cognitive awareness that most space travelers undergo in viewing our planet from Earth orbit and beyond.

It's clear that, for NASA astronauts, transitioning from space shuttle missions to the International Space Station (ISS) was critical to a more meaningful opportunity to view Earth from a distance, White said.

"This shift intensified with the advent of the ISS Cupola, where astronauts spend a great deal of time ‘Earthgazing,'" he told Space.com.

Customer experience

White said that, because Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin have focused on having their suborbital space tourism customers experience the Overview Effect, "both companies have ensured great views from the windows of their spacecraft. As a result, commercial astronauts have had profound experiences, even though they are weightless and looking at the Earth only briefly."

It is no accident that SpaceX installed a special "cupola" on its Crew Dragon capsule for the Inspiration4 astronaut mission in September 2021, and it paid off, White observed. Anyone who doubts this fact, he said, should watch the video of the unveiling of that window by the Inspiration4 crew.

"The story goes that the engineers for the Mercury flights did not want the spacecraft to have windows," White said. "The astronauts insisted and eventually prevailed. Fortunately, their precedent continues to this day, to the benefit of the astronauts and the people of Earth. The Overview Effect is one of the most important 'spinoffs' of space exploration."

Human comfort

Similar in view is Samuel Coniglio IV, author of "Creature Comforts in Space: Designing Enjoyment and Sustainability for Off-World Living" (BookBaby, 2024).

Coniglio also points to that scene from the 1983 film "The Right Stuff," in which the original Mercury astronauts were arguing with the engineers for a need to see outside their capsule. After all, they were an elite set of pilots and may have needed to take manual control of their craft at some point.

"Just as plants and taking a shower play a critical role in human comfort, so do windows," said Coniglio. "Being able to see the vast heavens allows you to become one with the universe, and to see all the cool stuff going on outside. We can't just live in a box — we need to be part of the outside world as well."

Structural reliability

Lynda Estes is the spacecraft transparencies discipline lead at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston. She's an engineering expert who has been integrating windows into crew-carrying spacecraft for decades.

Estes has worked with many vehicles during her NASA career — the space shuttles, the International Space Station, the Artemis program's Orion capsule and every private human-rated spacecraft developed by companies partnering with the agency's Commercial Crew Program.

Estes is an internationally sought-after resource for design, development, engineering, testing and operations for high-risk, human-rated pressure cabins in both aviation and spaceflight. She's the author of the governing NASA requirements document that ensures high structural reliability in spacecraft glass window designs.

Starting as a stress analyst for mechanisms, "windows are a whole new PhD," Estes told Space.com. "Glass is a brittle material. It breaks. That's what it likes to do. But it's also beautifully transparent as well."

Room with a view

In earlier NASA programs, windows were made of multiple panes of different types of glass. For example, the European-built Cupola on the ISS — offering the "best room with a view" — consists of six trapezoidal side windows and a circular top window. Each window consists of four panes for protection from astronaut-induced scratches, as well as outside dings from space debris.

The entire window, or the individual scratched or debris-pocked panes, can be replaced. Reinstating an entire window requires a "big, fancy ballet," said Estes — one that is well-choreographed, with an astronaut first fitting an external pressure cover over the window during a spacewalk.

Overall, the ISS Cupola serves as an observation and work area when the crew operates the station's robotic arms or observes visiting vehicles. But it's a lure during leisure time as well, as it affords astronauts extraordinary views of Earth and celestial objects.

Static fatigue

But there are troubling features of glass, too. For one, tiny flaws affect its strength. And glass actually loses structural capability over time, according to Estes.

"We call that static fatigue," she said, referring to cracks that grow microscopically under a load.

"We're working hard to remove glass because of those two features," Estes said, explaining that NASA wants to move to an all acrylic window design for the Orion spacecraft. "Acrylic, when seeing reentry temperatures, acts like a heat shield."

As a structural engineer, Estes advises that windows are worrisome.

"We come at it from, How do we keep everybody alive? Cutting a hole in the side of your pressure vessel and installing something like glass to replace that hole is a really poor choice," said Estes. "That's why we are trying to move contractors and our partners to acrylic. That is a much more structurally stable material."

Buying risk

One of the challenges with glass is that it produces shards when it breaks. "And the first place those shards want to go is to that human body that just went over to the window to see what happened," Estes pointed out.

With glass you are buying risk, said Estes. On the other hand, NASA has a written requirement, she said: "If you are going to put humans inside and send it to space, it must have a window."

Estes and her team are now providing guidance for spacecraft windows to be utilized for future moon operations, including the human landing systems for the Artemis program.

Back down here on Earth, does she clean windows at home?

"I do not," Estes responded.

SpaceX will continue launching astronauts for NASA for at least another four years.

The agency just awarded Elon Musk's company $946 million to fly three more crewed missions to the International Space Station (ISS), a "period of performance" that runs through 2030.

"As part of the agency's Commercial Crew Transportation Capability (CCtCap) contract, this change brings the total missions for SpaceX to 17 and helps NASA to maintain access to the space station with two unique commercial crew industry partners," NASA officials said in a statement on Friday (Sept. 18).

The other commercial partner is Boeing, which, like SpaceX, got a CCtCap contract from NASA in 2014. The agency looked to these two companies to fill the crew-carrying shoes of the space shuttle, which had retired in 2011.

SpaceX has tackled the challenge with its Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon capsule, which first launched astronauts to the ISS on the Demo-2 mission in May 2020. NASA certified that system for operational missions in November of that year, and SpaceX has completed 11 such astronaut flights to date.

It's still conducting the 12th, known as Crew-12, and is gearing up for the launch of Crew-13, which is expected to occur in early October. The new contract modification will take SpaceX through Crew-17 and bring the total value of its CCtCap contract to $5.92 billion.

Boeing has had a tougher time. Its Starliner capsule flew its first crewed test mission to the ISS in June 2024, and things didn't go according to plan; Starliner suffered thruster issues and other problems on the way to the orbiting lab, and the mission's two crewmembers — NASA's Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore — ended up coming back to Earth in a Crew Dragon in March 2025.

NASA still has not certified Starliner for operational astronaut missions, and it's unclear when the capsule will fly again. However, Starliner is still part of the agency's commercial crew plans, as Friday's update indicates.

NASA and its international partners currently plan to retire the ISS in late 2030 or early 2031 (though the U.S. Congress has pushed to extend operations through 2032).

The agency anticipates needing the services of crewed orbital spacecraft even after the ISS is dead and gone, however. It's encouraging the development of commercial space stations in low Earth orbit, which will be destinations for NASA astronauts and, perhaps, a range of other folks.

But Crew Dragon likely won't be around when these future stations get up and running. SpaceX plans to retire the capsule in 2030 or thereabouts, according to Ars Technica, giving its duties (and those of pretty much all of the company's other spaceflight systems) to its fully reusable Starship megarocket.

Europe's prototype spacesuit aboard the International Space Station (ISS) still needs some work after European Space Agency astronaut Sophie Adenot performed its first fit and dexterity checks on orbit.

EuroSuit launched aboard the SpaceX CRS-34 Cargo Dragon mission, which lifted off May 15 and docked to the ISS about two days later with nearly 6,500 pounds (2,950 kilograms) of supplies and equipment. Adenot arrived on the ISS three months earlier, in February, as a member of the SpaceX Crew-12 mission. Her time with the suit gave European engineers their first astronaut feedback on the intravehicular activity (IVA) prototype in orbit, and she did not give a five-star review.

"I think there are still a lot of points that will be improved in the future," Adenot told Space.com on Sept. 16, during a call with reporters previewing the Crew-12 mission's impending return to Earth. "We are looking forward to the future steps."

EuroSuit was developed by the French Space Agency (CNES), the Institute of Space Medicine and Physiology (MEDES), spaceflight systems company Spartan Space, and sports clothing brand Decathlon. As the "I" in IVA suggests, EuroSuit is not designed for spacewalks. It's meant for use inside a spacecraft during the most critical phases of flight, specifically launch and landing, similar to the black-and-white spacesuits worn by astronauts who launch aboard SpaceX's Crew Dragon.

One of the suit's biggest innovations is supposed to be its ease of use. EuroSuit is designed for astronauts to put on, without help from another crewmember, in less than two minutes, and take off in the same amount of time. This would be a big advantage in emergency situations when astronauts may need to don their suits quickly — for example, to deal with a spacecraft pressure leak or to evacuate the space station.

Adenot's on-orbit tests focused on the ergonomics of the suit, rather than full life-support performance. She was tasked with donning and doffing the suit and assessing its dexterity by handling small objects and manipulating a tablet's touchscreen.

EuroSuit fits into a broader European effort to build more independent capabilities in space. CNES says the project reflects Europe's ambition to be more autonomous in human spaceflight, with the French space agency focusing specifically on intravehicular suits.

"By relying on the exceptional expertise of our partners, we are prepared to deliver this type of suit when the time comes," Sébastien Barde, CNES deputy director for exploration and human spaceflight, said in a statement last year.

The project is coordinated by CNES, which brought together the aerospace, medicine and activewear expertise that went into EuroSuit's development. Spartan Space, the suit's primary contractor, created the overall design, with MEDES contributing biomonitoring systems for tracking astronaut vital signs and other data. Decathlon brought ergonomic insight into textiles meant for extreme environments.

Feedback from Adenot's ISS tests will help guide EuroSuit technicians toward a more informed architecture, which will include key systems like pressurization, atmospheric control, and communications that will be needed for the final design.

"This EuroSuit is at the very first step of its development," Adenot said. "Everything in the design of space systems goes incremental. I would say right now we are at the very beginning of its journey."

Hiking, finding cool rocks and working together as a team: even astronauts go to summer camp. And it turns out that it's actually critical for their preparation for space.

What is it?

This photo might look like a goofy snapshot of some summer-camp counselors. But it's actually NASA's 2025 astronaut candidate class in the midst of important outdoor training.

The group of 10 set out to explore the Rio Grande del Norte National Monument in New Mexico this past May, as part of a geology training expedition. And they're proud of the rocks they collected, as you can tell from their beaming smiles.

This geological adventure is part of an extensive and intense two-year training program that the candidates are undergoing as part of their preparation to become astronauts. The group is now about halfway through their program. For the geological potion of their training, the astronaut candidates go through classroom instruction, field training, scientific observations, sampling, navigation, teamwork and more.

Why is it incredible?

Astronaut candidates in training have to be ready for all of the expected and unexpected challenges ahead, whether they're destined for the International Space Station, the moon or beyond.

In addition to extensive geological training that will prepare them to collect and study moon rocks, astronaut candidates undergo flight training aboard high-altitude airplanes and supersonic jets, altitude chamber sessions, water survival training and more. And this isn't new. Astronauts headed for space have been going to the extreme here on Earth to prepare since the earliest days of NASA's astronaut program.

Leaving the International Space Station will be bittersweet for its outgoing crew, who’ve been living aboard the orbital lab since February performing maintenance and upgrades and carrying out dozens of microgravity research experiments.

The astronauts of SpaceX’s Crew-12 mission launched to the ISS on Feb. 13 and are now gearing up for their return to Earth. When exactly that might take place, however, is still up in the air, as their replacements don't yet have a launch date. NASA and SpaceX had targeted Sept. 12 for the liftoff of Crew-13, but have twice delayed that mission to allow additional time for preflight tests and data analysis. Now, NASA is targeting a Crew-13 launch no sooner than early October, according to a Sept. 16 statement from the space agency.

As is standard practice with ISS crew rotations, the astronauts of Crew-12 will remain aboard the station and continue a typical day-to-day schedule through a brief overlap period between crews once their replacements are safely aboard. In the meantime, the members of Crew-12 — NASA astronauts Jessica Meir and Jack Hathaway, European Space Agency astronaut Sophie Adenot and Roscosmos cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev — are reflecting on their time in space and also looking forward to the comforts of Earth upon their return.

The quartet gathered in the station’s Kibo laboratory module for a call with reporters yesterday (Sept. 16) to discuss the past several months aboard the ISS and their upcoming trip home. It was the first time “in quite a while,” Meir said, that just the four Crew-12 astronauts found themselves together. They currently share the station with the three astronauts of Russia’s Soyuz MS-29 mission — NASA's Anil Menon and cosmonauts Pyotr Dubrov and Anna Kikina.

Their coming together “really started evoking those memories of our trip up here and our ride on the [SpaceX] Dragon, and of course started to get us anticipating that ride home that hopefully we're going to have pretty soon around the corner,” Meir said on the call.

All four reflected on some of their most profound moments during their spaceflight and shared some of what they’re looking forward to once they’re back on Earth. “My biggest eureka moment happened just recently, on the final spacewalk that we did,” Meir said, referring to her Sept. 1 extravehicular activity (EVA). She performed a total of four EVAs during this current stint aboard the ISS, bringing her career total spacewalk tally to seven.

“It was the first time that I ever got to ride the Canadarm on a spacewalk,” Meir said, describing the EVA as a “full circle” moment. She helped fix the Canadarm during a previous spacewalk on this mission, “and then to ride it with these guys driving me around was the most incredible feeling,” she said.

Fedyaev recalled another notable spacewalk event. During the May 27 Roscosmos EVA that featured cosmonauts Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and Sergei Mikaev, Fedyaev controlled the station’s European Robotic Arm (ERA) with both his comrades attached.

“The most [memorable] moment in my flight was the work with the ERA manipulator,” Fadyaev said. “We moved … two cosmonauts in one moment on the ERA from SM module to the MLM module,” he added, referring to Russia’s Zvezda Service Module and Nauka Multipurpose Laboratory Module. It was the first-ever time that two cosmonauts were transported simultaneously between modules using the ERA, and the experience stood out for Fadyaev, who skillfully handled the robotic arm’s controls.

Adenot pointed to the second of her two spacewalks as a point of pride during what is her first mission to space. She and Menon spent the majority of their Aug. 18 EVA removing a failed Space-to-Ground Antenna (SGANT) on the station’s Z1 truss, but stuck bolts and electrical connectors ate up so much time that they had to defer installing the spare until Aug. 25. Adenot recalled her relief when engineering teams on the ground confirmed the new SGANT’s functionality. “After two EVAs trying to fix it with Anil, it was a great thing to hear,” she said.

The Crew-12 astronauts also discussed some of the science they’ve helped carry out during their time on orbit. One of Hathaway’s proudest moments came when he heard the celebrations from teams in mission control over ISS communications channels after the crew completed upgrades to the station’s Cold Atom Lab, which facilitates quantum mechanics experiments.

“We spent, it must have been two or three hours trying to figure out how to get this part to fit into the slide it was supposed to fit in,” Hathaway said. “Hearing the cheers … over the space-to-ground loops when we finally got it properly installed and it was ready to do science was a pretty fun moment for me.”

Some of Meir’s favorite experiments took place in the Life Sciences Glovebox, including investigations involving neocartilage and stem cells. “Previous experiments have shown that the stem cells actually divide for longer, more continuously, in microgravity than they do on Earth,” Meir said. “So potentially that's something very novel that was discovered. And potentially, if it becomes cost-effective, we could produce stem cells up here to be used for targeted therapies back on Earth.”

As for what they’re looking forward to once they return to Earth, the answer is pretty much everything. “One of the things about living in space is, it's an expeditionary lifestyle,” Hathaway said. “We don't have a lot of selection of food. We don't have running water … So going home and being able to take a nice long hot shower will be very relaxing and very nice. And of course, I'm looking forward to seeing my family. But a hot shower is near the top of my list.”

Adenot, too, has her mind in the water. “I love water sports,” she said. “We don't have a lot of variety of sports [aboard the ISS], and obviously we don't have water sports. So I'm looking forward to these.”

“What I'm looking forward to most is seeing my three-and-a-half-year-old daughter,” Meir said, and added a few more things to her list. “I'm so looking forward to seeing nature again,” she said, “feeling the breeze on my face, the wind rustling through the leaves, experiencing all those things that we don't have up here. But I will very, very much miss being weightless all the time and the incredible views that we have.”

Superstar astrophysicist, bestselling author, podcaster and ravenous consumer of pop culture Neil deGrasse Tyson has never been shy when it comes to sharing his candid thoughts, esoteric humor and vast depth of knowledge with the entire world.

His latest book, "Lost in Space: 5,000 Facts For Navigating The Universe," is a spectacular 400-page whirlwind odyssey around the heavens that's wonderfully composed using hundreds of bold illustrations, charts, maps, galactic images, planetary profiles, astronomical wonders and historical photos that will keep curious readers engaged for a millennium or more.

