Loft Orbital's YAM-9 spacecraft successfully demonstrated the first publicly disclosed execution of a vision-language model in orbit. Aboard the spacecraft, Google DeepMind's Gemma 3 performed natural language queries, classified Earth imagery, and produced plain-English summaries without transmitting raw pixels to the ground. This achievement marks a significant shift in the value layer of Earth observation, moving from ground-based processing to onboard inference capabilities. The model, running on an Nvidia Jetson Orin AGX graphics processing unit, utilized a [...]

NASA has officially begun decommissioning the MAVEN orbiter, marking the end of an 11-year mission that significantly advanced scientists' understanding of Mars. The spacecraft lost contact in December 2025 after a routine communications blackout, and despite months of recovery efforts, it was determined that MAVEN was not recoverable. The mission, which was originally planned to last two years, far exceeded its goals, providing crucial insights into Mars' atmosphere, including the impact of solar storms on atmospheric gas [...]

Dawn Aerospace has secured $25 million in funding to scale up its work in in-space transportation and suborbital spaceplanes. The company, valued at $196 million, plans to use the funding for a global rollout of its services, establishing teams in the United States and Europe. Dawn currently sells thrusters for spacecraft and has grown its annual revenue from $3 million in 2022 to $15 million, with the company now cash-flow positive. The company is developing an in-space [...]

NASA's Artemis 2 astronauts have completed the first crewed lunar orbit in 50 years, marking a new era of returning to the moon. The moon is no longer just a place of scientific curiosity, but America's next great economic frontier, with its surface holding valuable resources such as water ice, hydrogen, and helium-3. Commercial space companies like Firefly Aerospace are already involved, with plans for repeatable missions to the moon, including a mission to the far side [...]

A European Ariane 6 rocket is set to launch a record-breaking 36 Amazon Leo satellites to orbit from French Guiana on June 17. The mission will be the 14th Amazon Leo launch and the third performed by an Ariane 6, breaking new ground with the heaviest payload ever launched by the Ariane launcher. The Ariane 6 will deploy the satellites about 289 miles above Earth, with all 36 expected to be flying freely by one hour and

Switzerland has decided not to participate in the European Union's Copernicus Earth observation program during the 2028-2034 funding cycle, citing financial strains. The decision keeps Switzerland outside one of Europe's flagship space programs. The program operates under a free, full, and open data policy, but some components remain restricted to EU member states and contributing countries. The Swiss government may review the decision again in 2032. The decision has revived a broader debate over the value of [...]

Astronomers using NASA's Chandra X-ray spacecraft have captured the most detailed image yet of a jet erupting from the supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy Messier 87 (M87). This black hole, with a mass 6.5 billion times that of the sun, was the first to be imaged by humanity in 2019. The X-ray image reveals a complex flow of material through the jets, with some structures moving at speeds that appear to be five [...]