NASA
Every Cosmic Herald story on NASA — missions, launches, discoveries, and the business of space, newest first.
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Missions
Europa Clipper is on its way, and its first look at an ocean world will be worth the wait
NASA's Europa Clipper is currently in cruise toward Jupiter, its nine science instruments deployed and checked out. When it arrives in 2030 and begins its 49 planned close flybys of Europa, it will deliver the most detailed look scientists have ever had at one of the solar system's most compelling targets.
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Missions
ESA's JUICE mission is on its way to Jupiter. The science starts long before arrival.
The Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer — JUICE — is now on a seven-year trajectory to the Jovian system. Its mission is ambitious: orbit Jupiter, make close flybys of Callisto and Europa, then slip into orbit around Ganymede, the first spacecraft ever to orbit a moon other than our own.
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Missions
OSIRIS-APEX is racing toward Apophis, and 2029 is going to be extraordinary
The spacecraft formerly known as OSIRIS-REx is en route to Apophis, the asteroid that will pass closer to Earth than our own satellites in April 2029. After a successful Earth gravity assist in September 2025, OSIRIS-APEX is on track to arrive at Apophis months before the historic close approach — where it will watch how Earth's gravity reshapes the rock in real time.
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Missions
The metal world Psyche is stranger than anyone expected
NASA's Psyche spacecraft has been orbiting the asteroid 16 Psyche — once thought to be the exposed iron core of a broken planet — and the early results are upending assumptions. The asteroid may not be what planetary scientists thought at all.
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Missions
Artemis II keeps slipping. Here's what's actually holding it back.
NASA's crewed lunar flyby mission has been delayed again. The reasons are technical, financial, and organizational — and understanding them reveals how difficult it is to run a government human spaceflight program in 2026.
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Missions
Dragonfly is going to Titan. Here's why that's one of the boldest planetary missions ever designed.
NASA's Dragonfly mission will send a nuclear-powered rotorcraft to fly across the surface of Saturn's moon Titan — a world with lakes of liquid methane, organic chemistry everywhere, and possibly the ingredients for life. The mission is years away, but it's being built now.
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Missions
NASA crashed a spacecraft into an asteroid on purpose. It worked better than the models said it would.
The DART spacecraft impacted asteroid Dimorphos on September 26, 2022, reducing its orbital period by 33 minutes — far more than the minimum 73-second threshold for mission success. The result has permanently changed how planetary defense is planned.
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Missions
China just brought back rocks from the side of the Moon we've never sampled. Here's why that matters.
Chang'e-6 landed in the South Pole–Aitken Basin on the Moon's far side in June 2024 — the first mission to return samples from this ancient region. The rocks it brought back may finally explain why the near and far sides of the Moon are so different.
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Missions
Ingenuity flew 72 times on Mars. Here's what those flights changed.
Designed for five flights, Ingenuity flew 72 times on Mars over nearly three years before a rotor blade broke on landing. It proved that powered flight on another planet is possible — and gave Perseverance a scout that changed how it drove.
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Missions
NASA's new space telescope has one job: find every asteroid that could hit Earth
NEO Surveyor is a purpose-built infrared space telescope designed to find near-Earth objects that ground-based surveys miss. Its goal is to complete the congressional mandate to catalog 90 percent of near-Earth asteroids larger than 140 meters — a mandate that has gone unmet since 2005.
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Missions
A microwave-oven-sized spacecraft spent a year testing the orbit where NASA's Moon station will live
CAPSTONE, a 25-kilogram cubesat, was the first spacecraft to enter the near-rectilinear halo orbit that will host the Gateway lunar station. Its year of operations validated the orbital mechanics and navigation techniques Gateway will depend on.
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Missions
Artemis is more than a Moon landing. It's a permanent outpost architecture. Here's the full picture.
Artemis is NASA's plan for sustained human presence near the Moon: a Gateway station in lunar orbit, commercial landers for surface access, the Lunar Terrain Vehicle, and a base camp at the south pole. The architecture is ambitious, politically contingent, and unlike anything attempted in the Apollo era.