Released on Sept. 15, 2026 from National Geographic and written by Tyson and StarTalk colleague Lindsey Nyx Walker, "Lost in Space" is an encyclopedic space glossary and guidebook that includes information on everything from telescopes to UFOs to exoplanets. Think of it as a colorful, eye-catching candy store of cosmic proportions.

"First you’ll notice how beautiful it is," Tyson told Space.com. "That’s National Geographic, and this is the fourth collaboration between them and our podcast. They made it into a beautiful object that, even if you didn't read it, you just want to look at it. From the cover to the layout and the pages and images, it's sheer beauty. It's a coffee table book, but it's also a really fun read. The idea was that there's so much interesting information in the universe that it's not just metrically interesting, it's analogically interesting.

"Like in our podcast, where we merge science, pop culture and humor when you can. The facts of this book were constructed to rise up above the base value of a fact and turn it into something that’s memorable to you as a reader — which means you can open to any page and pick out any fact and find something you might have never thought about. The entire universe. It's got each planet, the night sky, moons, and a section on the Periodic Table of Elements. I’m proud of it."

Longtime producer and science journalist Lindsey Nyx Walker, the book's co-author and Tyson's StarTalk co-host, helped him come up with the lion’s share of the fascinating facts and factoids, with a small writing team flushing out the last 2,000 or so details.

"It's all in the spirit of, 'Is it an interesting or tasty fact, and does it make you smile?'" Tyson said. "Because then you'll come back for more. And ideally, does it tap into something that you cared about walking into the room? So there's a lot of referencing to movies. What would happen if The Hulk went from human size to The Hulk size? If you didn’t add matter to him, he’d have the density of a beach ball and a gust of wind would bounce him down the street. He must somehow gain mass, and they don’t really address that. When we're talking about mass and density, there are ways you can reach pop culture and have that highlight other ways you might be thinking about that very same subject. I was a geeky kid, and if I saw this book on a table I'd never put it down."

"Lost In Space" is coming out just two weeks after a big astronomy event — the launch of NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope on Aug. 30, 2026. Tyson offered up his thoughts and enthusiasms on this remarkable investigatory tool.

"I'm privileged to be a participant in a field where the simple launch of a telescope makes headlines," he said. "We’re not making science for another six months. What a joy it is to have the public celebrate our technological steps along with us. And I just think that’s a beautiful fact. It’s the next step in trying to understand dark matter, dark energy, and exoplanets — very different things from each other. But the telescope has different detectors that can rotate in and out of the focal plane so it can serve multiple sub-communities within the world’s astrophysicists. We’re all looking forward to this."

"Lost in Space: 5,000 Facts For Navigating The Universe" is available now.

Frank Culbertson had a birds-eye view of one of the most memorable and tragic events in American history.

The NASA astronaut was the only American off of Earth on Sept. 11, 2001. He was circling the planet aboard the International Space Station (ISS) when terrorists flew commercial jets into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, killing more than 2,700 people.

The ISS passed over New York shortly after the attacks took place, so Culbertson saw the devastation from an eerie remove. He shared his thoughts with Mission Control at NASA's Johnson Space Center in real time, chronicling the tragedy like no one else could.

"We could see New York City and the smoke from the fires," Culbertson said. "Our prayers and thoughts go out to all the people there and everywhere else here — I'm looking up and down the East Coast to see if I can see anything else — and to the people in Washington."

Terrorists hijacked four commercial planes on 9/11, flying two of them into the World Trade Center and one into the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. Passengers on the fourth plane overpowered the hijackers, forcing it to crash in a field in Pennsylvania rather than hit the terrorists' intended target, which was likely the U.S. Capitol building or the White House.

"I hope that the people responsible are caught and brought to justice as soon as possible," Culbertson added. "But first, our prayers and condolences to all involved. And I just wanted the folks to know that their city still looks very beautiful from space. I know it's very difficult for everybody in America right now, and I know folks are struggling very hard to to deal with this and recover from it. But the country still looks good, and, for New Yorkers, your city still looks great from up here."

Culbertson gave a more complete accounting of his thoughts in an open letter, which he published a day after the attacks.

"The world changed today. What I say or do is very minor compared to the significance of what happened to our country today when it was attacked," he wrote.

"It's horrible to see smoke pouring from wounds in your own country from such a fantastic vantage point," Culbertson added. "The dichotomy of being on a spacecraft dedicated to improving life on the Earth and watching life being destroyed by such willful, terrible acts is jolting to the psyche, no matter who you are."

Culbertson arrived at the ISS on Aug. 12, 2001 aboard the space shuttle Discovery along with cosmonauts Vladimir Dezhurov and Mikhail Tyurin. The trio comprised Expedition 3, the third-ever crewed mission to the orbiting lab, which ran through December of that year.

We're now up to Expedition 75, and there have been no breaks: The ISS has been continuously staffed by rotating astronaut crews since November 2000.

Expedition 3 was Culbertson's third and final spaceflight. He retired from NASA in August 2002 and went to work in the private sector. Among other roles, he led human spaceflight efforts at Orbital Sciences Corp., which built the Cygnus ISS resupply spacecraft. Cygnus still flies today, for the aerospace giant Northrop Grumman, which bought Orbital Sciences in 2018.

Culbertson, 77, retired from Northrop Grumman in 2018. He currently serves on the board of directors of the nonprofit Space Foundation, among other roles.

You can read more about Culbertson's experiences on NASA's dedicated 9/11 page. That page also outlines how the agency helped emergency managers assess the damage in New York City just after the attacks and discusses some of the ways NASA has honored 9/11 victims and their families over the years.

For example, NASA flew nearly 6,000 small American flags on the STS-108 mission of the space shuttle Endeavour, which launched on Dec. 5, 2001 and landed 12 days later.

"Students working out of Johnson Space Center in Houston assembled commemorative packages that included the space‑flown flags, which were then presented to victims' families," NASA officials wrote about the project. "Distribution began on June 14, 2002 — National Flag Day — during a ceremony at the American Museum of Natural History’s Rose Center for Earth and Space in New York."

On Sept. 7, 1995, the space shuttle Endeavour launched on mission STS-69. This was the 100th successful crew spaceflight mission for NASA.

Endeavour lifted off from NASA's historic Pad 39A launch site at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. During the 11-day mission, five crewmembers did science experiments, deployed and retrieved a satellite called Spartan 201, and conducted a nearly seven-hour-long spacewalk to practice methods future astronauts would use to build the International Space Station.

The astronauts also deployed the Wake Shield Facility, a saucer-shaped satellite that flew free of the shuttle for several days. This was the first time two different payloads were retrieved and deployed during the same mission.

Why it mattered

The launch of STS-69 on space shuttle Endeavour was a milestone of sorts for NASA and U.S. space exploration. As the 100th crewed flight by NASA astronauts, it showed that flying humans in space was not a one-off or occasional feat.

The five-astronaut crew was commanded by David Walker, with Kenneth Cockrell as pilot. Astronaut Jim Voss served as payload commander (remember, this was the first time two different payloads would be deployed in space), with astronauts Jim Newman and Michael Gernhardt rounding out the team as mission specialists.

The Spartan 201-03 payload was an experiment designed to study the sun's outer atmosphere as it transitioned into solar wind. It was the third of four such Spartan 201 flights on a NASA space shuttle.

The Wake Shield Facility-2, meanwhile, was a sort of in-space factory. The saucer-shaped platform was actually a stainless steel disk designed to create an "ultravacuum environment" in space in order to grow thin films that could be used for new advanced electronics. The disk was actually deployed twice during the 11-day mission and successfully grew four thin films of seven planned, while also performing an electrical field experiment for the U.S. Air Force on its second deployment.

The one spacewalk of the mission was performed by astronauts Voss and Gernhardt, who spent 6 hours and 46 minutes working outside Endeavour to test new thermal upgrades to NASA's extravehicular activity (or EVA) suits, as well as new tools and techniques to build the then nascent International Space Station.

There was one space oddity on this STS-69 mission, according to NASA. The crew was NASA's second "dog crew," or Dog Crew II, with each of the astronauts adopting a dog nickname.

"Walker was Red Dog; Cockrell was Cujo; Voss, Dog Face; Newman, Pluto; and Gernhardt, Under Dog," NASA said in an overview.

Want more space history? Check out our full On This Day In Space Story archive and watch our On This Day In Space videos on YouTube.

Jonny Kim is leaving NASA to continue his military career.

The 42-year-old astronaut, who has one of the most jaw-dropping resumes of any person alive, is departing today (Aug. 27) after nine years with the agency. He has one mission under his belt, a long-duration flight to the International Space Station (ISS).

"Jonny has been an integral part of the agency, and his immeasurable impact will be felt for generations to come," Vanessa Wyche, director of NASA's Johnson Space Center (JSC) in Houston, said in a statement today. "From advancing groundbreaking science to inspiring the next generation, Jonny has been an incredible source of inspiration to our nation. His exceptional talent, determination, and grit will leave a lasting legacy at NASA."

NASA picked Kim as part of its 2017 astronaut class, the 22nd in the agency's history. He and his 11 fellow selectees nicknamed themselves "The Turtles."

Kim was already incredibly accomplished before he got the NASA nod. He's a physician with a medical degree from Harvard. He served in the U.S. military, as a dual-designated naval aviator and flight surgeon as well as a Navy SEAL — a commando trained to conduct special operations on sea, air and land (hence the acronymic name).

"Over the course of more than 100 combat operations, he served as a medic, sniper, navigator and point man, earning the Silver Star, Bronze Star with Combat 'V,' and numerous additional commendations," NASA officials said in the same statement.

After completing his mandatory two years of NASA astronaut training, Kim served as a CAPCOM ("capsule communicator") at JSC, relaying information between Mission Control and crewmembers on the ISS.

"Kim also contributed to Artemis program development through his work in the astronaut exploration branch, leading the astronaut crew operations branch, and serving as increment lead for Expedition 65," NASA officials said in the same statement. "His experiences as a Navy SEAL, physician and naval aviator provided unique perspectives in mission operations and crew support."

In April 2025, Kim got the chance to go to space himself. He launched to the ISS aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft along with Russian cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov and Alexey Zubritsky.

The trio lived and worked in space for 245 days, circling Earth 3,920 times and traveling a total of nearly 104 million miles (167 million kilometers), according to NASA. During that time, Kim conducted a variety of scientific experiments that could advance technological development and aid space exploration down the road.

Kim, Ryzhikov and Zubritsky returned to Earth in December, touching down in their Soyuz on the steppe of Kazakhstan .

Kim isn't walking off into the sunset now. Far from it: He's going back to active duty, "to finish out the remainder of his military career within naval aviation training," according to NASA.

"Contributing to space exploration and serving NASA has been the honor of a lifetime," Kim said in the same NASA statement.

"Throughout my career, I’ve learned that beyond the missions, the training, and the hardware, success always comes down to the people," he added. "They are our greatest asset, and leading with love and empathy is how we achieve the impossible. I look forward to carrying my commitment to service, my enduring love for space and technology, and the hard-earned lessons of this past decade into my next chapter to make a meaningful impact on humanity’s future."

Kim isn't the only astronaut to hang up his spacesuit in 2026. NASA's Mike Fincke stepped away this year, as did Canadian Jeremy Hansen, who was one of the four crewmembers on NASA's Artemis II flight around the moon.

"Houston, we have a working comm link again."

Thanks to the efforts of two astronauts, such a call is possible again using one of two Space-to-Ground antennas outside the International Space Station (ISS). The pair finished the replacement of a faulty dish assembly during a spacewalk on Tuesday (Aug. 25).

Anil Menon of NASA and Sophie Adenot of the European Space Agency (ESA), who previously removed a faulty dish during a spacewalk on Aug. 18, installed a spare in its place and moved the broken assembly from a temporary to more permanent storage location along the station's backbone truss.

With Menon positioned at the end of the Canadarm2 robotic arm and Adenot traversing by handrails to join him, the two Expedition 75 crewmates first retrieved a spare Space-to-Ground Antenna (SGANT) from an external stowage position. Menon and the spare dish were then maneuvered to the Z-1 truss, where it was mounted and connected to the station's power and data systems.

Menon and Adenot then retrieved the faulty antenna, which they had stowed on the Z-1 truss during the prior spacewalk. Menon (on the arm) moved it to external stowage platform-3 (ESP-3) on the starboard side of the truss.

The replacement work became necessary after the SGANT ceased being able to track NASA's data and relay satellites, rendering it unusable, beginning last November. A second antenna has been in use since, continuing the transmission of voice and critical data, but this repair re-established redundancy to the system.

"On behalf of CAPCOM and I, we're going to count down like a bolt: '3, 2, 1… You just saved the video dish, you just saved the video dish,'" sang astronaut Anne McClain from Mission Control at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, parodying the The Buggles' 1979 hit "Video Killed the Radio Star."

"Oh my god, it is hard to top that," replied Menon, who could be heard laughing along with Adenot. "I want to thank the entire team on executing this complex, time-critical operation successfully."

Tuesday's spacewalk began at 8:27 a.m. EDT (1227 GMT) and was completed exactly 6.5 hours later, at 2:57 p.m. EDT (1857 GMT).

The extravehicular activity (EVA) was the 283rd in support of ISS assembly, maintenance and upgrades. It was Menon's third EVA, increasing his total spacewalking time to 19 hours and 20 minutes. It was the second time that Adenot worked in the vacuum of space, raising her time on EVA to 12 hours and 53 minutes after becoming the first woman and fifth citizen of France to perform a spacewalk.

This was the sixth outing from the International Space Station this year, the third EVA for Expedition 75 and the 98th spacewalk using U.S. extravehicular mobility unit (EMU) spacesuits at the station.

Intensely focused and tethered to a floating laboratory in the vacuum of space, two astronauts spent over 6 hours working on the International Space Station during a historic spacewalk.

What is it?

Two astronauts aboard the ISS set out on a spacewalk recently (Aug. 18). European Space Agency astronaut Sophie Adenot and NASA astronaut Anil Menon set out recently a historic spacewalk.

This was Adenot's first spacewalk and, in journeying out into the darkness of space she became the first French woman to conduct a spacewalk (or, formally, an extravehicular activity, or EVA).

In this snapshot from the space station, you can see Adenot on the left and Menon on the right, both hard at work on their mission.

On this spacewalk, which took the pair 6 hours and 23 minutes, the astronauts were tasked with removing a failed antenna from the space station. However, while it was a successful outing, the pair didn't have enough time to replace the old antenna with a new, working one.

Why is it incredible?

Getting to space is hard enough. And then once you're there, venturing out of an orbiting laboratory into the darkness of space to do a physically demanding but technically complex repair job on that laboratory is certainly no picnic.

But these two astronauts pushed through almost six-and-a-half hours of grueling space work to remove the broken antenna before running out of time. And this big step forward in this fix is critical, as these antennae help to connect the space station to Earth, which is of the utmost importance.

The antenna, a "Space-to-Ground" antenna, started malfunctioning months ago and a second antenna has temporarily taken over. But this solution was temporary and a more permanent replacement was needed as this antenna ensures that astronauts on the space station can quickly transmit critical information back down to Mission Control back on Earth.

On Aug. 22, 1963, U.S. Air Force Captain Joe Walker flew an X-15 rocket plane higher than any pilot had ever flown before.

Walker reached an altitude of over 67 miles (108 kilometers). That's about 5 miles (8 km) above the edge of space! Walker experienced about five minutes of weightlessness over the course of the 11-minute flight.

This was the second and final suborbital spaceflight of the X-15 program. Walker piloted both flights and became the first person to go to space twice. For both flights, he flew in the space plane X-15 #3, which also became the first reused spacecraft to return to space.

Photos: X-15 Rocket Plane Reaches Space in Test Flights

Why it mattered

Walker's flight was part of an X-15 program that helped aerospace engineers learn how humans and vehicles operate at hypersonic speeds and transition between the atmosphere and the vacuum of space. The rocket planes tested reaction-control systems for maneuvering where the air was too thin for normal aerodynamic controls, while gathering data on heating, stability, structural loads, human performance and piloting techniques during reentry. Those lessons contributed to NASA's Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs and, later, the development of the Space Shuttle.

Walker's Aug. 22 flight also highlighted an idea that would become increasingly important decades later: reusability. The same X-15 #3 had already carried Walker beyond the Kármán line a month earlier, making it one of the earliest demonstrations that a spacecraft could fly to space, return safely and then fly again. NASA's space shuttle became the central example of spacecraft reuse when it was introduced in the 1980s. Today, SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket is the leader in reusable space vehicles, with nearly 600 launches of boosters that have lifted off at least once before, and counting.

