NASA & Agencies
Space agency and policy news from Cosmic Herald — NASA, ESA, ISRO, China's CNSA, budgets, and the politics of spaceflight.
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NASA & Agencies
Wildfires Force NASA to Evacuate Its Madrid Deep Space Station, Shifting Voyager Tracking to California
Wildfires near Madrid forced NASA to evacuate one of only three Deep Space Network complexes on Friday; all 90 workers got out safely and mission support, including the Voyager 1 downlink, shifted seamlessly to Goldstone in California.
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NASA & Agencies
'A Quick Path to Yes': Commerce Starts Certifying the Space Missions Nobody Was Regulating
The Office of Space Commerce is moving its Space Commerce Certification program from proposal to practice, offering a voluntary 120-day "presumption of approval" for satellite servicing, commercial stations and debris removal — the missions Congress has never assigned to any regulator.
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NASA & Agencies
NASA Lost 4,000 Civil Servants Last Year. GAO Says 25 of Its 36 Biggest Projects Are Already Feeling It
GAO's annual NASA project assessment is usually a story about hardware. This year it's a story about people: a 22 percent workforce cut, Goddard down 34 percent, Psyche delayed a year, and a proposed FY2027 budget that would cut another 20 percent.
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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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NASA & Agencies
Serbia Signs the Artemis Accords, Becoming the 69th Nation — and the Latest to Straddle Two Rival Lunar Camps
Serbia became the 69th Artemis Accords signatory on July 16, 2026, and the 10th nation to join this year — while also holding membership in China's rival lunar station program, a growing pattern of dual participation.
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NASA & Agencies
ISRO Clears Three Critical Gaganyaan Crew Module Safety Tests
ISRO validated the cold-gas uprighting system, umbilical separation mechanism, and apex cover structure for Gaganyaan's crew module, clearing a key hurdle before India's first crewed spaceflight.
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NASA & Agencies
Fifty Days Up: Shenzhou-23 Crew Deepens Microgravity Research Aboard Tiangong
Nearly 50 days into a planned one-year stay, Shenzhou-23's three-person crew — including Hong Kong's first astronaut — is running biomechanics and brain-function studies aboard China's Tiangong space station.
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NASA & Agencies
India's First Private Orbital Rocket, Skyroot's Vikram-1, Opens Its Launch Window
Skyroot Aerospace's Vikram-1 sits fully stacked at Sriharikota with a July 12–August 4 window to become India's first privately built and launched orbital rocket.
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NASA & Agencies
Former SpaceX Flight Surgeon Anil Menon Set for First Launch — on a Russian Soyuz
NASA confirms astronaut Anil Menon, a former SpaceX flight surgeon and Space Force colonel, will make his first spaceflight July 14 aboard Soyuz MS-29, pending a critical spacewalk to fix the ISS robotic arm.
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NASA & Agencies
ISRO Clears Fifth Parachute Airdrop Test for Gaganyaan's Uncrewed Debut
ISRO dropped a dummy-loaded main parachute from 2.5 km over Madhya Pradesh on July 7, the fifth test in a series meant to qualify the ten-parachute system that will bring Gaganyaan's crew module down into the sea.
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NASA & Agencies
Japan and Singapore Sign Their First-Ever Space Pact — and Singapore's Three-Month-Old Space Agency Gets Its Debut Deal
JAXA and Singapore's brand-new National Space Agency signed a memorandum in Tokyo covering quantum satellite links and industrial cooperation — NSAS's first international agreement, three months after it was founded.
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NASA & Agencies
Mystery Metal Spheres Wash Up on Queensland Beach — Australian Space Agency Says They're Rocket Debris
Six silver spheres that washed ashore near Townsville over the weekend are pressure vessels from a foreign rocket body, the Australian Space Agency says, warning residents not to touch any similar debris.
