NASA is the U.S. federal agency for civilian space exploration, aeronautics research, and Earth and space science.
NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman named Stephen Cash director of Marshall Space Flight Center, effective Oct. 19. He cited advanced propulsion and nuclear power as the work Cash is meant to lead the center into.
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NOAA puts the odds at 83% that the strongest El Niño since 1950 is under way, NASA reports. Satellite maps show the Pacific warming and sea level shifting.
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JAXA's MMX is set to launch on an H3 rocket on 19 October and return at least ten grams of Phobos material to Earth in 2031, according to ESA. The sample is meant to help decide whether Mars's moons are captured asteroids or giant-impact debris.
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NASA reports Orion's Artemis II heat shield had nine spots of char loss, down from 103 on Artemis I, after a change to the reentry trajectory. The comparison rests on two flights and NASA's own review.
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A team led by Andrea Botteon used Chandra and eROSITA X-rays to trace the radio 'Treble Clef' to a black hole outburst and a cluster collision. The authors call the two-stage origin likely; the merger evidence comes from the shape of the cluster's hot gas.
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NASA is replacing "AI" with "super intelligence" on a four-phase schedule running into December, Space reports from an internal document. Software that connects to NASA systems is exposed to at least one update the document itself calls a breaking change.
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SpaceX's CRS-35 cargo Dragon is scheduled to dock with the ISS around 11 a.m. EDT on Oct. 15 with more than 6,000 pounds of food, research and hardware. Space.com's preview says the supplies are mainly for the four astronauts of Crew-13.
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NASA released three reports and a data archive from Artemis II on October 7, three days before its six-month deadline. Science News reports that the crew's spoken and written notes proved more valuable than the photos.
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NASA's Black Marble HD imagery shows nighttime lights falling west of Isaias's eye after the storm came ashore near Destin with 105 mph winds. Lights are a proxy for electric service, so the images suggest where power was disrupted.
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Smithsonian-led researchers mapped over 10,000 young lunar faults and estimate the moon shrank about 45 meters over 400 to 800 million years. Because the moon is a single plate, the faults are spread across its surface and moonquakes can start anywhere.
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SpaceX's Starship reached orbit for the first time on Sept. 28, its 14th test flight, carrying the first Starlink V3 satellites, space.com reported. Whether Starlink is a detour from Mars or the destination is where its two quoted analysts part ways.
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Margaret Hamilton, who headed the Apollo Guidance Computer software team, has died aged 90, Nature's obituary says. It credits her with helping develop reliable-programming techniques but does not say they underpin practice today.
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NASA will send four biology studies to the space station on SpaceX's 35th resupply flight, including brain tissue models flown for five weeks. NASA ties the work to astronaut health on long missions, but the readouts are mostly from tissue, plants and station surfaces.
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NASA will make astronaut Christina Koch acting deputy chief engineer on Nov. 1, ending her eligibility for future spaceflight assignments. She takes the seat Katherine Van Hooser leaves when she retires Oct. 21, and Amit Kshatriya holds the chief engineer title.
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NASA is accelerating SkyFall, three Mars helicopters that will ride the SR-1 Freedom spacecraft when it launches in 2028. Project scientist Matthew Golombek says each is designed to last six months, and the landing site has yet to be chosen.
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Programs in China, Japan, the UK and the US are each targeting test launches of space-based solar power within five years, Live Science reports. Whether the power can be delivered at a price anyone would pay is a separate question.
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NASA has selected 12 U.S. institutions to receive $12 million through M-STAR, up to $1 million each, for Moon and Mars research. The agency says the awards should build research capacity and help the schools compete for later federal and commercial awards.
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Arctic sea ice hit its 2026 minimum on September 12 at about 4.6 million square kilometers, tied for 10th lowest on record. NASA Earth Observatory says the remaining ice is thinner and younger, and scientists still warn of a nearly ice-free summer before 2050.
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NASA scientists say a drought tied to El Niño has primed the central and eastern Amazon for a long, severe fire season. On October 12, Manaus officials reported PM2.5 above 135 micrograms per cubic meter, the second-worst rating on a regional index.
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NASA's PUNCH mission has released a video of a year of the sun's corona, recovered from images that Earthshine first overwhelmed. An outside solar scientist said the sunlit electrons in it show how many particles the corona holds and the shape of its magnetic field.
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