If you have ever shared a room with multiple people for days on end, you may know how clothes and living conditions can rapidly turn rather smelly. Imagine that happening in a confined spacecraft.

Even worse, since water on a space mission is in short supply, space travelers can't easily do their laundry. This is more than a body odor problem — unclean clothes and linens are ripe feeding grounds for infectious bacteria. Astronauts might wear the same clothes for days or even weeks, seal away used clothes in airtight bags, then return them to Earth for cleaning or cast them away to burn up in Earth's atmosphere.

This is fine for short trips near Earth, but what about a months-long odyssey to Mars? Engineers have devised a new way for astronauts to dry-clean their dirty laundry. They've crafted a prototype "laundry gun" that sterilizes fabric by shooting violet-colored plasma into it.

"This will reduce the microbial load and keep clothes and other soft surfaces clean, at least microbially, for astronaut health," says Gabe Xu, a professor at the University of Alabama in Huntsville and one of the laundry gun's creators, in a statement. "It could also be used to sterilize space suits and tools before they leave the habitat and step foot on Mars."

A plasma is an energized soup of charged particles, ions and electrons. While many plasmas like that in the sun are very hot, the laundry gun's plasma is "cold," closer to room temperature.

Its electrons are key to killing bacteria. As the laundry gun shoots plasma into fabric, the electrons collide with gas molecules in the surrounding air, such as oxygen (O2) and water vapor (H2O). These collisions create other molecules like ozone (O3), which chemists call "oxidizing species". These oxidizing species can chemically react with the membrane that surrounds a bacterium, damaging and destroying it.

In collaboration with NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, Xu and colleagues have created a prototype plasma gun, about the size of a pen, which can sanitize about a square centimeter at a time. In their tests, the prototype reduced spore colonies on a scrap of fabric by more than 75%.

Earthly disinfectants like peroxide and bleach also attack bacteria by oxidizing them in this way. The laundry gun's creators could allow astronauts to travel without such cleaning chemicals. Instead, the apparatus creates its cleaning plasma from the spacecraft’s own air and water vapor. In space travel, where every gram of mass matters, this is a major advantage.

"The use of plasma treatment could significantly reduce the mass of goods needed for a human mission, especially one to Mars where resupply is difficult," Xu wrote in the statement.

That said, the "laundry gun" is not a perfect replacement for the standard washing machine — not yet, at any rate. "This won't remove coffee or grass stains (though we haven't tried that)," Xu wrote in the statement.

Moreover, a pen-sized laundry gun is too small to be practical. Xu and colleagues are planning to build larger, but still handheld, devices. They'll also need to deal with their plasma gun's ozone, which can be harmful in large quantities — they're working on a filtration system to remove this.

Space laundry is a rather active area of research today — astronauts on the International Space Station (ISS) recently tested a space detergent, and the Chinese space program has developed a washing machine suitable for low-water use.

Two astronauts — including the first French woman in history to perform a spacewalk — worked outside of the International Space Station (ISS) on Tuesday (Aug 18), becoming temporary TV repairpersons. Just like what frequently happens on Earth, the work required more time than the "appointment" allowed, requiring a second visit to be scheduled.

NASA astronaut Anil Menon and ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Sophie Adenot were tasked with the removal and replacement of a Space-to-Ground antenna that since November had ceased being able to track NASA's data relay satellites, rendering it unusable. A second antenna has been in use since, continuing the transmission of critical data and enabling high-speed communications with Mission Control Houston.

Spacewalk planners had allocated about six and a half hours for the work to be completed. The two Expedition 75 crewmates were successful in removing the failed Space-to-Ground antenna from its mount on the station's truss but ran into delays disconnecting its electrical connections and and locking down gimbal bolts, or pins, to secure the large dish assembly during its transport to its temporary stowage location.

"We got into this with the mindset that we wanted everything to go perfectly," said Menon as the spacewalk came to an end. "Things were a lot different than expected, but what I would say that I am really impressed with is that all of those contingencies were well thought out."

As such, flight controllers had the astronauts tether the failed antenna to the truss and waived them off installing the replacement antenna, leaving it for a future extravehicular activity (EVA) still to be scheduled. Mission managers will decide whether to add that task to a spacewalk already planned for next Tuesday (Aug. 25) or to leave it for a later outing.

"We are looking at times," radioed Mission Control to the spacewalkers. "We are going to go directly to the long-duration tie-down of this SGANT on the Z-1 truss."

Menon and Adenot began the spacewalk at 8:29 a.m. EDT (1229 GMT) when they switched their spacesuits to battery power. Their EVA ended once they were back inside the U.S. Quest airlock and re-pressurization began at 2:52 p.m. EDT (1852 GMT).

Their total time logged on this spacewalk was 6 hours and 23 minutes.

Tuesday's spacewalk was the 282nd in support of ISS assembly, maintenance and upgrades. It was Menon's second EVA since making his first outing with fellow NASA astronaut Jessica Meir on Aug. 6, increasing his total spacewalking time to 12 hours and 50 minutes.

It was the first time that Sophie Adenot ventured into the vacuum of space, making her the first female and fifth citizen of France to perform a spacewalk after Jean-Loup Chrétien, Jean-Pierre Haigneré, Philippe Perrin, and Thomas Pesquet.

"What a day!" said Adenot. "My deepest gratitude to everyone who made this possible — the pioneers who came before us, but also the incredible teams working behind the scenes today."

This was the fifth spacewalk conducted out of the International Space Station this year, the second for Expedition 75 and the 97th using U.S. extravehicular mobility unit (EMU) spacesuits at the space station.

Astronauts have long struggled with constipation in space. Now, scientists may finally understand why.

A new study of 52 astronauts who lived aboard the International Space Station (ISS) suggests that microgravity may slow the movement of food through the intestines, changing how gut bacteria break down nutrients. The findings could ultimately help researchers develop dietary strategies to keep astronauts' digestive systems running smoothly during future missions to the moon and Mars — while offering new clues about digestive problems here on Earth, according to a statement from the University of Copenhagen.

Constipation is a common problem among astronauts, but exactly what happens inside the gut during spaceflight has remained less clear. To investigate, researchers from the University of Copenhagen and NASA analyzed blood samples collected from astronauts before, during and after missions aboard the space station.

"We see changes in astronauts' blood samples that indicate that the gut bacteria begin to ferment protein to a greater extent than usual within weeks after the astronauts arrive in space, and this change continues until they are back on Earth," Giorgia La Barbera, co-lead author of the study and associate professor at the Department of Nutrition, Exercise and Sports, said in the statement.

The team used a technique called metabolomics to measure small molecules circulating in the blood, providing a biochemical snapshot of how the astronauts' bodies — and the microbes living inside them — were responding to spaceflight.

In total, the researchers analyzed 488 plasma samples from 52 astronauts who spent between two and nine months aboard the orbiting lab between 2006 and 2018. They identified changes in around 40 circulating compounds during spaceflight, including several metabolites produced when bacteria in the colon ferment proteins. Those compounds increased while the astronauts were in space, suggesting food was spending more time moving through their intestines, according to the statement.

Normally, bacteria in the colon ferment fiber and carbohydrates for energy. But when digestion slows, those carbohydrates can become depleted, causing microbes to break down more proteins instead and produce different metabolites that can enter the bloodstream. The changes appeared shortly after astronauts entered space and largely subsided within days of their return to Earth, providing biochemical evidence that digestion slows in space. Differences in diet, including caffeine, fish and fat intake, accounted for less than one-third of the metabolic changes, suggesting diet alone couldn't explain the effect.

"The lack of gravity in space probably causes food to move more slowly through the intestine, and this fits with the fact that we are seeing signs of increased protein fermentation," Henrik Roager, co-author of the study and also an associate professor at the Department of Nutrition, Exercise and Sports, said in the statement. "This may also help explain constipation in astronauts."

However, while the researchers did not directly measure how quickly food moved through the astronauts' digestive systems, the metabolic changes they observed suggest that it moved more slowly through the gut.

The findings could become increasingly important as astronauts spend months — or eventually years — away from Earth. Beyond the discomfort of constipation, increased protein fermentation can produce compounds such as ammonia and hydrogen sulfide, and the researchers say some of the metabolites associated with this process have been linked to other negative health effects.

One potential countermeasure may be relatively simple: more fiber. The team suggests increasing astronauts' intake of slowly fermented carbohydrates, which could give gut microbes more carbohydrates to consume and reduce their reliance on protein fermentation.

Understanding how microgravity affects digestion and gut bacteria could help keep astronauts healthy on increasingly long missions to the moon and Mars, while also offering new clues for treating digestive problems on Earth by revealing how slower movement through the gut changes microbial activity.

Similar studies of astronaut health in microgravity have also yielded insights for people back on Earth. Bone loss is one prominent example. Astronauts lose bone density much faster in microgravity than people typically do on Earth, and efforts to prevent that loss have helped scientists better understand osteoporosis and age-related bone loss. Spaceflight research has also offered insights into muscle loss, cardiovascular health and immune-system changes associated with aging and disease.

Their findings were published June 29 in the journal Nature Communications.

On Aug. 16, 1963, NASA's M2-F1 aircraft prototype made its first glide flight.

This wingless aircraft kind of looked like a flying bathtub. NASA made it to test a new concept called the lifting body, which was an unpowered glider that provided an alternative way to return piloted spacecraft to Earth. Instead of pummeling out of the sky in a ballistic reentry, the lifting body landed sort of like an airplane.

For its first test flight, the M2-F1 was towed 5,200 feet into the air by a C-47 Skytrain and then released. Test pilot Milt Thompson was in the cockpit, and he brought the glider in for a smooth landing in California after a two-minute descent.

Why it mattered

The success of M2-F1's first glide flight proved a wingless lifting-body aircraft could be controlled and landed safely. The introduction of a second potential method of returning astronauts from space was a crucial consideration during a time when NASA was racing against the Soviet Union for access to space and, ultimately, the moon.

Though NASA opted for the familiar capsule and heat shield design used during the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs, the M2-F1 and its subsequent test flights paved the way for NASA's continued research into lifting-bodies, and led to the development of an entire family of lifting-body test vehicles like the M2-F2, M2-F3, HL-10, and the U.S. Air Force's X-24A and X-24B, which executed lifting-body flights at much higher speeds and altitudes.

Eventually, data from these programs was applied to the development of the space shuttle, and the real-life practice of landing a spacecraft back on Earth the same way you would an airplane.

Cards Against Humanity isn't done with its scorched-Earth campaign against SpaceX and Elon Musk.

The Chicago-based company behind the popular fill-in-the-blank adult card game is inviting the public to join its design committee to erect an "Elon Musk is a Sad Little B----- with No Friends" monument on a stretch of land it owns near SpaceX's Starbase manufacturing and test facility in South Texas.

Cards Against Humanity (CAH) brought a $15 million lawsuit against SpaceX in 2024 for illegally dumping construction materials and other equipment on land owned by CAH. SpaceX decided to settle with the company in 2025 and removed its "gravel, tractors, and space garbage" from the property prior to the area's annexation for the city of Starbase's incorporation, according to CAH. But the company, and its apparent distaste for "racist billionaires," as it has labeled Musk, as well as President Trump, is still pushing back.

Trump's role in the ordeal informs why CAH owns the Texas property in the first place. The company launched the "Cards Against Humanity Saves America" campaign during Trump's first term in 2017, which included an effort to throw a roadblock in the U.S. government's ability to complete construction of a U.S.-Mexico border wall.

The campaign attracted 150,000 contributors who paid $15 each, enabling CAH to purchase the land and retain the services of an eminent domain law firm "to make it as time-consuming and expensive as possible for Trump to build his wall."

SpaceX had already purchased much of the surrounding land by then and officially broke ground at what would become Starbase in 2014. Starbase is the center of development and operations for SpaceX's Starship rocket — a fully reusable launch vehicle that will clock in as the world's largest, most powerful rocket in history once it's operational.

Major construction at Starbase began in earnest in 2018, with the first Starship prototype vehicle tests beginning in 2019. When CAH filed its lawsuit against SpaceX in 2024, SpaceX had already managed to launch four full-stack Starship test flights and begun construction of a second Starbase launch pad. That's around when the facility's general expansion began to encroach on CAH's property, according to a complaint the company filed in Texas' Cameron County 404th District Court.

Starbase's location at the very southern tip of Texas provides a safe and remote area for testing giant rockets. But SpaceX's increased activity there has triggered a large influx of employees in search of housing in and around the unincorporated Boca Chica area, which had been sparsely populated. SpaceX eventually began constructing clusters of homes for its employees around its facilities, and, in an effort to obtain some control over local governance for things like zoning and permitting, workers and residents voted to incorporate Starbase as its own city in May 2025.

That CAH's plot of land was annexed as part of Starbase's official incorporation has apparently not sat well with the people behind the popular card game, and they are once again engaging the public to try to get Musk's attention. In a Threads post on Aug. 13, the company asked, "Who wants to f---- with Elon Musk?"

"Now, our parcel has been annexed into a 'town' called 'Starbase' — a corporate hellscape littered with broken rockets and ugly mansions for Musk's executives," the post says. In typically colorful CAH fashion, it adds, "But hope is not lost! We still have our rights as proud Texas landowners: We can build something on our land. Something that will annoy Elon Musk. A grand monument to make him wonder, for a brief moment, 'Wait, am I a sad little b---- with no friends?'"

The announcement calls for the formation of a design committee for the aforementioned monument, which CAH describes as "a movement of like-minded people working together … to force a moment of introspection" for Musk, available for anyone to join for $10 at "ElonHasNoFriends.com". The post also advertises that 10% of profits from sales of its new game expansion decks will go toward funding the monument as well.

CAH isn't alone in criticizing Musk and SpaceX's Starbase activities. Musk's public persona has grown exponentially with SpaceX's successes over the past decade or so and his 2022 purchase of the social media platform Twitter, which he renamed X. Musk has also drawn criticism for his comments and actions during the 2024 election, which he may have helped swing via the donation of nearly $300 million to Trump and other Republican candidates. As early as 2022, a group of anonymous SpaceX employees posted an open letter to executives on an internal company forum saying, "Elon's behavior in the public sphere is a frequent source of distraction and embarrassment."

Others, however, praise Musk for the inarguable contribution of reusable rockets that SpaceX introduced with the Falcon 9, and his aspiration to make humanity a multi-planetary species. He was also named Time Magazine's person of the year in 2021, and SpaceX has become an indispensable asset to NASA and U.S. spaceflight. The company's Crew Dragon capsule is currently the only American-launched spacecraft capable of transporting astronauts to the International Space Station, and NASA has contracted SpaceX to design a lunar lander version of Starship to deliver astronauts to the surface of the moon on Artemis IV in 2028.

SpaceX's activities at Starbase have received scrutiny as well. When the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) conducted its environmental assessment of Starbase to approve Starship launches from the site in 2021, more than 18,000 comments were submitted by members of the public, delaying the report's publication for nearly half a year as each one was reviewed. When the FAA did publish its assessment, SpaceX was cleared for Starship launches out of Starbase, pending nearly 80 actions needed to ensure its reduced environmental impact on the area, which SpaceX soon addressed.

To date, SpaceX has launched 13 Starship test flights with varying degrees of success. Some have resulted in the awesome return and catch of the rocket's Super Heavy booster using the "Mechazilla" chopstick arms on the Starbase launch tower, others featured Starship debris raining down within view of populated areas like The Bahamas, and at least a couple launches ended with a combination of both those outcomes.

The very public display of exploding rockets from SpaceX over the last several years has raised more than a few eyebrows of people wondering about the repercussions of where that potential aerospace carnage might come crashing down. But those results are also indicative of SpaceX's iterative "test like you fly" philosophy for vehicle development.

Musk sees Starship as humanity's ticket to extending our species' footprint to the moon, Mars and beyond, and is often quoted saying, about Starship and other subject matter, that "we live on the most interesting timeline." If Starship lives up to Musk and SpaceX's promises, it stands to create another monumental, industry-changing impact on spaceflight history, with the potential to launch our civilization into the cosmos. And, if it has to lift off within sight of a monument calling SpaceX's CEO "a sad little b---- with no friends," that would be pretty interesting indeed.

Prolific NASA astronaut Mike Fincke has announced his retirement from the U.S. space agency after 30 years of public service.

NASA announced Fincke's decision on Wednesday (Aug. 12), celebrating his contributions to spaceflight and long career of accomplishments.

