Contributor
Elena Vasquez
Launch & Missions Correspondent
Elena Vasquez covers human spaceflight, robotic missions, and the global launch cadence for Cosmic Herald. She spent six years as a mission-operations analyst supporting deep-space science teams before turning to independent journalism. She holds an M.S. in Aerospace Engineering and has tracked hundreds of orbital launches first-hand. Her reporting translates flight-readiness reviews, trajectory plans, and mission milestones into plain language for readers who want to understand what's actually flying and why.
Editorial tips and corrections: [email protected]
Articles by Elena Vasquez
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The largest planetary spacecraft NASA ever built is bound for an ocean world
Missions · 2026-06-08
Europa Clipper, launched in 2024, is cruising toward a 2030 arrival at Jupiter, where it will make nearly 50 flybys of the icy moon Europa to judge whether its hidden ocean could s…
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Fifteen years on, Juno is still rewriting Jupiter
Missions · 2026-06-08
NASA's Juno spacecraft, now in extended operations, made a close pass of the small moon Thebe in May — the latest in a mission that has overturned much of what we thought we knew a…
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Why Mars landings are an unforgiving engineering problem
Missions · 2026-06-08
Mars has just enough atmosphere to destroy a spacecraft and not enough to land one. Entry, descent, and landing compresses every hard problem in spaceflight into about seven autono…
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Mars Sample Return: the architecture, and the reckoning
NASA & Agencies · 2026-06-08
Bringing Perseverance's cached samples to Earth would be the most complex robotic campaign ever flown. Its cost and schedule have forced NASA into a hard rethink — and, as of 2026,…
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The long road back to the Moon
Missions · 2026-06-08
With Artemis II flown and a crewed landing now planned for Artemis IV in 2028, NASA's return to the Moon has shifted from promise to schedule. Here is where the program actually st…
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Who actually runs space? A field guide to the agencies
NASA & Agencies · 2026-06-08
Spaceflight is now a multipolar, increasingly commercial enterprise, structured as much by alliances as by rockets. A guide to the major agencies — their specialities, their constr…
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After 11 years mapping how Mars lost its air, MAVEN goes silent
NASA & Agencies · 2026-06-08
NASA has declared its MAVEN orbiter unrecoverable after a December anomaly. The mission rewrote our understanding of how Mars lost its atmosphere — and leaves a record of more than…
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NASA is about to name its next Artemis crew
Missions · 2026-06-08
On June 9, NASA names the astronauts for Artemis III. Under the agency's current plan it is a demonstration mission, not the landing itself — the first crewed surface landing is no…
