All articles
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Astronomy
Van Gogh in the Sky: How the Dark Energy Camera Painted the Nearest Stellar Nursery
NSF NOIRLab's Dark Energy Camera has captured a 570-megapixel mosaic of the Corona Australis Molecular Cloud, the closest active star-forming region to the Sun, with dust lanes so swirling that astronomers reached for Van Gogh's 'The Starry Night' to describe it.
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Commercial
America's First Robotic Satellite Mechanic Reaches the Pad
A Falcon 9 is set to launch Northrop Grumman's MRV-1 and three Mission Extension Pods on July 21, carrying DARPA's RSGS payload — the first U.S. multi-mission robot built to inspect, repair, upgrade, relocate and refuel satellites in geosynchronous orbit.
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Military Space
SDA's Mesh Grows: Third Tranche 1 Launch Puts 21 York Satellites in Orbit — and All 21 Phone Home
A July 16 Falcon 9 lofted 21 York-built data-transport satellites for the Space Development Agency, resuming Tranche 1 flights after a roughly nine-month pause — and York confirmed contact with all 21 within hours, pushing the on-orbit count to 63.
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NASA & Agencies
Mauritius Signs the Artemis Accords, and Talks About the Ocean Instead of the Moon
Mauritius became the 70th Artemis Accords signatory on July 17, 2026 — the seventh African nation and the 11th country to sign this year — and framed its accession around protecting oceans and coastlines rather than lunar exploration.
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Science & Discovery
Nickel Isotopes Finally Name the Rock That Killed the Dinosaurs — and It's an Oddball
Nickel isotopes in K–Pg boundary clay identify the Chicxulub impactor as a rare CO chondrite — so poor in sulfur, carbon and water that atmospheric debris, not impactor sulfur, likely drove the extinction.
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Military Space
The Space Force Just Tripled Its Commercial Launch Contract Ceiling to $17 Billion
The Space Force tripled its NSSL Phase 3 Lane 1 ceiling to $17 billion across seven launch providers on July 17, 2026 — but a GAO report showing commercial launches at federal ranges have more than quadrupled since 2021 suggests the real bottleneck isn't rockets, it's the ground beneath them.
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Astronomy
The Case of the Sun's Missing Silver Is Closed — the Model Was Wrong, Not the Sun
Uppsala researchers found the Sun holds 55% more silver than the reference value — not from new observations, but from a 3D non-LTE model that finally accounts for the photosphere's turbulence, closing a decades-old gap with meteorites from 0.25 dex to 0.06.
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Science & Discovery
Webb's Next Target Just Got Interesting: A Rocky Habitable-Zone World Is Leaking Helium
A Science paper reports the first atmosphere detected on a rocky, habitable-zone exoplanet: helium is escaping the super-Earth LHS 1140b. The signal was time-variable — seen in 2024, gone in 2025 — hinting at an active, replenishing atmosphere.
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Missions
Before the Metal World: Psyche's Mars Flyby Wakes Up Its Instruments
NASA released the science haul and a time-lapse from Psyche's May 15 Mars gravity assist — a free 1,000 mph boost that doubled as a full instrument checkout, including a live test of a Lawrence Livermore-built gamma-ray sensor, three years before the spacecraft reaches its metal asteroid.
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Military Space
A Confirmation Hearing So Quiet It Was Called a Compliment: Schiess Set to Become Space Force's Third Chief
Lt. Gen. Douglas A. Schiess faced few questions and even fewer skeptics at his July 16 Senate hearing to lead the Space Force, telling lawmakers that China's rapid military-space buildup justifies a roughly $71 billion budget and a service set to more than double in size.
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Commercial
India Joins the Private-Orbit Club: Skyroot's Vikram-1 Aces Its Debut
On July 18, 2026, Skyroot Aerospace's Vikram-1 reached a ~450 km orbit on its first flight from Sriharikota — the first orbital launch by a private Indian company, making India the third nation where a private firm has reached orbit.
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Astronomy
Webb Watches Gas Fall From Cluster Scales Into a Black Hole's 800-Light-Year Feeding Disk
JWST resolved a rotating, multiphase disk about 800 light-years wide feeding the black hole in NGC 4696, and traced a filament funneling gas into it — the clearest look yet at the "missing link" between cluster-scale cooling and accretion.
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