“Few people have had the opportunity to shape as many chapters of NASA’s history as Mike Fincke,” NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said that day in a statement. Fincke departs as NASA's fourth-most flown astronaut, racking up a cumulative 549 days in space over four separate spaceflights. During those, he performed nine spacewalks and served twice as commander of the International Space Station (ISS). Most recently, he launched as pilot on SpaceX's Crew-11 mission to the ISS, stepping into the role of commander for ISS Expedition 74 from August 2025 to January 2026.

Before his acceptance into NASA's 16th astronaut class in 1996, Fincke earned two bachelor's degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), in aeronautics and astronautics as well as Earth science, atmospheric and planetary sciences. Following his time at MIT, he did a summer stint at the Moscow Aviation Institute and later earned master's degrees in aeronautics and astronautics, and in planetary geology from Stanford and the University of Houston-Clear Lake, respectively.

Fincke also served in the U.S. Air Force prior to his career at NASA. He graduated from the U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School in 1994, then was assigned as a space systems engineer and flight test engineer at Edwards and Eglin Air Force bases in California and Florida, respectively. Those stints were followed by his role as U.S. flight-test liaison for the Japanese-U.S. XF-2 fighter program in Japan.

Following his two years of astronaut-candidate training, Fincke was assigned to NASA's Astronaut Office Station Operations Branch's Crew Test Support Team in Russia. There, he served as ISS CAPCOM (Spacecraft Communicator) and ISS crew procedures team lead until he began official spaceflight training in 1999.

His first rocket launch was aboard the Soyuz TMA-4 mission to the ISS in 2004, where he served as science officer and flight engineer for Expedition 9 and completed four EVAs (extravehicular activities, or spacewalks).

Fincke's second launch brought him back to the ISS in 2008, as a member of Soyuz TMA-13. It was then that Fincke took command of the space station for the first time. As Expedition 18 commander, Fincke added two more EVAs to his career total and oversaw the preparation of ISS facilities to begin supporting an increase from three-person to six-person crews.

Fincke was also aboard for the final launch of NASA's space shuttle Endeavour on the STS-134 mission in 2011, which returned him to the ISS for a third time. As mission specialist and robotic-arm operator, he supported the installation of the space station's dark-matter-hunting Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) instrument, and performed three additional EVAs that marked the official completion of ISS orbital assembly and were the last-ever spacewalks by a space shuttle crew.

By 2014, Fincke was serving as chief of the Astronaut Office’s Commercial Crew Branch, where he played a key role in the development and testing of the SpaceX Crew Dragon and Boeing Starliner spacecraft. In January 2019, he was assigned to Boeing’s Crew Flight Test (CFT) mission as joint operations commander, and he remained on the prime crew until June 2022, when he transitioned to the CFT backup crew.

Fincke's most recent mission, Crew-11, launched to the ISS in August 2025. It was the second time he was appointed commander of the space station, this time for Expedition 74, but his stint, and that of the other Crew-11 astronauts, was cut short due to an unexpected medical issue.

Leading up to what would have been his 10th career EVA, NASA abruptly canceled spacewalk prep by Fincke and fellow NASA astronaut Zena Cardman after a "medical concern" arose that took priority over the planned station maintenance. Though not considered an emergency, the episode was deemed serious enough for NASA to return the Crew-11 astronauts to Earth earlier than expected, and Fincke and his fellow crewmates safely splashed down in the Pacific Ocean aboard their SpaceX Crew Dragon a week later.

During the mission, NASA did not reveal the afflicted astronaut's name and condition, citing privacy concerns. A little more than a month after Crew-11's return, however, NASA and Fincke revealed that he was the crew member who experienced the medical issue, which he later described as a temporary inability to speak, according to an Associated Press report. Fincke fully recovered from the episode and is now in good health.

“Mike approached every assignment with experience, humility, and an unwavering focus on the mission,” said Scott Tingle, chief of NASA's Astronaut Office, in the agency's announcement. “Whether flying aboard the station, supporting crews from the ground, or helping shape the spacecraft that future crews will rely on, he consistently strengthened our team. His legacy is woven into the way we fly today.”

NASA did not indicate if Fincke plans to continue his involvement with the space industry through the private sector, but did highlight his dedication to support humanity's drive to explore the cosmos.

"I remain deeply committed to the work of exploration," Fincke said in the statement. “NASA gave me the extraordinary privilege of serving alongside remarkable people, flying and helping develop spacecraft, and contributing to the International Space Station from its earliest days through command in orbit … I am excited to carry those lessons forward and help prepare the next generation of engineers, explorers, and leaders."

A radiation-shielding vest might one day protect astronauts from dangerous, random outbursts from the sun, a new study finds.

More than 50 years after the final Apollo mission, NASA's Artemis program aims to return humans to the moon. To succeed, this project must protect astronauts from solar radiation, especially the intense and unpredictable radiation from solar storms. Coating an entire spacecraft with a meaningfully thick layer of radiation shielding remains impractical due to weight constraints, but wrapping astronauts in protective garments may potentially be helpful.

In the new study, researchers experimented with the AstroRad vest, which was designed by the Israeli startup StemRad with support from the Israel Space Agency and aerospace giant Lockheed Martin. The garment was created to protect astronauts from explosions from the sun known as solar particle events.

"Radiation in space is unavoidable, and a single major solar particle event can make a substantial contribution to an astronaut's lifetime risk of radiation-induced cancer," study co-author Oren Milstein, CEO and co-founder of StemRad, told Space.com. "By significantly reducing that contribution, personal shielding could be particularly important for future lunar and Mars missions."

When it comes to protection against radiation, lead is excellent at blocking hazardous forms of light, such as X-rays and gamma rays. However, lead is much less effective at defending against the kinds of dangerous particles that can hurtle through space. For instance, when fast high-energy electrons known as beta particles strike dense lead atoms, they can trigger a shower of X-rays that are more harmful than the beta particles themselves. And if neutrons strike lead atoms, they can knock loose a spray of neutrons from the atoms' nuclei, worsening the impact from the radiation.

Instead, AstroRad relies on a high-density plastic rich in hydrogen. Among the elements, hydrogen possesses the highest density of electrons per atom, which can help create a dense shield to protect against incoming particles. At the same time, hydrogen atoms normally do not have neutrons, so if neutrons hit them, they cannot generate the kind of dangerous neutron sprays that can happen with lead atoms.

Moreover, the plastic in AstroRad is much lighter than lead. This makes it easier to move around in garments incorporating the plastic, and more practical for space missions in which weight is a major limitation.

The scientists combined thousands of hexagonal rods of the rigid plastic together like scales to create a flexible garment. All in all, each vest weighed about 57 pounds (26 kilograms).

The scientists developed a vest rather than a full-body suit or a helmet because "different organs and tissues have very different sensitivities to radiation, so shielding every part of the body equally is not the most effective approach," study co-author Jordan Houri, lead scientist for space exploration at StemRad, told Space.com. "At the same time, a full-body suit would be much harder to put on and move around in."

The shielding thickness of the AstroRad vest was based on how sensitive to radiation the underlying organs were. This strategy provides about a 30% greater reduction in the dose of radiation a person receives compared with distributing the same amount of shielding uniformly across the body, Houri said.

The researchers tested their vest during NASA's uncrewed Artemis I moon mission in late 2022 using a pair of extraordinarily complex dummies called phantoms. These artificial torsos were constructed of plastics that mimicked the density of human tissue, bone and organs, and each was equipped with more than 5,600 radiation sensors on and in them.

The two phantoms were designed to be adult females, since previous research found that breasts and ovaries are especially susceptible to radiation damage.

"Women are predicted to face a higher risk of radiation-induced cancer," Milstein said. "Targeted shielding could help narrow that difference in risk between male and female astronauts."

Since the phantoms mimicked women, they were given women's names, Zohar and Helga. "Helga was contributed to the experiment by the German Aerospace Center, and Helga is a traditional German name," Milstein said. "Zohar was contributed by the Israel Space Agency, which selected the name through a public outreach campaign. Zohar is a traditional Hebrew name meaning 'radiance,' which we thought was particularly fitting."

Zohar and Helga flew seated in NASA's Orion spacecraft; Zohar was equipped with an AstroRad vest, while Helga was not. Although Orion did not encounter a significant solar outburst during its 26-day mission to lunar orbit and back, the researchers were able to extrapolate how much solar radiation astronauts might experience based on what the phantoms encountered passing through the inner Van Allen belt of radiation surrounding Earth.

When the scientists analyzed past solar particle events, they found the AstroRad vest would have significantly reduced the dose of radiation a person during those outbursts — for instance, by nearly 60% for a solar particle event that happened in August 1972.

"We had originally anticipated something closer to 45%, so when we first saw the result, we thought we needed to go back and find an error," Houri said. "Instead, the detailed analysis showed that AstroRad's approach of providing targeted shielding to the most radiation-sensitive organs and tissues was even more effective than we had projected."

Such a reduction could spare astronauts the equivalent of up to 193 days of deep-space radiation exposure. "The most important implication is that AstroRad could help overcome one of the major health challenges limiting long-duration human exploration beyond Earth," Milstein said.

AstroRad is not something astronauts would wear continuously throughout an entire mission, Houri said. "AstroRad was developed as an emergency countermeasure for solar particle events, so astronauts would only wear it when radiation levels are elevated, typically for periods of hours or days," he explained.

Still, "although it is not something astronauts would need to wear throughout an entire mission, we designed the vest to remain usable for many hours at a time," Milstein said. During tests with the vests on the International Space Station, "several crew members even slept with it on."

The level of radiation protection the AstroRad vest provided was similar to that supplied by the Orion spacecraft's onboard storm shelter, "while allowing the astronaut wearing it to leave the shelter and continue mission-critical tasks," Houri said. "AstroRad can be used on its own or together with a shelter, but one of its main advantages is that an astronaut can remain protected while moving around the cabin and carrying out essential mission operations rather than remaining inside the shelter."

The scientists are now investigating whether it is possible to manufacture radiation shielding in space using onboard materials. For instance, in collaboration with Florida aerospace company Redwire, "we have already demonstrated that it is possible to 3D-print AstroRad components from recycled polyethylene aboard the International Space Station," Milstein said.

The scientists detailed their findings online today (Aug. 12) in the journal Science Advances.

Two NASA astronauts installed the seventh and final set of mounting hardware for new sets of solar arrays during a successful 6.5-hour spacewalk outside of the International Space Station.

Jessica Meir and Anil Menon on Thursday (Aug. 6), assembled the modification kit for one of the space station's eight power channels, which will allow for the future addition of a new ISS Rolll-Out Solar Array (iROSA). Since 2021, astronauts on prior spacewalks have deployed six of the iROSA assemblies, leaving now just two awaiting delivery to the station later this year.

Like building a giant erector set, Meir and Menon worked to assemble and bolt together the triangular brackets on the 3B power channel, located on the far right, or starboard (S6) segment of the station's backbone truss. Menon was positioned on an articulating portable foot restraint (APFR) atop a worksite interface (WIFEX), providing a stable angle to work from the truss.

Once the modification kit structure was built and secured to the 3B mast canister, the two spacewalkers routed cabling that will carry the electricity from the future iROSA into the 3B power channel and then covered the struts with multi-layer insulation to protect them from micrometeoroid strikes.

The iROSA wings sit forward of the legacy solar arrays, augmenting their electricity generation rather than replacing it. The station's eight original arrays began showing degraded power output as they exceeded their 15-year design life. When used in tandem with the new iROSA wings, the upgraded system will increase the station's electricity supply by 20% to 30%.

The other power channel currently without an iROSA deployed is 2A on the left, or port side, of the station.

"Anil, you can see the moon to the — well, I am not sure what way you're facing, but…," said Meir, taking a short break during the spacewalk to notice NASA's next destination for astronauts under its Artemis program.

"To my right. Yeah, I see it — thanks for the heads-up," said Menon. "I can see a future moon base there."

"I can see it, too!" Meir said.

Meir later turned her attention to Mars with her closing words of the day.

"On this day in 2012, NASA's robotic rover Curiosity successfully landed on the surface of Mars with the goal of understanding if the planet could have fostered life. Curiosity achieved that goal within a year," she said. "One day, humans will visit Curiosity, propelled by the groundbreaking science, technology demonstrations and operations conducted here on the International Space Station for almost 26 years now."

"Today, we made one more step toward expanding the ISS power system, further sustaining our human presence in low Earth orbit, as we prepare to take those next steps," said Meir.

Thursday's spacewalk began at 8:33 a.m. EDT (1233 GMT) when Meir and Menon switched their spacesuits to internal battery power. After collecting their tools and reentering the Quest airlock, the spacewalk, or extravehicular activity (EVA), concluded at 3:00 p.m. EDT (1900 GMT), 6 hours and 27 minutes after it began.

This was the 96th U.S. EVA and 281st spacewalk overall in support of the International Space Station's assembly, maintenance and enhancement. It was the first career spacewalk for Menon and the sixth for Meir, bringing her total time on EVA to 42 hours and 33 minutes.

This was the first spacewalk for the space station's Expedition 75 crew. There are two more U.S. outings scheduled for this month: EVA 97 will work to replace a space-to-ground antenna on Aug. 13, and EVA 98 will connect power channel cables and data relay systems as part of ongoing maintenance, including preparations for the station's future deorbit, as well as replace a navigational aid used for spacecraft docking on Aug. 25.

The great technological leaps in American history have often featured influential industrialists who step forward as vanguards, leading the way to a better tomorrow while emerging as major players in extreme endeavors.

Spaceflight is no exception.

A new CNN documentary titled "Eclipsing Power: Musk, Bezos, and the New Space Race" shines a light on how a pair of visionary billionaires, Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, have been shaping and steering our country's space program and the bright future of private space enterprise.

Premiering on Sunday (Aug. 9) at 8 p.m. EDT/PDT on CNN, the documentary examines the contributions of the two men and how their considerable wealth have affected America's spaceflight efforts. It also features exclusive interviews with Chief Ambassador of The Planetary Society Bill Nye, NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman, journalist and CNN contributor Kara Swisher, Elon Musk biographer Walter Isaacson and many others.

"'Eclipsing Power' traces how Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos have transformed the future of space exploration, shifting what was once an endeavor primarily led by government into a race driven by private ambition," states the show's official synopsis.

"It follows the rise of SpaceX and Blue Origin, detailing how two of the world's most influential entrepreneurs have come to play an outsized role in America's space program. The hour looks at both the opportunities and the risks of NASA's growing reliance on private industry, the race to return humans to the moon, and what this new era of commercial spaceflight could mean for the future of humanity."

"What am I most excited about in space exploration?," Nye shares in our exclusive clip. "Well, for me, discovering evidence of life elsewhere. Maybe the rocks on Mars. Maybe under the ice on Europa, the moon of Jupiter with twice as much ocean water as Earth. Maybe Enceladus or Titan. It would change the course of human history. We’ll see you up there!"

CNN’s FlashDocs division offers provocative storytelling on topical issues shaping society and culture. Former FlashDocs programs have included "Bad Bunny and the Halftime Show: Rhythms of Resistance" and "Behind the Bob: Vogue's Anna Wintour."

Executive produced by Eric Johnson alongside CNN Studios' Amy Entelis and Katie Hinman, "Eclipsing Power: Musk, Bezos, and the New Space Race" will first stream exclusively at CNN.com/Watch and on the CNN app beginning on Friday (Aug. 7) and has its broadcast debut on Sunday at 8 p.m. EDT on CNN.

A U.S.-Russian crew returned to Earth from the International Space Station early Sunday morning (July 26), after 241 days in orbit.

A Soyuz spacecraft carrying NASA astronaut Chris Williams and Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and Sergei Mikaev of the Russian space agency Roscosmos undocked from the orbiting lab on Sunday at 3:03 a.m. EDT (0703 GMT).

The Soyuz, known as MS-28, landed on the steppe of Kazakhstan 3 hours and 24 minutes later, at 6:27 a.m. EDT (1027 GMT).

The crew's departure activities began on Saturday morning with a change-of-command ceremony aboard the International Space Station (ISS). Kud‑Sverchkov handed over the reins of the orbiting lab to NASA astronaut Jessica Meir, part of the transition from ISS Expedition 74 to Expedition 75 (which officially began when Soyuz MS‑28 undocked).

The crew then gave their farewells and closed the hatches between the ISS and Soyuz MS-28 on Saturday night.

Soyuz MS-28 launched to the ISS on Nov. 27, which was Thanksgiving Day. That liftoff kicked off the first space mission for Williams and Mikaev and the second for Kud‑Sverchkov, who now has logged 426 days and 9 minutes in space.

The MS-28 trio orbited Earth 3,856 times and traveled a total of more than 102 million miles (164 million kilometers).

