The archive

News archive

Every dispatch, feature and dossier published by the Space Exploration .IN newsroom.

The encapsulated Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope on a transporter at Kennedy Space Center at night, with the Vehicle Assembly Building in the background

Space observatories

Roman reaches Falcon Heavy hangar after fairing encapsulation

The observatory has completed flight-readiness review, entered Falcon Heavy’s payload fairing and reached the hangar for mating; NASA’s next formal go/no-go review is August 28.

26 August 20264 min read

International Space Station

Menon and Adenot install ISS spare antenna, completing deferred repair

The August 25 spacewalk finished the antenna replacement left incomplete a week earlier. NASA reported good initial power and data checks, while further testing continued overnight.

26 August 20265 min read

Conceptual illustration of communications satellites linking India to a ground gateway and rural homes

India space policy

India’s satellite broadband licences are not commercial launch approvals

Starlink, Eutelsat OneWeb and Jio Satellite have licences and provisional spectrum for compliance work, but the government’s latest record does not put any of them into a nationwide consumer rollout.

24 August 20265 min read

Conceptual illustration of a lunar lander and rover near the rim of a dark south-polar crater, with Earth above the horizon

Lunar exploration

China postpones Chang’e-7 lunar south-pole mission beyond 2026 window

The lunar probe and its Long March 5 rocket had reached Wenchang’s launch area, but China says a launch-condition assessment means the planned window will not be used. No reason or replacement date has been disclosed.

24 August 20264 min read

Conceptual illustration of an orbital spectro-polarimeter measuring light from the disc of Earth

Planetary science

Chandrayaan-3’s SHAPE shows how Earth can stand in for an exoplanet

A new preprint reports the instrument’s in-orbit performance and whole-Earth spectra, while leaving the calibrated science analysis for later papers.

23 August 20264 min read

ISRO, IN-SPACe, NSIL and HAL officials holding the signed SSLV technology-transfer documents at ISRO Headquarters

Space policy

ISRO plans gradual transfer of mature rocket manufacturing to industry

PSLV and LVM3 transfer calls were already limited to private Indian entities. The change concerns who builds and commercialises mature vehicles, not an immediate end to ISRO missions or government launch work.

22 August 20264 min read

Diagram of MMX travelling from Earth to Mars, operating around Phobos and returning to Earth through fiscal 2031

Mars exploration

JAXA sets October 20 launch date for Phobos sample-return mission

MMX is scheduled to leave Tanegashima on H3 Flight 10 at 04:41:03 JST. Launch would begin a five-year mission; arrival, landing, sampling and Earth return all remain ahead.

21 August 20264 min read

A roof-mounted air-quality sensor above central Addis Ababa with city buildings behind it

Earth science

NASA-backed 2022–2025 study attributes most Addis Ababa black carbon to fossil fuels

Ten monitors tracked fine particles across Ethiopia’s capital, while black-carbon instruments at two sites resolved traffic, wet-season and holiday pollution patterns.

20 August 20265 min read

Diagram showing All Points and three other providers added to NASA’s SPOC pool, with the shared $100 million ceiling, ordering period and mission details still unannounced

Commercial launch infrastructure

All Points joins NASA’s spacecraft-processing contract pool

The August 4 on-ramp makes All Points eligible to support future prelaunch work. It does not assign the company NASA’s $100 million vehicle ceiling, and neither NASA nor All Points named a mission-specific task order.

20 August 20265 min read

Side-by-side telescope images showing a bright blue transient near a faint galaxy before it faded

Science

AT2024wpp points to a black hole shredding a massive star—not a confirmed survivor

Whippet’s fast rise, extreme energy and X-ray-driven wind favour black-hole accretion; its late hydrogen and helium lines leave several possible structures, not proof that the disrupted star survived.

20 August 20265 min read

International Space Station silhouetted against a partially eclipsed Sun behind thin clouds

Solar science

ISS, Proba-3 and weather satellites reveal different sides of August’s eclipse

NASA’s WB-57 followed the corona, an astronaut saw 18% coverage, Proba-3 caught a double eclipse, and MTG-I1 and GOES-19 tracked the Moon’s shadow across Earth.

20 August 20266 min read

Diagram linking one already-compromised cFS application in NOS3 to five tested paths: control of a peer app, misleading sender identity, a command to unrelated simulated hardware, an action that looks legitimate in operator data, and altered behaviour that resumes after reset

Space cybersecurity

Security preprint tests five cFS privilege-abuse paths in NASA simulator

Researchers used a malicious onboard component in NOS3 to restart peer apps, spoof identity, command unrelated hardware, blur operator attribution and resume altered behaviour after reset. The study reports a controlled experiment, not an operational spacecraft breach.

20 August 20266 min read