NASA
Every Cosmic Herald story on NASA — missions, launches, discoveries, and the business of space, newest first.
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Stargazing
A Minor Radiation Storm and an Inbound CME Set Up a Weekend Aurora Watch
NOAA logged repeated S1-minor proton storm alerts on September 5 as a coronal mass ejection from sunspot AR4524 heads for Earth, with arrival expected September 8 and a shot at G1-level auroras.
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Astronomy
Hubble Finds a New Decagon Guarding Saturn's South Pole
Hubble archival data reveal a strengthening 10-sided vortex ringing Saturn's south pole — a feature Cassini never saw in 13 years at the planet, and a strange new sibling to its famous northern hexagon.
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Astronomy
Hubble Spots a 210-Light-Year Superbubble Carved Into a Star Nursery in the Large Magellanic Cloud
A new Hubble image reveals a 210-by-140-light-year cavity blown into the N44 nebula by massive stars, with nearly 30,000 still-forming stars catalogued in the surrounding shell.
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Science & Discovery
Without Jupiter's Gravity Assist, NASA Engineers Turn to Solar Electric Propulsion to Reach Uranus
A slipped launch window cost NASA's flagship Uranus mission its Jupiter gravity assist, so a new Planetary Science Journal paper swaps in solar electric propulsion to still reach the ice giant in about 13 years.
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Missions
Dragonfly Gets Its Nervous System, and Its Titan Landing Zone Finally Gets a Name
NASA's nuclear rotorcraft just got 17,315 feet of wiring installed at Johns Hopkins APL, and its 500-mile dune-field landing zone on Titan now has an official name: Ahmakiq Undae.
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Stargazing
NASA's September Skywatching Guide: Venus, the Teapot, and a Harvest Moon
NASA's September 2026 sky guide runs from a modest meteor shower and a string of Moon conjunctions to Venus's peak brilliance, the fall equinox, and a Harvest Moon sharing the evening with Saturn and Neptune.
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Science & Discovery
Roman Space Telescope Powers On Its Planet-Imaging Coronagraph
Days after launching on a Falcon Heavy, NASA's Roman Space Telescope switched on its Coronagraph Instrument on September 1, kicking off months of calibration before it attempts to directly image planets around nearby stars.
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Stargazing
September Sky: The Moon Crashes the Pleiades, Then Blots Out Jupiter
A waning gibbous Moon slides past the Pleiades this week, sets up a close pass with Jupiter on Sept. 6, then briefly occults the giant planet on Sept. 8 for skywatchers in Canada, the contiguous U.S., Greenland and Russia.
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Commercial
Sierra Space Books National Security Customers for Dream Chaser's First Flight
Sierra Space says its long-delayed Dream Chaser spaceplane will carry national security, civil and NASA cargo payloads together on one debut flight from Kennedy Space Center to Vandenberg.
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Missions
NASA, SpaceX Push Back Crew-13 Launch After Oxidizer Leak Found on Dragon
A propulsion-system oxidizer leak found during routine prelaunch processing has pushed Crew-13's ISS launch off its Sept. 12 target, with no new date set as NASA and SpaceX run tests and review data.
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NASA & Agencies
Meir and Adenot Step Outside for U.S. Spacewalk 99, the Sixth All-Female EVA in History
NASA's Jessica Meir and ESA's Sophie Adenot spent 6.5 hours outside the ISS on Sept. 1, 2026, swapping hardware on Harmony and the truss in the sixth all-female spacewalk ever flown.
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Missions
Roman Space Telescope Launches Toward L2, Kicking Off a Dark-Universe Survey 1,000 Times Faster Than Hubble
NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope launched on a Falcon Heavy Aug. 30, 2026, beginning a three-month cruise to L2 where its 300-megapixel camera will survey the sky 1,000x faster than Hubble in search of dark matter, dark energy, and exoplanets.