Now back on Earth, the three spaceflyers were first flown by helicopter to Karaganda, Kazakhstan, where recovery teams were based. Williams then will return to NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, while Kud‑Sverchkov and Mikaev head back to their training base in Star City, Russia.

LOS ANGELES — Standing in the shadow of the space shuttle Endeavour, a group of retired NASA astronauts announced their plan to travel the country visiting colleges to try to inspire younger generations to get out and vote. This campaign comes as we lead up to the November midterm election.

This past year, a group of retired NASA astronauts teamed up for a single cause: to defend the U.S. constitution. They banded together as part of a non-profit, non-partisan activist organization called Astronauts for America. So far, they have been speaking out, using their astronaut expertise, platforms, cultural relevance and role model status to speak out in support of "science, evidence-based decision-making, public service and the rule of law," their website reads. Now, as the group announced at an event at the California Science Center's new air and space center — home to the shuttle Endeavour — they're hitting the road on a campaign tour of colleges called "Vote for Freedom."

"We have to do what we can to ensure that the country makes it through the challenges that we're dealing with here, and that is the message that we're going to be taking to colleges and universities," Apollo 9 astronaut Rusty Schweickart told Space.com. "And the agency that we have, the immediate agency, is to vote."

This tour will send astronauts from the group on a four-month jaunt across the country. Astronauts from the group's more than 100 members will visit state and community colleges, county fairs and even town halls, aiming to reach first-time voters and young people who might be new to voting.

"I'm really excited to look a bunch of younger Americans in the eye and make sure that they know that someone that they can trust said: ;Listen, you matter, because our country matters, and our country needs you,'" former NASA astronaut Cady Coleman told Space.com.

"It's with a uniquely American kind of freedom that we were able to go to the moon, and that same freedom launched the spaceship behind us 25 times into space. Now we see those freedoms under heavy threat," former NASA astronaut Steve Smith said during the event. "We're seeing chaos instead of community, violence instead of votes, lies instead of laws, and fear instead of fate. That's how democracy and freedom die."

"The mission is all that matters. Now, our country is the mission, and our message is simple: going to the polls is one small step for you, and one giant leap for our country," Smith added.

This campaign leads up to the U.S. midterm elections this November. Midterm elections happen halfway through every four-year presidency. This election allows voters to decide what Congress looks like, and which political party controls Congress. This can ultimately have a major impact on what laws and decisions are passed moving forward, and whether Congress will reject or change actions by the president moving forward. And this group of astronauts is serious about the importance of getting people out to exercise their right to vote.

"I'm a child of the segregated South; I grew up in Columbia, South Carolina," former astronaut and NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden, who also serves as a steering committee member for Astronauts for America, said at the event. "I graduated in 1964. Anybody know what happened in 1964? The Voting Rights Act. So, as a person growing up in my hometown, it wasn't a guarantee that my mom and dad were going to be able to go out and vote. I look at what's going on today about people trying to restrict the ability of people to cast their ballot. That's not who we are. That's not America."

The group of astronauts recently spoke out about voting access after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of protecting the right to absentee voting, in response to attempts by the Trump administration to place restrictions on the current voting process. Especially leading up to the November midterms, each vote carries significant weight. And while this nonpartisan group isn't telling you who to vote for, they do think that everyone who can should vote.

"As astronauts, we signed an oath to our nation, and we are mission-oriented people. And our nation is now the mission," Coleman added. "We need to recognize that everyone's voice is important, and one of the voices that we don't hear very much is the young people. And we want them to understand that, even though sometimes change can seem daunting, their perspective is really important, and, you know, their voice is important."

Astronauts just flew to Earth orbit space atop a rocket emblazoned with an energy-drink ad.

The Soyuz MS-29 launch to the International Space Station on Tuesday (July 14), from the Russian-run Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, used a Soyuz rocket festooned with ads for Лимонад ("Lemonade") LIT ENERGY. The ads are visible in shots of the rocket's rollout on July 11, published here and here via NASA's Flickr account.

The Soyuz used for the launch also featured drawings from children with cancer — as well as the phrase "Life has no end" — to advertise the Unity Charitable Foundation, according to a Russian-language state media report machine-translated into English. The campaign is part of a series in support of the foundation that began in November 2025, the media report added.

To be sure, the Russian space agency Roscosmos (like other space agencies) often adorns its rockets with colorful artwork and logos that may not necessarily result in payment. In June 2018, for example, a Soyuz launched with a FIFA World Cup logo that may have been a publicity campaign to advertise the soccer competition, which was occurring that month in Russia.

While there have been some experiments by other space agencies regarding advertising — anyone remember the space cola wars? — here are a few notable examples from Russia and its predecessor state, the Soviet Union.

• A 1990 cosmonaut launch, partly for the Tokyo Broadcasting Service, carried a Japanese journalist from TBS — as well as advertisements on the side of the Soviet Soyuz rocket. Sony, Unicharm and Pocari Sweat patches were also reportedly flown on the mission.
• After the breakup of the Soviet Union, the Mir space station featured advertisements for companies like RadioShack, Pepsi and Israel's Tnuva Milk.
• A Pizza Hut ad flew on a Russian Proton rocket in 2000 for roughly $1.25 million (nearly $3 million in today's dollars). The restaurant chain then followed up in 2001 with a special space pizza delivery — but using salami, as it is more shelf-stable than pepperoni.

So Russia's practice of launching ads into space is not new. However, Ars Technica has suggested that contractions in the Russian economy led to very recent changes in the country's laws for space advertising that could lead to more examples like this.

Russia's unsanctioned invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 caused many international partnerships in space (and other projects) to fall apart, which Ars believes may have led to Russian President Vladimir Putin's authorization for recurring space ads. The new legislation was cited on Roscosmos' Telegram account in October 2025, the Ars report added.

"According to the amendments, Roscosmos has been granted the right, effective January 1, 2026, to place advertising on space objects owned by both the state corporation itself and federally," said the Roscosmos statement, according to Ars. "The amendments will create a mechanism for attracting private investment in Russian space exploration, and reduce the burden on the state budget."

Roscosmos and NASA continue to work together on the ISS despite sanctions imposed after the invasion of Ukraine, which is ongoing. And Tuesday's launch marked a milestone in that cooperation, as NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman became the first with his title to attend a Soyuz launch in eight years.

SpaceNews noted that Isaacman and Roscosmos Director General Dmitry Bakanov had the first reported face-to-face meeting between the agency heads since the last in-person NASA chief visit, for an October 2018 launch. After the meeting between Isaacman and Bakanov, Russia announced a two-year extension of its ISS commitment, to 2030, as well as an agreement in principle to continue offering NASA astronauts seats on the Soyuz in exchange for seats on commercial U.S. vehicles, among other developments.

Towering glaciers flow down the Himalayas' northern slopes like icy giants cascading onto China's Tibetan Plateau.

What is it?

Back in May, from aboard the International Space Station 259 miles (417 kilometers) above Earth, NASA astronaut Jessica Meir peered out the station's windows with her camera and captured a breathtaking sight.

In that fleeting moment from space, she captured the northern slopes of the Himalaya mountains stretching into China. And atop the mountains, slow-moving rivers of glacial ice carve their way downhill.

This view shows the enormity of this mountain range, which separates Nepal from China's Tibetan Plateau. The Himalayas have the highest mountains in the world, including Mount Everest, with over 110 mountain peaks surpassing 24,000 feet (7,300 meters) of elevation above sea level. Ranging across five countries (Nepal, India, China, Bhutan and Pakistan) the mountain range is about 1,500 miles (2,400 kilometers) wide.

Why is it incredible?

With the range being so incredibly expansive, this view from space offers a unique vantage point from which we can see a large swath of the mountains in motion. Even in a helicopter, you would get a fairly localized view of individual mountains in the Himalayas. This view provides a striking scene that you cannot see from the surface of our planet.

This view is also a reminder of how important space is in our evolving understanding of climate change. As our planet continues to change and sea levels rise with warming temperatures, we can see glacial movement from space. This is an important resource to researchers fighting to better understand climate change so we can better fight it. With access to information about glaciers and how they melt, move and flow across the world, we can be better prepared to protect our planet and its inhabitants.

As our planet revels in the recent achievements of this spring’s Artemis 2 mission and its four astronaut crew members, a new four-part PBS documentary series takes a scrutinizing look at space exploration and its inherent perils and promises. "Once Upon a Time in Space" will be available to watch on PBS (and the PBS app) starting on July 14, 2026 (9pm ET).

Directed by James Bluemel and his filmmaking team — the crew behind the award-winning "Once Upon a Time in Northern Ireland" and "Once Upon a Time in Iraq" — "Once Upon a Time in Space" explores the connections between those venturing beyond Earth's gravity and the support staff remaining behind while pioneering souls venture into hostile outer space territory.

"'Once Upon a Time in Space' tells the human stories behind one of our most extraordinary endeavors: the exploration of space," states the official synopsis. "Moving beyond scientific achievement, the series examines the personal experiences of astronauts, cosmonauts, ground-based participants, and the loved ones left on Earth. Across four episodes, it traces significant landmarks in spacefaring history, from the birth of the Shuttle and the pioneering Space Station Mir to the rise of commercial spaceflight."

"Through powerful firsthand testimony and intimate, unseen archival footage, a complex portrait of humanity emerges: one that lays bare both our fragility and boundless curiosity. Accounts of bravery, friendship, and tragedy are told against the backdrop of a rapidly changing world, connecting technical and geopolitical developments to those who experienced them."

Here’s a schedule of the docuseries’ chapters and their slated air dates:

• Episode 1 "America First" – Tuesday, July 14 – 9:00 p.m. ET
• Episode 2 "The Russian Thing" – Tuesday, July 21
• Episode 3 "Politics Always Wins" – Tuesday, July 28
• Episode 4 "Friends Forever" – Tuesday, August 4

This remarkable show features NASA astronauts Charlie Bolden, Anna Lee Fisher, Bill Fisher, Michael Foale, Jerry Linenger, Mike Mullane, Dan Tani, and Terry Virts. They’re joined by cosmonauts Sergei Zalyotin and Alexander ‘Sasha’ Lazutkin, NASA officials, aerospace engineers, and numerous family members.

Produced in collaboration with the BBC, "Once Upon a Time in Space" was first broadcast last fall in the UK, but now makes its U.S. premiere at 9:00 p.m. ET on PBS, PBS.org and the PBS app.

The International Space Station has three new residents.

NASA's Anil Menon and cosmonauts Pyotr Dubrov and Anna Kikina lifted off atop a Russian Soyuz rocket from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 10:47 a.m. EDT (1447 GMT; 7:47 p.m. local time in Baikonur), heading toward the orbiting lab.

Their Soyuz executed nominal side booster separation about two minutes after launch, followed by second stage separation about 2.5 minutes later, as the rocket flew at 105 miles (169 kilometers) in altitude. Third stage orbital insertion and separation was completed at about 8 minutes and 46 seconds, putting Russia's Soyuz MS-29 spacecraft and crew on course to chase down the International Space Station (ISS).

The trio caught up to the ISS after just two orbits, docking with the outpost at 1:52 p.m. EDT (1752 GMT). The two spacecraft were flying 260 miles (418 kilometers) above the Mediterranean Sea at the time, NASA officials said during the agency's docking webcast.

That webcast will resume at 3:30 p.m. EDT (1930 GMT) ahead of the opening of the hatches between the Soyuz and the ISS, which is expected around 3:55 p.m. EDT (1955 GMT).

The MS-29 trio will join the seven astronauts already living aboard the ISS — NASA's Jessica Meir, Jack Hathaway, and Chris Williams, the European Space Agency's Sophie Adenot, and Sergey Kud-Sverchkov, Sergei Mikaev, and Andrey Fedyaev of the Russian space agency Roscosmos.

This is the first spaceflight for Menon, who was selected as a NASA astronaut candidate in December 2021, in the agency's Group 23. He's married to Anna Menon, who was picked in the next astronaut candidate class, Group 24, in September 2025.

Anna Menon has already been to space, though not with NASA. In September 2024, while an employee of SpaceX, she flew on the company's Polaris Dawn mission to Earth orbit. That five-day flight, which was funded and commanded by current NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman, featured the first-ever commercial spacewalk and reached a maximum altitude of 870 miles (1,400.7 kilometers) — higher than any previous crewed Earth-orbiting mission had gotten.

Anil Menon is a former SpaceX-er as well; he was the company's first-ever flight surgeon.

MS-29's flight is the second-ever space mission for both Dubrov and Kikina. Dubrov lived aboard the ISS from April 2021 to March 2022, and Kikina spent five months on the outpost, from October 2022 to March 2023.

Kikina, the only female member of Russia's active astronaut corps, flew to and from the ISS back then on SpaceX's Crew-5 mission. That was a big deal: She was the first Russian ever to fly on a private U.S. spacecraft, and the first cosmonaut to fly on any American space vehicle since December 2002, when cosmonauts Valery Korzun and Sergey Treshchov came back to Earth from the ISS aboard the space shuttle Endeavour.

The MS-29 trio will spend about eight months living and working on the orbiting lab. Menon will help conduct a wide variety of scientific experiments during that stretch.

"He will continue research to refine in-space production of semiconductor crystals to enable the large-scale manufacturing of components needed for high-performance computers, artificial intelligence, and improved medical devices," NASA officials wrote in a July 9 media advisory.

"Menon also will perform ultrasound using augmented reality and artificial intelligence methods that could eliminate the need for medical support from Earth on future space missions," they added.

Editor's note: This story was updated at 1:55 p.m. ET with news of successful docking.

A new ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court protecting voter rights could extend to astronauts living and working in space and training internationally, their families, and the multitude of NASA workers who travel to support their missions.

On Monday (June 29), the Supreme Court ruled that mail-in ballots can be counted toward a total vote even if they arrive after election day, as long as they are postmarked by election day. The ruling followed efforts by the Trump Administration to place restrictions on mail-in voting. In a new statement, the nonpartisan activist organization Astronauts for America spoke out in support of the Supreme Court's decision, which supports absentee voting.

"We don't want to see barriers put in place [that] make it more challenging for somebody to exercise their constitutional right of voting," retired NASA astronaut Wendy Lawrence told Space.com. Lawrence is a member of Astronauts for America, as well as a veteran of the U.S. Navy, where she served as a captain, engineer and helicopter pilot.

What happened?

An executive order issued by President Trump in March 2026 attempted to place a number of restrictions on voting in the country, including limitations on mail-in or absentee voting. The order directed the United States Postal Service to only transmit ballots for states that compile and submit lists of eligible mail-in voters 60 days before elections, added requirements and complications to mail-in ballots and attempted to limit who receives a ballot in the mail.

This order not only added layers to limit voting access, but it conflicted with existing procedures set by states for absentee voting. Additionally, the U.S. Constitution places the authority to change election rules and processes with Congress, not the president, though this was not the first executive order put out by Trump to attempt to change election rules, CNN has reported.

In a 5-4 ruling, the Supreme Court blocked the U.S. Postal Service from carrying out this executive order, declaring that mail-in ballots may be counted if they arrive up to five days after election day, as long as they are postmarked by election day.

"This is key to making sure we have free and fair elections, that people have the ability to cast their vote, and it's not an overwhelming burden for them to do that again," said Lawrence.

Astronauts vote (and so do the people around them)

In a statement shared on social media, Astronauts for America commented on the recent ruling.

"We at Astronauts for America are pleased to see the justices take this critical step toward safeguarding free and fair elections, and ensuring that every eligible voter has their ballot counted," the statement reads. "As astronauts, some of us cast our votes from space. As military veterans, many of us relied on voting by mail. Upholding this grace period ensures that astronauts and other Americans are able to exercise their civil rights."

"Voting is the cornerstone of our American democracy, and this is an important step forward in our battle to ensure everyone has the right to vote," the statement continued. "While the Supreme Court ruling should be celebrated, we must continue standing up for our democracy and constitutional principles."

Astronauts have used absentee voting systems for decades, and they do so regularly: Astronauts have been living in orbit on board the International Space Station continuously since November 2000. When astronauts are going to be in space during an election, NASA has a digital system that allows them to submit absentee votes. But as the statement above suggests, astronauts don't just need absentee voting during their space missions.

Astronaut training can take place all around the world, especially if there is a mission with international collaboration. Lawrence shared that, during her tenure with NASA's space shuttle program, there was a 16-month period when she had to live and train full-time in Russia. And, astronauts don't prepare for space in a vacuum. Family members like spouses might travel with them for long-term training, and there are a wide variety of mission managers and support staff for crewed missions (and their families) who might have to be on long-term travel as well.

