December 17, 2025

DiskSat flat satellite platform targets high power missions and very low Earth orbit Los Angeles CA (SPX) Dec 17, 2025 The Aerospace Corporation's DiskSat concept introduces a flat, disk-shaped small satellite bus designed to provide more power, surface area, and payload volume than a traditional CubeSat while keepi ... more

HiRISE camera aboard Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter passes 100000 image milestone Los Angeles CA (SPX) Dec 17, 2025 After nearly two decades in orbit around Mars, NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) has logged the 100,000th image of the planet's surface with its High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (Hi ... more

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JPL puts Blue Ghost Mission 2 lunar stack through launch stress tests Los Angeles CA (SPX) Dec 17, 2025 As Firefly Aerospace plans its next lunar delivery, a full-scale engineering model of its Blue Ghost Mission 2 system has completed vibration and acoustic testing at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory ... more

Webb maps carbon rich atmosphere on distorted pulsar planet Berlin, Germany (SPX) Dec 17, 2025 Scientists using NASA's James Webb Space Telescope have identified an exoplanet with an atmosphere unlike any seen before, orbiting a rapidly spinning neutron star known as a pulsar. The object, off ... more

Ionospheric gradients tracked in real time to sharpen space weather monitoring Tokyo, Japan (SPX) Dec 17, 2025 Accurate, real-time tracking of ionospheric structure is becoming critical for protecting satellite-based navigation and communications, and a new observation framework now directly measures how ele ... more

Supernova at edge of observable universe spotted by James Webb Space Telescope Berlin, Germany (SPX) Dec 17, 2025 An international collaboration of astronomers has used the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to detect a supernova at an unprecedented distance in the early universe, tied to a long-duration gamma-r ... more

Carruthers observatory returns first ultraviolet views of Earth and Moon Los Angeles CA (SPX) Dec 17, 2025 NASA's Carruthers Geocorona Observatory has captured its first images from space, providing ultraviolet views of Earth and the Moon and confirming that the spacecraft and its instruments are operati ... more

CoDICE instrument returns first-light particle data for IMAP mission Los Angeles CA (SPX) Dec 17, 2025 December 16, 2025 - Southwest Research Institute's Compact Dual Ion Composition Experiment (CoDICE) instrument aboard NASA's Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP) spacecraft has begun r ... more

PUNCH mission delivers sweeping new view of solar activity Los Angeles CA (SPX) Dec 17, 2025 After less than a year in orbit, NASA's Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere (PUNCH) mission, built and led by Southwest Research Institute, is returning wide-field images that place the ... more Possible "superkilonova" exploded not once but twice Pasadena CA (SPX) Dec 17, 2025 When the most massive stars reach the ends of their lives, they blow up in spectacular supernova explosions, which seed the universe with heavy elements such as carbon and iron. Another type of expl ... more ALMA completes band two receiver chain with low noise amplifiers Berlin, Germany (SPX) Dec 17, 2025 The Atacama Large Millimeter/Submillimeter Array (ALMA) in the Chilean Andes is one of the most powerful radio telescope facilities used to probe cold and distant regions of the universe. Researcher ... more Engineered interlayers boost satellite insulation and flexible electronics Berlin, Germany (SPX) Dec 17, 2025 Researchers at Empa are refining the multilayer insulation foils that wrap many satellites and space probes, aiming to improve their mechanical robustness while maintaining thermal protection. These ... more Laser experiment proposed to probe quantum nature of gravity Berlin, Germany (SPX) Dec 17, 2025 Researchers at Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf have outlined an experiment in which light exchanges discrete packets of energy with gravitational waves, potentially revealing the long-sought qu ... more Globalstar Skydio trial validates Band n53 for public safety drone links Los Angeles CA (SPX) Dec 17, 2025 Globalstar (NASDAQ: GSAT) and Skydio have completed a joint technology trial that demonstrated Skydio X10 drone operations over Globalstar's licensed Band n53 spectrum and the company's XCOM RAN pri ... more Sentinel 6B begins sea level mapping campaign Washington DC (SPX) Dec 17, 2025 Sentinel-6B has begun returning its first ocean measurements, providing initial maps of sea level across a wide area of the U.S. East Coast and the Atlantic Ocean after its November launch. The U.S. ... more Can scientists detect life without knowing what it looks like Atlanta GA (SPX) Dec 16, 2025 When NASA scientists opened the sample return canister from the OSIRIS-REx asteroid sample mission in late 2023, they found something astonishing. ... more GoMars model simulates Martian dust storms to improve mission safety Tokyo, Japan (SPX) Dec 16, 2025 Researchers in China have used a Mars general circulation model to simulate 50 years of Martian dust activity, aiming to improve forecasts of global dust storms that can disrupt exploration missions ... more Gemini North tracks changing glow of interstellar Comet 3IATLAS Tucson AZ (SPX) Dec 16, 2025 Gemini North has obtained new color images of Comet 3I/ATLAS after the interstellar object emerged from behind the Sun on its outbound trajectory from the Solar System. Using the Gemini Multi-Object ... more