Additionally, many astronauts like Lawrence are also military veterans who, during their service, are only able to vote through absentee voting, sometimes for years on end. While this ruling extends far past astronauts, even within the space sector, absentee voting has protected the constitutional rights of many.

Wally Funk, who flew to space at 82 after a lifetime of flying and fighting for women in aviation and aerospace, has passed away at age 87.

Born in Texas in 1939, Funk was determined to take to the skies, flying as a teenager and becoming a professional aviator at the tender age of 20. Her dreams extended even beyond Earth, and in 1961 she joined the "Mercury 13" group of women who completed the testing given to NASA's male astronauts. But Funk was the only Mercury 13 alum to ever reach space. After a lifetime of flying, in July 2021, the then 82-year-old Funk launched to suborbital space aboard a Blue Origin New Shepard vehicle, a trip that she described as "incredible."

"We are deeply saddened by the passing of Wally Funk," Blue Origin shared in a statement on X on Thursday (July 9). "Wally was a pioneer in every sense of the word … On NS-16, sixty years later, Wally made history as the oldest astronaut at the time and remains the oldest woman to ever fly to space. It was a moment six decades in the making. We were humbled to be part of her journey. Her story will continue to inspire generations of future explorers. Fly Wally, Fly."

Making space history

Funk's spaceflight was historic in every sense of the word. "I've been waiting a long time to finally get up there," she said during a livestreamed postflight briefing at the time. "I've done a lot of astronaut training through the world — Russia, America … I could always beat the guys on what they were doing, because I was always stronger. I've always done everything on my own."

At the time of her spaceflight, Funk was the oldest person to ever go to space. But she was also the only member of the Mercury 13 to ever make it there. Funk joined the group, officially called the "Women in Space" program, as its youngest member at only 21 years old. Led by physician William Lovelace, the program put a group of young women through the same rigorous physical and mental testing as NASA's male astronauts to see how they would fare. And, across the board, the group either kept pace with or even excelled by comparison.

While the program didn't have official government sponsorship, there was hope that success could pave the way for women to be allowed into the human spaceflight program. (NASA astronauts were all male at the time; the agency didn't select a female astronaut candidate until 1978.) And in a way, it did, though it took far longer than the group likely expected.

Despite the group not leading to spaceflight access for women at the time, the participants proved their capability beyond doubt. In one particular test, participants were submerged in a sensory deprivation tank, a test meant to measure a participant's mental fortitude. While famed NASA astronaut John Glenn — who became the first American to orbit Earth — lasted three hours in the tank, Funk stayed in for a whopping 10 hours and 35 minutes.

'Married to airplanes'

Though Funk was quite young when she joined the Mercury 13, she'd already racked up years of aviation experience and an impressive array of accomplishments. In fact, Funk, who never married, famously said that she was "married to airplanes."

From her teenage experience with the "Flying Susies," Funk found her way to the skies as early as possible. And following her participation in the Mercury 13 program, Funk became the first female civilian flight instructor at a U.S. military base. Her aviation career was storied; she served as the National Transportation Safety Board's first female Air Safety Investigator, competed in air races and was even chief pilot for multiple aviation schools across the country, sharing her knowledge and expertise with countless aviation hopefuls.

But while she continued to make history and pursue her passions in aviation, her love for space never dwindled. When NASA finally began accepting women into the astronaut corps in the late 1970s, Funk was quick to apply. She applied three separate times but was denied on each occasion. Despite these setbacks, she remained close to the space world, even attending a launch with fellow former Mercury 13 members in 1995 to see NASA astronaut Eileen Collins lift off as the first woman to pilot a space shuttle.

A dream, realized

With her spaceflight dream still aflame, Funk was once again quick to act when Blue Origin got New Shepard fully up on running. And on July 20, 2021, Funk finally realized this lifelong goal, on the first-ever crewed flight of the suborbital spacecraft. (Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos was on that flight as well, along with his brother Mark, Funk and Dutch student Oliver Daemen.)

In thinking of her many aviation students, she said at the time, "I don't know if they're going to get to see this or not … but I felt so charged. I was just a normal person going up into space."

Funk will be remembered for her passion, her dedication and her many accomplishments across aviation and aerospace, which will continue to inspire aviators for generations to come.

Mid-spacewalk, one NASA astronaut had to take a moment to show off his muscles.

What is it?

NASA astronaut Chris Williams recently left the confines of the International Space Station for a 7-hour-and-20-minute spacewalk with fellow astronaut Jessica Meir. This was Williams' second spacewalk and Meir's fifth.

In a moment of fun, Williams flexed his muscles for a photo snapped by Meir during the strenuous spacewalk. With a big grin on his face, visible even through his spacesuit helmet, Williams raised his arms in a classic Muscle Beach pose as planet Earth glowed hundreds of miles beneath him.

But the pair of astronauts weren't playing around in space; this spacewalk had a serious purpose. On June 30, Williams and Meir ventured into the void to replace a wrist joint on the space station's Canadarm2 robotic arm that had been malfunctioning.

Canadarm2 has been operating for over 25 years, so it makes sense that every once in a while it needs a repair or upgrade. After making this swap, the old wrist joint will be sent back to Earth to be fixed in case it needs to be used as backup in the future.

Why is it incredible?

Williams' demeanor in this photo makes it seem like spacewalks are fun, or even easy. But his smile and playful pose for the camera are a major contrast to the incredible strength, stamina and careful work that it takes to complete a spacewalk.

From preparation to suiting up, and doing incredibly precise work with a spacesuit on while floating in the vacuum of space while tethered to the space station, spacewalks are incredibly hard work. Williams may have been having a fun moment with Meir showing off in this photo, but the pair of astronauts were certainly using their muscles to get a tough job done.

As we reflect on this past July 4 weekend, and America's 250th birthday, we look to NASA's Artemis II astronauts, who recently reflected on their historic mission during a visit to Capitol Hill.

What is it?

Following their return to Earth from a 10-day journey around the moon in April, NASA's Artemis II astronauts headed to Capitol Hill.

This photograph, captured on May 12, shows the crew — from left to right, NASA astronauts Christina Koch (mission specialist), Victor Glover (mission pilot), Reid Wiseman (mission commander) and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen (mission specialist) — showing off a photo from their mission to congressional staff at the Cannon House Office Building in Washington, D.C. In the photo, the four astronauts are wearing what look like eclipse glasses in the Orion capsule that they rode to space and back.

The presentation was part of a larger visit by the astronauts, who went to Capitol Hill to speak with U.S. politicians and staff about their mission.

Why is it incredible?

NASA's Artemis II mission had a profound impact on the public. The first crewed mission of NASA's Artemis program, and the first mission to the moon since the Apollo program ended over 50 years ago, Artemis II was a big step forward in human spaceflight.

But its success went well beyond the mission itself. The public really connected with the astronauts, and this mission seemed to ignite a fresh, new excitement about space overall.

In going to Capitol Hill and speaking with policymakers, the astronauts were able to share some of the experiences that the public connected to so deeply. For federal funding and support of science and spaceflight activities to continue, it's important for policymakers to understand what happens in space, and on these missions, and the many benefits that can come from even a single flight.

Did a flying saucer just land at NASA? It sure looks like it.

This is actually the weather cover for the core stage of NASA's Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, which is currently gearing up to launch the Artemis 3 mission in mid-2027.

What is it?

Aboard NASA's Pegasus barge, floating out in the Atlantic ocean, sits what looks like a classic, sci-fi movie UFO flying saucer. With some flashing lights, this thing flying around in the sky would cause quite a commotion. But it's actually a critical piece of hardware for NASA's Artemis program returning humans to the moon.

The Pegasus barge is a large cargo ship — it's a whopping 310 feet (94.4 meters) long — designed to carry the massive core stage of NASA's SLS megarocket. As the agency marches forward with its plans for Artemis 3, a crewed flight to low Earth orbit that will serve as a key test ahead of future missions to the moon, the SLS prepares for launch.

Once stacked on the launch pad at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, this flying saucer will actually serve as a weather cover, protecting the rocket's core stage and its thermal systems from the often turbulent and unpredictable weather on the Space Coast.

Why is it incredible?

It is always fun when science fiction and science fact meet. The design of this weather cover could not be closer to the flying saucer designs that have flown across screens in sci-fi flicks for the 1950s and '60s to today. It's interesting to wonder whether these familiar images of flying saucers somehow inspired this functional design.

But however inspiration struck, this weather cover will serve an incredible purpose. It will shield the rocket's core stage, the tallest rocket stage NASA has ever built, which holds hundreds of thousands of gallons of propellant and supports the weight of the rocket's upper stage, payload, and the Orion crew capsule. The safety of the Artemis astronauts and the success of these missions depend on the rocket launching perfectly, and every single piece, including this weather cover, are part of ensuring that success.

It's unclear when Boeing will be able to send more astronauts to the International Space Station, a new NASA audit warns.

Technical issues with Boeing Starliner's spacecraft, across two uncrewed flights and a two-astronaut test mission known as Crew Flight Test (CFT), come under scrutiny in a new report about NASA's Commercial Crew Program from the agency's Office of the Inspector General (OIG).

"Many of these [Starliner] issues are related to three longstanding technical challenges that have prevented Boeing from obtaining the human-rating certification — helium leaks, propulsion systems failures and parachute anomalies," states the OIG report, which was released today (June 30).

"The helium leaks and propulsion systems failures remain unresolved as of March 2026, and NASA is uncertain as to when this testing will be completed or human-rating certification for the Starliner will be obtained," the report adds.

The NASA OIG performed the audit to evaluate the performance of both companies that NASA contracted to fly astronauts to and from the International Space Station (ISS). The auditor found that NASA will need to purchase more flights from those vendors, SpaceX and Boeing, "to continue to fully crew the ISS through 2030," and offered feedback on how the two companies have been doing so far.

SpaceX has been flying astronauts successfully since 2020 and is readying to send its 13th operational crewed mission (known as Crew-13) to the orbiting complex in September. Boeing, however, has just one astronaut flight under its belt — CFT, which launched in June 2024 and encountered multiple problems, resulting in NASA having to bring the two astronauts back home on a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule instead of Starliner.

Starliner has therefore not been certified to fly astronauts yet. The company has decided that the capsule's next mission will be uncrewed, and there is not yet a launch date for it.

NASA ultimately reclassified Starliner's first crewed flight as a Type A mishap, the most serious type in human spaceflight, in February 2026. The fact that it took 21 months for the agency to do so is concerning, according to both the OIG and the Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel for NASA.

OIG said "ambiguity" in NASA requirements for a Type A mishap led to this gap, which also induced "delays, increased costs and potential performance and safety issues on future flights," according to the new report.

The authors added that underperformance on CFT can be traced to NASA's overconfidence in the spacecraft design, "unrealistic launch and flight test schedules" made by Boeing and accepted by NASA, and "pressure to adhere to this aggressive schedule." And these issues were compounded by NASA not exercising "data rights," which would have let the agency look at "flight-simulation-training failures" that likely would have helped with crew safety ahead of launch.

"Going forward, NASA's ongoing workforce constraints may further hinder oversight, resolution of technical issues, and flight certification schedules," the OIG report states, alluding to effects that the auditor foresees from budget-related workforce cutbacks at NASA.

The bulk of the report discusses Starliner, but SpaceX also had "a variety of its own technical challenges" in the earlier days of the Dragon program, OIG noted. That said, SpaceX has helped NASA deal with Boeing's delays, while collecting "$17 million in additional costs to accelerate spaceflights originally planned for the Starliner," the OIG noted.

NASA concurred with all of OIG's recommendations to the agency going forward, which are:

• Delay payments to Boeing until Starliner's human-rating certification completes;
• Create a schedule with Boeing for the next Starliner flights;
• Document and resolve all of the CFT issues in "NASA's mishap information system" and update the schedule for Starliner with these issues in mind;
• Make private company flight-simulation testing on hardware and software changes accessible to NASA;
• Make NASA's mishap-classification requirements more clear;
• Prioritize NASA hiring efforts to focus on "critical skillsets" related to commercial crew and to the expected decommissioning of the ISS.

BOULDER, Colorado — After Earth's moon and Mars, where could humans plant their footprints?

The "Humans to Titan Summit 2026" was held here on June 11 and June 12 to explore the concept of Titan, the largest moon of Saturn, as the next human exploration destination, post-Mars.

Researchers looked into how demanding such a trek could be and what would be required to make it, along with next steps to further that ambitious goal.

Normalizing the idea

As a first-of-its-kind gathering of experts, the Humans to Titan Summit 2026 was invigorating, taking seriously the prospect of one day sending humans to Titan, said Amanda Hendrix, director of the Planetary Science Institute, which is headquartered in Tucson, Arizona.

Hendrix is also president of the advocacy group Explore Titan and co-author of "Beyond Earth: Our Path to a New Home in the Planets" (Pantheon Books, 2016).

"Everyone recognizes that the reality of this is a long way off," Hendrix told Space.com, "but normalizing the idea   — that Titan is actually a very reasonable destination for humans  — is important."

Taking this goal seriously means that "we can have a next destination in our minds, after Mars," she added. "That keeps the momentum going."

Dense atmosphere

The assembly of experts explored an array of Titan topics, from spacesuits and modes of transportation, habitat designs and airlock concepts to light levels and possible encounters with monsoons and floods on the frigid, exotic moon, which has a weather system based on hydrocarbons rather than water.

Additionally, making use of Titan as a hub for launching sample-return missions to other moons within the Saturn system, like Enceladus, was viewed as a big plus.

So too was utilizing the moon's rich bounty of resources — like methane, nitrogen and oxygen — to fuel expansive, far-deeper exploration beyond Titan itself.

"We've got a lot of planning to do," said Hendrix, "but we have time!"

A top priority is figuring out how to either shorten the trip time to Titan or accommodate it and mitigate the negative effects on astronauts, Hendrix said.

"The top reason in my mind that Titan is such a good spot for humans is the dense atmosphere," Hendrix said. That nitrogen-dominated atmosphere provides natural shielding from harmful radiation of many types.

Precursor missions

Appreciation of what human visitors will face on the moon was boosted by the European Space Agency's robotic Huygens probe, which touched down on Titan on Jan. 14, 2005 as part of the NASA-ESA Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn.

Next up for setting down on Titan is NASA's nuclear-powered Dragonfly, now projected to launch no earlier than 2028 for a six-year voyage to the faraway moon.

During its over three-year surface mission, Dragonfly's rotors will carry it for miles across Titan's surface, auto-piloting its way to a variety of areas. The vehicle is designed to snag samples of surface material for analysis inside the rotorcraft by scientific instruments.

Extraordinarily ambitious

Taking part in the two-day gathering was Scot Rafkin, director of the Department of Space Studies at the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) and a planetary and atmospheric scientist. The summit was held at SwRI's Solar System Science & Exploration Division facilities.

"Everyone recognized that sending humans to Titan is extraordinarily ambitious. But history shows that the greatest achievements in exploration begin when people are willing to pursue goals that seem beyond reach," said Rafkin. Sharing with Space.com his own personal thoughts, he said the summit marked "the beginning of a long-term effort to imagine and ultimately achieve something transformative."

Titan is one of the most compelling worlds in the solar system, Rafkin said; it's a place with rivers, lakes, weather, dunes and complex chemistry unlike anywhere else we know of. Pursuing human exploration of Titan, he said, creates a long-term framework and provides a scientific purpose that transcends the moon and Mars.

'Not a question of physics'

Rafkin said that targeting Titan will also accelerate technologies needed not only for exploring that moon but for voyaging throughout the solar system.

"Human exploration of Titan is not a question of physics," said Rafkin. "It is a question of time, technology, and commitment. We understand most of the major challenges. We know many of the critical science and engineering gaps that remain."

Every advance in propulsion, power systems, manufacturing, robotics, computing, life support and communications, Rafkin said, brings Titan closer while simultaneously enabling exploration throughout the solar system.

Not every solution exists today, Rafkin continued, but the path forward is increasingly clear.

Starting a movement

"Some steps can be taken now, such as sending an orbiter to better characterize the Titan system," said Rafkin. "Other capabilities will require decades or even generations of development. The challenge is immense, but it is achievable."

Rafkin said that the summit was not about planning a mission.

"It was about starting a movement. If space exploration has taught us anything, it is that ambitious goals accelerate innovation in ways we cannot fully predict. The destination is Titan, but the investment is in ourselves," Rafkin concluded.

A second Humans to Titan Summit, said Hendrix, is slated around the launch date in 2028 of the NASA Dragonfly mission.

LOS ANGELES — The space shuttle Endeavour is absolutely breathtaking in its 20-story new home at the California Science Center's brand-new Air & Space Center, which is set to open on Nov. 13, the museum announced on Wednesday (June 24).

After over three decades of ideation, development and construction, the California Science Center has officially announced an opening date for its brand-new Samuel Oschin Air & Space Center, which will feature the space shuttle Endeavour. On Wednesday, I got to peek behind the curtain to see Endeavour's new home inside the center, where it stands in a "ready to launch" position, towering at nearly 200 feet (61 meters) tall — a truly spectacular focal point. The shuttle is even complete with real solid rocket boosters and the last flight-qualified external fuel tank (ET-94).

"It's been a lot of years to get here, and it's a dream come true," Lynda Oschin, the chairman of the board and secretary of the Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Oschin Family Foundation, told Space.com about this massive exhibition finally coming together.

"They're going to be in tears, they're going to be shaking, and they're going to be proud," Oschin added, referring to how she expects guests to react to Endeavour in its new home. And having just seen it for the first time in all its glory, standing upright with its fuel tank and rocket boosters seemingly ready to launch, I can attest: She is absolutely right.

Before you even step foot into the shuttle room, there is a short video that is played that takes you through the history of the shuttle program while bringing to life the fiery excitement of a shuttle launch. In a dramatic cloud of smoke, the shuttle room is revealed and there isn't a single person who isn't in absolute awe. Endeavour is hypnotizing. With the boosters and fuel tank, its already massive stature becomes almost larger than life.

A walkway takes you all the way around the shuttle, which is open on one side so you can clearly peer into its many layers, seeing wires and other details. You can also walk down to a lower floor, where you can stand underneath the shuttle and inspect it from every angle you might want. And surrounding the shuttle itself are a variety of interactive exhibits like a shuttle landing simulator (good luck), the tires from Endeavour's final landing, and more.

"I'm a child of the Apollo era, and I remember having a plastic Apollo Saturn V rocket that I carried with me everywhere, and that was after going to Johnson Space Center, visiting the space center there," retired NASA astronaut John "Danny" Olivas told Space.com. "inspiration happens through exposure, and there's nothing, I think, more impressive than standing next to the space shuttle stacked the way that they've done here at the California Science Center."

And Endeavour is special in this respect: No other museum has a space shuttle orbiter that's mounted vertically, in the launch position.

One aspect of the California Science Center that stands out is its accessibility, as the museum (including the brand-new air and space center) is entirely free to the public — and it's on the metro line, which kids in L.A. can ride for free. Many museums and similar institutions strive for and value accessibility, and this center really takes that to heart, keeping even new installations like the shuttle free to visit. "California Science Center has opened up accessibility for inspiration to the next generation of space explorers," Olivas said.

And while NASA moves forward with its Artemis moon program, Olivas, who flew on two shuttle missions (STS-128 and STS 117), is confident that the lessons and history of the space shuttle program will carry on in inspiring that next generation.

"One of the things that really touches my heart about the space shuttle program is that it ushered in an age of diversity in space exploration that we had not seen prior," Olivas said. "We got an opportunity to see so many firsts — so many firsts of Americans being able to see themselves in the astronauts that flew in space, and that opened the door to so many people like myself, recognizing that wow, yeah, I can become an astronaut."

The new Air & Space Center was first imagined as part of a museum expansion plan all the way back in 1993. Over 30 years later, the futuristic building stands a whopping 20 stories tall to accommodate the towering Endeavour, which immediately grabs the focus of anyone walking into the building.

After NASA's space shuttle program ended in 2011, the agency worked to turn itsretired shuttles into museum attractions. Endeavour first arrived at the California Science Center in October of 2012. Thousands watched as the spacecraft rolled through the streets of Los Angeles on the back of a slow-crawling transporter, a 12-mile (19 kilometers) trek from Los Angeles International Airport to the California Science Center that took the craft 68 hours.

Four years later, in 2016, ET-94, the shuttle's external fuel tank, arrived. And seven years after that, in 2023, two solid rocket boosters arrived and the shuttle was taken off display, where it had sat for over a decade, as preparations began for its new home in the Air & Space Center.

"Now, with the stunning display of Endeavour in launch configuration, the Samuel Oschin Air & Space Center will give us a clear, greater platform than ever before to accomplish our mission to stimulate curiosity and inspire science learning in everyone," said Jeffrey Rudolph, president and CEO of the California Science Center. This "will be the only place in the world to see a complete space shuttle system, with the flown orbiter Endeavour mated to real solid rocket boosters and the only remaining flight-qualified external tank, ET-94."

While Endeavour is the clear centerpiece of the building, the Samuel Oschin Air & Space Center will be chock-full of a wide variety of other space artifacts. The building is split into three sections that guests will be able to explore: air, space and shuttle. Relics from throughout spaceflight history, interactive exhibits, and immersive, educational experiences fill the space. Currently, 1.6 million people visit the California Science Center each year, so even if this number were to remain the same, this building has to be ready for a big and diverse crowd from around the world.

One new mission is setting out to study menstruation in microgravity for the first time ever.

Forty-six years ago, NASA engineers asked Sally Ride if 100 tampons was the right amount to send with her for a six-day spaceflight. Though people laugh at that fact today, there has still never been any scientific study dedicated to studying menstruation in space. But a non-profit called Operation Period aims to change that. Led by Gen-Z researchers, this non-profit works to provide what its founder Manju Bangalore calls "menstrual freedom," which she says would mean everyone can have easy access to menstrual products. Meanwhile, the organization also aims to tackle the wider issues that leave people without such access in the first place. With its upcoming suborbital mission Operation Period-01 (OP-01), this ambitious team is taking their cause into microgravity. On OP-01, the mission's founder will launch to space to conduct the research themselves on a Virgin Galactic suborbital flight in 2027.

In conducting their work here on Earth, Operation Period found that "there were still some of those same gaps in spaceflight medicine," Manju Bangalore, the founder and executive director of Operation Period and research astronaut in training for OP-01, told Space.com. " I want all menstruators to be able to live life with their full dignity and reach their fullest potential, and that includes astronauts."

With a background in physics and astronomical engineering as well as with training in bioastronautics and having spent time working at NASA, Bangalore brings her love of space to this cause. She and Priya Abiram, the Director of Research at Operation Period's Redshift Lab, feel so strongly about their message, even 9 years since the pair founded their non-profit; in fact, with this mission, the two will become some of the youngest South Asian women to travel to space.

"On a personal level, I've always been fascinated by space and human space exploration. It's what's always excited me as a child, and I've kept that curiosity going," Bangalore said. "I didn't think those two missions would ever combine into this. It wasn't something I ever planned, but I'm very grateful to lead this historic mission to advance menstrual health in this way."

And just as this team is excited to bring their research into a suborbital environment, Virgin Galactic is excited to be expanding the range of microgravity science the non-profit supports. "This mission with Operation Period is a powerful example of how Virgin Galactic can continue to support real-time, in-flight scientific investigation into long-overlooked areas of human health, helping advance more inclusive and innovative exploration that delivers insight for both space and life on Earth," Virgin Galactic director of system analysis & research Amber Favaregh said in an emailed statement.

Recently, Operation Period expanded to include a research wing, and this mission will be conducted under that umbrella. The team was not yet able to share specific details on the exact protocol that will be conducted during the mission, information they said will be shared at a date closer to launch, but they did share the current issues that this research aims to begin to address.

Currently, astronauts typically choose to fully suppress their periods during their spaceflights, through hormonal IUDs or oral contraceptive pills. While that is a choice astronauts might continue to make in the future, without data to show the reality of dealing with a period in space, astronauts are left with fewer choices with their own bodies. Comprehensive data on menstruation in space will also be important if astronauts are to complete longer spaceflights or even extended stays on the moon. While the mission has not yet revealed its priorities and exactly what data it will collect, with such limited data on menstruation in space, there is a lot of knowledge to be gained.

While "the data that we have, although limited, says that it is generally safe to menstruate, in terms of long duration missions, we don't have quantitative data," Bangalore said. "We don't have enough data to continue to assist with patient resource allocation for mission planners."

Historic missteps like the "100 questions" moment with Sally Ride highlight an issue that could have big effects on future, longer-term missions. Sure, having a ridiculous number of backup products would ensure that there is no need unaddressed, mass considerations for spaceflight are extremely serious and future missions will need to have better data to know what will be needed in a microgravity environment.

And just like with other science in space, the research conducted in microgravity will also be used on Earth. The pair aim to collect menstruation data that will benefit astronauts as well as people back on our home planet. .

"I think on Earth, there's a lot of gaps right now in menstrual health research," Bangalore said. As just one example, she cited recent findings that menstrual product companies were reporting incorrect absorbency of their products because they were testing products with saline, which is very different from menstrual blood. "This was potentially leading to doctors to underdiagnosed heavy menstrual bleeding, which right now the stats say affects 20% of American menstruators," Bangalore said.

With this being the first mission of its kind, OP-01 will not answer every question that remains about menstruation and space, but it will bring data to a conversation decades in the making. "Our hope is to continue to iterate this research so that we can do future suborbital flights, as well as orbital flights, to continue to create larger data sets," Bangalore said. "I think the point of preliminary studies is to be able to know what questions to ask in the future, so we don't expect that this suborbital flight will solve everything or create all the data that we need, right, but we hope that this will be a good stepping stone."

Momentum for this research was actually sparked by many millions of views on a viral social media video in which Bangalore conducted an early version of a menstrual fluid dynamic experiment in a low-gravity environment aboard a parabolic flight.

This viral moment "ended up being a really cool kind of 'in' to continue talking about destigmatizing periods," she said. "Through that, I got to talk more about the gaps in spaceflight medicine, in terms of menstrual health."

The titular cosmonaut training facility in Apple TV's "Star City" is a hive of duplicity, all scrutinized by the KGB's surveillance team and its small army of monitoring minions.

One of the main couples in Apple TV's Soviet-centered spinoff of their flagship alt-history series, "For All Mankind," is portrayed by Ruby Ashbourne Serkis and Adam Nagaitis, who are perfectly cast as Tanya and Valya Mironov. Valya is one of the Soviet Union's primary cosmonauts whose Luna 16 command mission in Sept. of 1969 lands the first woman on the lunar surface, Anastasia Belikova (Alice Englert).

But the Mironovs have more than a few secrets of their own as they struggle to stay out of the way of Star City’s prying eyes and ears, monitoring every word and whisper. We connected with Serkis and Nagaitis to hear much more about the core of their connected characters, embracing the essence of late ‘60s and early ‘70s Soviet culture, and playing a married pair under the pressures of the communist regime.

"What I like most about Valya, without any spoilers, is that his internal world was fascinating to me," Nagaitis tells Space. "He’s resilient and dedicated, and he's specific and reliable, and those things are useful for an actor because it gives you a focal point, which is always a good thing."

For Serkis (and yes, she is the daughter of "The Lord of the Rings" star Andy Serkis), there's a certain measure of love and sympathy for Tanya that provides an emotional cushion.

"I have a real soft spot for her, and I feel really sorry for her," she reveals. "I think she's someone who craves freedom and expression and connectivity, and her life at Star City is slightly devoid of that. So she has to seek out what she can in order to make it happen for herself

"I like her place in the show", continues Serkis. "I don't think I have the mental capacity to play a scientist. I’ve always seen her as representative of the Soviet wife and the dreams and hopes and ambitions that young women have growing up that would have been dashed and sacrificed with a husband. I like that she’s solid and she’s humanity, and I love that they include her amidst all the space.

"I think it's a really interesting environment to delve into. Ultimately, it's a culture of survival. As terrible and harrowing as things were, people just had to get on with it. And that was something that was useful to try and click into."

Stepping into the skin of a daring cosmonaut raised under that harsh, oppressive environment required more than a little thought as to how that would feel for Nagaitis’s conflicted spacefaring character.

"I read a lot about the Soviet Union, and it's easy to just attach to some Orwellian idea and say, 'okay all my rights and freedoms have been impinged and now what do I do,'" he explains. "That’s a completely useless thing for me because now I’m a dissident. Now I’m feeling things Valya didn’t feel. Valya grew up in this situation. All of his childhood memories are about the Soviet Union, which is what 'Secondhand Time' is about, that book we were all so fond of."

The book in question, Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets, is an oral history of the Soviet Union and its ultimate end, which became required reading for many of the cast. "It became an important mast for us to remember how deep the double-think and double-speak goes," notes Nagaitis.

“When I think of loving a country — which to me is a bizarre and slightly absurd notion — I can love memories of a way of life, I suppose. I can love stories that people have told me about things. So how did Valya love that? What were Valya’s stories of love that he holds in his memory and that he associates with people? Because everything is people. A country is nothing if it isn’t people."

“Star City” season 1 is streaming now exclusively on Apple TV, with new episodes dropping every Friday.

"For All Mankind's" new spinoff, "Star City," is a certified hit and another brilliant gem in Apple TV’s imposing crown of science fiction shows that includes "Foundation," "Silo," "Pluribus," and "Invasion." Viewers finally get to see the Space Race from the Soviet perspective inside the heavily guarded walls of the secret cosmonaut training city.

Created by Matt Wolpert and Ben Nedivi, "Star City" is nearing the midpoint of its 8-episode inaugural season and its dark and enthralling peek within the heart of the USSR’s space program. We chatted with two of its stars, Anna Maxwell Martin, who plays Star City's chilling KGB security commander, Col. Lyudmilla Raskova, and Agnes O’Casey, who portrays her surveillance department protege Irina Morozova (whom we've seen as an older woman in "For All Mankind"), to learn more about absorbing the cold atmosphere of 1970s life behind the Iron Curtain.

"I have loved playing someone who’s so eccentric, because she's got such a lid on things and trying so hard to control everything about herself, that her impulses that do come up are so strong and so left of field at times," O’Casey tells Space. "Like maybe torturing someone.

"We're both very lucky with the characters we've got to play. The way that Matt and Ben write, we're just people. It doesn’t feel too gendered. It's not a big deal that they’re women in their fields. They're just sort of surviving and ruthless. It's a really exciting script to get to work on."

Martin's transformation into the monstrous KGB surveillance chief and decorated World War II veteran is a remarkable achievement, and the actor is relishing her part.

"I love playing Lyudmilla, she's an absolute hoot," Martin reveals before discussing her research process for the role. "I didn't look at fiction. I think we both kind of read about that period of time, that history. There’s a book we both delved into, which was a sort of verbatim account of people living in the Soviet Union, and that gave you a flavor of what it was like to be a Soviet person. I also read a book about — it wasn’t a gulag, but it was a female prison — and that was a pretty awful book. Mind you, there’s female prisons everywhere, but that wasn’t a very jolly book."

In terms of costumes helping to achieve an authenticity from which to establish their personas, O'Casey and Martin ponder the questions of wardrobe choices and the necessity of whether or not to break character once the cameras stopped rolling.

"If Irina is completely disembodied, I think she'd like to be in trousers and flats, but she dresses the part and wears her pencil skirts," O’Casey adds. "She’s not thinking about fashion. Her life is as convenient as it can be. She’s wearing a costume and not thinking about how she looks. We would’ve had a terrible time if we'd stayed in character. We would have crawled home."

Martin's crowded schedule of off-screen tasks gave her ample excuses to step away from Lyudmilla’s brutal regimen of torture, and she was not going to wear a skirt!

"I'm too busy doing things like organizing transport for my children, locating their whereabouts, doing online shopping, and seeing if the dog has been walked that day," she notes. "So I can’t possibly stay in character, and I couldn’t do those things as Lyudmilla. I could, and actually, if I did those things as Lyudmilla, they might be done more efficiently, actually, now thinking on that.

"I really pushed and was insistent that I was not to be in a skirt. And I think at first Matt and Ben were like, 'Uh, she’s in a skirt.' She’s not, she's in trousers. And I fought really hard for that, as did Nicole [Fischnaller], our head of costume. Lyudmilla was a tank commander, I just don’t think she’d be wafting around in a skirt. I wanted her to feel genderless. I had a furry hat at one point that I also fought for. In hindsight, now that I see it on the big screen, I think maybe it was a mistake."

"Star City" season 1 streams exclusively on Apple TV.

NASA astronaut Jessica Meir captured a breathtaking view of auroras on Earth from orbit while sheltering with her fellow astronauts in a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft as a pair of cosmonauts attempted to fix a concerning air leak on the International Space Station.

What is it?

Last week on Friday, June 5, the four Crew-12 astronauts on the ISS took shelter in the SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft that carried them to the station. They did this as a precaution as cosmonauts attempted to fix a leak in a tunnel leading to a Russian module.

But Meir made good use of her temporary surroundings, capturing truly incredible images (and even video) of auroras over Earth from the Dragon.

"There is a lot going on right now on the @Space_Station, but fortunately we are all safe and witnessed a spectacular southern aurora show yesterday thanks to a recent solar event," Meir said in a post on X.

Why is it incredible?

While these images, and the video that Meir shared are stunning on their own, the context behind their capture is fascinating. Meir wasn't just in the Dragon capsule for fun, her and the rest of the Crew-12 astronauts were told to shelter in the capsule as the cosmonauts, Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and Sergei Mikaev, attempted to fix an ongoing leak on the station.

They hunkered down "out of an abundance of caution," according to NASA spokesperson Bethany Stevens, while two cosmonauts went out on a spacewalk to attempt to fix an air leak on the station.

This has been a persistent, ongoing leak caused by cracks in the PrK transfer tunnel which connects to the Russian Zvezda service module. But while Russia's space agency Roscosmos manages the leak with occasional repairs, according to Stevens, the leak started presenting as more of an issue recently.

A former Paralympic athlete could end up breaking some records in the final frontier.

The U.K. government and the California company Vast have signed an agreement that aims to get John McFall, a reserve astronaut with the European Space Agency (ESA), on a research mission aboard Vast's Haven-1 space station.

McFall, 45, is a surgeon with the United Kingdom's National Health Service who lost his right leg in a motorcycle accident when he was 19. He won a bronze medal in the 100-meter dash at the 2008 Paralympic Games in Beijing.

Vast is developing a line of Haven outposts, and Haven-1 is set to be the first in low Earth orbit (LEO). It will launch aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket as soon as next year.

The newly signed memorandum of understanding is not a guarantee that McFall will fly to Haven-1. Rather, it "will see the U.K. Space Agency support Vast to secure sponsorships to fund a spaceflight for John," U.K. officials wrote in a June 2 statement announcing the agreement.

If McFall does indeed get to fly, he will work on research related to physiology, as well as prosthetics and movement in space. The U.K. government noted that his work could directly benefit millions of people, and also further ESA's goal of expanding access to space, as well as Europe's role in enabling private interests to work in LEO.

"The findings could have significant benefits for disabled people here on Earth, such as the design of lighter, more adaptable prosthetics on Earth," U.K. officials wrote in the statement. "They could also deepen our understanding of conditions like osteoporosis or muscle wastage that affect many disabled people and provide new insights into rehabilitation techniques for amputees."

"Signing this agreement with Vast is incredibly exciting," McFall said in the announcement. "If we can make this mission happen, it won't just be a milestone for human spaceflight, it will send a powerful message about what people with disabilities are capable of, and that there should be no limit to what you can achieve — on Earth or in space."

U.K. Space Minister Liz Lloyd said that McFall's history of accomplishments in sports, medicine and science show his extraordinary determination.

"The UK is committed to being at the forefront of inclusive human spaceflight," Lloyd said in the same announcement. "This builds on the groundbreaking work John has already done and opens the door to a genuine flight opportunity. I look forward to seeing what we can achieve together."

Vast also made some other news recently: The company signed a two-mission deal with the government of France, to fly one French astronaut to the ISS and another to Haven-1.

New York — This weekend, I watched as Prada and Axiom Space unveiled the next-generation Liquid Cooling and Ventilation Garment for astronauts on the moon. This is a critical piece of Axiom's new AxEMU spacesuits the company is designing with Prada for NASA's Artemis lunar missions. And it comes complete with stirrup pants and thumb holes.

High fashion hit the Artemis program when designer fashion house Prada and aerospace company Axiom teamed up to create AxEMU, the spacesuits that NASA astronauts will be wearing on the moon. And in a reveal on Sunday (June 7), we finally got a look at the Liquid Cooling and Ventilation Garment (LCVG for short).

"This is the garment that astronauts wear inside the suit," Axiom Space Senior Vice President Russell Ralston told Space.com during a press event at Prada on June 7. "It provides them comfort, cooling, and those kinds of things ... really proud of the design."

Checking out the design

The LCVG looks like a really cool piece of activewear. From the v-neck to the thumbhole sleeves, throwback stirrup pants, tech-y tubing and Prada's signature red stripe, this thing looks cool. But it does a lot more than look cool.

"It's not oftentimes that astrophysics [and] aeronautics develops things that are aesthetically pleasing," Axiom Space CEO and President Jonathan Cirtain said at the event. But, he added, "while aesthetically pleasing, this is a safety suit ... it's a really remarkable piece of technology."

The garment is made with built-in channels in which small tubes carrying cooling liquid are placed. These tubes will circulate this liquid around the suit, providing temperature control. This design is an upgrade on previous designs which have had such tubes threaded through mesh material, a time-consuming task, Ralston said. The suit also has larger, black tubes that carry air first over the wearer's face and then around the body, "providing carbon dioxide management as they exhale, and providing oxygen back to the astronauts as they inhale," according to Cirtain.

The garment is intended for use by future moonwalking astronauts, though Cirtain noted that it might be tested first with astronauts onboard the International Space Station, and some testing might even occur with NASA's upcoming Artemis 3 mission, though this mission will not land astronauts on the lunar surface.

This new garment (and modified iterations of the garment and spacesuit) have gone through a variety of temperature, gravity, and other environmental testing. In addition to possible ISS testing time, the suit is also likely to be tested in NASA's Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory (the giant swimming pool where astronauts practice for space).

AxEMU along with its undersuit the LCVG isn't just the newest moon-bound spacesuit, it has major improvements over the Apollo spacesuits, the last suits to protect humans on the lunar surface. And this is for good reason. Not only has there been significant technological progress in the 54 years since the final Apollo moon mission in 1972, but the Artemis 4 mission (the first Artemis mission slated to land humans on the moon) will send astronauts to the lunar South Pole, which is notably colder than previously explored regions on the moon.

The moon's South Pole where Artemis astronauts will land is "a very complex environment, and so there's a lot of interesting upgrades we've made to what's been available in the past," Cirtain told Space.com during this press event.

"The South Pole is not always in sunlight; sometimes it's in shadow," Cirtain added, "The temperature differential from sunlight to shadow can be over 400 degrees [Fahrenheit]."

In addition to being more technologically advanced to both keep with the times and contend with the extreme lunar environments, the pair also intend for these suits to fit better, possibly offering bespoke fits for each astronaut, and also be easier to customize than previous spacesuits. They intend to accomplish this using a combination of Prada's existing manufacturing practices and by making the suits modular, so individual components could be both uniquely sized and individually swapped out, a more economical process than swapping out an entire suit.

"I think that that's something that's important for this new era of spaceflight, where we want to see thousands and millions of people go to space," Ralston told Space.com. "We can't keep doing things the way they were done in the past, that's not going to get us there."

While this is the first sight of the LCVG, this isn't our first look at the AxEMU spacesuit. Initial reveals showed the suit first in orange and blue to shield not-yet-revealed details, and then in its final coloration in bright white. This light color helps to reflect sunlight and heat, helping astronauts to maintain a comfortable body temperature, and the white material also makes lunar dust very visible, allowing astronauts to more easily keep track and dust off.

While Prada's involvement in spacesuit design might seem unusual, the pair appear to be in lock-step with not just the style, but the engineering of the suit as well. For example, Prada's materials expertise enabled them to contribute "the ballistic material on the outside of the suit," Cirtain told Space.com. This material allows the suit "to maintain its integrity and not tear while in that unique environment."

This fashion and aerospace partnership also follows in the footsteps of spacesuit history. When NASA set out to find the right contractors to work with on the Apollo spacesuits, they ended up working with ILC Dover, a small company in Delaware connected to famous bra maker Playtex. ILC Dover used their expert sewists and knowledge in materials like nylon to create a suit that astronauts could actually move around in, while Hamilton Standard (now Collins Aerospace) provided the life-support hardware to complete the suits.

Meteor showers are among the most beautiful phenomena to brighten Earth's sky, but could the fast moving space rocks that accompany major events threaten or delay future Artemis moon missions as NASA and its partners plan for a lunar landing attempt?

NASA estimates that approximately 48.5 tons (44,000 kilograms) of naturally occurring space debris falls into Earth's atmosphere each day. These fragments range in size from tiny micrometeoroids a fraction of a millimeter in diameter to larger particles that create spectacular shooting stars and fireballs as they burn up during atmospheric entry.

The space around Earth gets even more crowded during meteor showers, as Earth careens through one of the many debris streams continuously shed by asteroids and comets as they make lazy circuits around the sun.

Can micrometeoroids endanger a spacecraft?

Micrometeoroids travel through space at hypervelocity speeds averaging 22,000 miles per hour (34,405 kilometers per hour), according to NASA. At that pace, even a tiny micrometeoroid has the ability to impart a significant kinetic blow upon striking a spacecraft en route to the moon, with potentially disastrous results for the astronaut crew inside.

Fast moving debris has the potential to penetrate or deform a spacecraft's hull, damaging critical systems or even triggering a catastrophic rupture. There is also the risk that a micrometeoroid could punch a hole in one of the heat-resistant outer tiles on the Orion spacecraft, NASA's crew capsule for the agency's Artemis moon missions, undermining its ability to survive the intense furnace of reentry, per NASA.

The Chinese Space Agency was given a stark reminder of the dangers posed by space debris in November last year, when taikonaut Chen Dong discovered a crack in the viewport of his Shenzhou-20 spacecraft, which forced the three person crew to use a different return craft for their journey.

Thankfully, modern spacecraft such as the Orion capsule used for NASA's Artemis moon missions have been designed to mitigate the threat posed by micrometeoroid impacts, in so far as is possible. "Orion spacecraft material selection and thicknesses have been optimized for [micrometeoroid and orbital debris] (MMOD) protection and risk balancing," said Mike Heckwolf, Orion crew and mission risk integrator at Lockheed Martin's in an email to Space.com.

"Hypervelocity impact testing is conducted to confirm impact physics, to characterize damage survivability, and verify performance of the Orion spacecraft MMOD design," continued Heckwolf. "The Artemis mission trajectory and Orion flight attitude are carefully assessed to minimize MMOD risk."

Meteor storms and outbursts raise the stakes

As is so often the case, the best protection against disaster is prevention. NASA and its partners regularly perform risk assessments on the micrometeoroid environment both ahead of and during a mission, though only the most severe events present cause for concern.

"Only a handful of the more than 1,000 known meteor showers exceed the sporadic background by more than 5% — like the Geminids, for example — [which is] the strongest annual shower," explained NASA Meteoroid Environments Office lead Bill Cooke, in an email to Space.com.

The major mission disrupters come in the form of meteor storms and outbursts, which see a dramatic increase in the quantity of interplanetary debris choking the Earth-moon environment. "If a major meteor shower outburst or storm is forecast during a mission or crew activity, the mission would be delayed or the crew kept inside until the outburst or storm is over," said Cooke.

Storm forecasts on the horizon

Hundreds or even thousands of shooting stars may be seen burning through Earth's skies each hour during one of these intense meteor storm events, though the distance separating micrometeoroids in space would still likely be measured on the order of miles.

Thankfully, forecasters are able to predict when meteor storms or outbursts are likely to occur, many years before they brighten our skies.

"Currently there are four possible meteor outbursts predicted to occur during the next ten years," said Robert Lunsford of the American Meteor Society in an email to Space.com. "These involve the Perseids (August 12, 2028) and the Leonids (November 17, 2033 and November 18 & 19, 2034. The strongest of these appears to be the Perseid outburst, which could range from 500 to 1000 meteors per hour."

Artemis 4 — NASA's first crewed mission to the lunar surface since the Apollo-era — is currently slated to launch in early 2028, though it's possible that an unforeseen delay could push that window backwards.

In the unlikely event that Artemis 4, or any subsequent mission's launch should fall close to a projected outburst, they could well be delayed in the name of safety, and it wouldn't be the first time that NASA has postponed a mission to ensure its success in the face of a micrometeoroid risk.

As noted by Cooke, the STS-51 space shuttle Discovery mission was delayed in 1993 to avoid the peak of the Perseid meteor shower, and an uncrewed science mission out of Vandenberg Space Force Base was delayed in 2000 to sidestep a Leonid meteor shower outburst.

The agency also has protocols in place to reduce the threat of micrometeoroid impacts to its flagship orbital telescopes during major meteor showers. The James Webb Space Telescope and Hubble Space Telescope, for example, routinely point their large primary mirrors away from meteor showers radiants (the points in space from which they originate) during intense events.

NASA's strategies for dealing with micrometeoroid impacts will be further tested in the coming decade, as the agency and its partners seek to establish a permanent presence on and around Earth's moon.

Would you like to know more? Then be sure to read our explainer article on NASA's Artemis Program, along with the latest on the agency's upcoming Artemis 3 mission to test vital technologies for the Artemis 4 landing near the lunar south pole.

In Soviet Russia, you don’t watch "Star City," "Star City" watches you!

Apple TV"s stellar spinoff of "For All Mankind" has blasted off to enthusiastic reviews with its first two episodes and we’re all being indoctrinated into the dehumanizing Cold War oppression and super-secret town near Moscow where cosmonauts and their families lived and worked under intense control.

Rhys Ifans, who plays the stoic Ser Otto Hightower on HBO's "House of the Dragon," portrays the Soviet space program’s Chief Designer in "Star City," a designation left intentionally anonymous due to the notoriously paranoid Russian regime of the era. It's based on the real-life father of the USSR’s push to the moon, Sergei Korolev, who died in 1966, ending their lunar mission plans. But he's alive in "Star City's" alt-history plot.

We connected with Ifans plus "Star City" co-creators and showrunners Ben Nedivi and Matt Wolpert ("Fargo") to learn more about the inspirations and production secrets behind this instantly-absorbing 8-episode show.

"It's always exciting for any actor to play a character that has obstacles," Ifans tells Space. "Obstacles are wonderful things. Things that make that character's life difficult are always the most pleasing things to play. In this story, in this world, that's the case for all the characters.

"From dawn until dusk, every waking moment is about navigating their way safely through a very very hostile environment. And how one does that while keeping one's own sense of ethics and morality intact, while by necessity sometimes having to behave in ways and make decisions that in a normal world you’d never have to make. Every day is a kind of moral labyrinth for these people. But they get on with it. And I think ultimately the show is a show about resilience."

Ifans considers the Chief Designer role to be a joyous character to play, and he brings a certain dignity, warmth and keen intelligence to his craft that's a pleasure to watch in every scene he's a part of.

"It's such a unique thing to be, a genius like this who ordinarily would be a national treasure and a hero, but in this case no one even knows not just his name, they don’t even know of his existence. And that goes for the whole of Star City. Everyone working there and all the work that was being done there, none of the larger population had any knowledge of its existence."

For Nedivi and Wolpert, the element that wasn’t as focused on in "For All Mankind" is the alarming presence of secrecy and intelligence gathering of the surveillance state in Soviet Russia.

"That's the added element that 'Star City' has and that’s something we wanted to be as accurate about as we are with space exploration in 'For All Mankind,'" Nedivi explains.

"A lot of the contraptions and stuff you see being used on Star City is based on actual spycraft contraptions that were used in that time. That was one of the key elements we wanted to capture here.

"And the fact that the space program for the Soviet Union was their crown jewel. That for them was the thing they were most proud of. And you'd think that pride would mean they’d want that celebrated and the cosmonauts to be celebrated, but really it was quite the opposite. They wanted them even more controlled. They were so worried about their celebrity and success, making them feel like they were bigger than the state, that it put them under even more pressure when they came back to Earth. If 'For All Mankind' the danger is in space, in 'Star City' it's on the ground."

Stylistically, "Star City" nails the darkened mood and iron-fisted environment of life behind the Iron Curtain. The detailed production design was inspired by Cold War flicks like "The Manchurian Candidate," "Mission: Impossible," and James Bond movies.

"I’d add 'The Lives of Others' and 'The Conversation,'" notes Ifans. "I do remember watching these great '70s movies in my father's lap in a smoke-filled living room in North Wales or the cinema. For me it was any number of paranoid thrillers there seemed to be in the '70s and early '80s."

Wolpert echoes those same sentiments that define the overall immersive authenticity of "Star City."

"Especially even in the visual approach and the approach to how the show uses sound and the sort of filmmaking of it, we really wanted it to feel like it was one of those paranoid thrillers from the '70s like 'The Conversation,' like 'The Parallax View,' or 'All The President's Men,'" he adds.

"Those grainy, gritty films. You can feel the film stock and feel the playfulness with the approach to sound that we felt would really put people in that place and time."

"Star City" streams exclusively on Apple TV each Friday at midnight Pacific Time. through July 10.