Space & Aerospace
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NASA JPL Fires Up 120-Kilowatt Lithium-Fed Magnetoplasmadynamic Thruster, a 25x Power Leap Over the Psyche Engines
On Feb. 24, a JPL-led team ran a lithium-vapor magnetoplasmadynamic thruster at 120 kilowatts inside the CoMeT vacuum chamber, more than 25 times the power of the electric engines on NASA's Psyche spacecraft.
NASA's Psyche Spacecraft Prepares for May 15 Mars Flyby, Using the Planet's Gravity to Save Propellant on the Way to a Metal Asteroid
Psyche will pass 4,500 kilometers above Mars on May 15 at 12,333 mph, harnessing the planet's gravity to redirect itself toward the metal-rich asteroid Psyche and calibrate its imager, magnetometer, and gamma-ray spectrometer.
Astranis Closes $450 Million Series E and Credit Facility at $2.8 Billion Valuation to Scale Small-GEO Satellite Production
Astranis raised $300M Series E plus $155M Trinity Capital credit facility at a $2.8B valuation, scaling micro-GEO satellite output for U.S. defense Programs of Record and sovereign telecom customers in Taiwan and Oman.
Katalyst Wraps Environmental Testing of LINK Servicer Clearing the Way for a June Pegasus XL Launch to Save NASA's Swift Observatory
Katalyst Space Technologies finished thermal-vacuum and vibration testing of its LINK servicing spacecraft at NASA Goddard on May 4, 2026, on track for a June Pegasus XL launch to raise the Swift Observatory's decaying orbit.
Rocket Lab Books More Launches in Q1 Than All of 2025, Adds $30M Anduril HASTE Deal, Space Force Interceptor Pick, and Motiv Robotics Buyout
Rocket Lab disclosed 31 new launch contracts plus five Neutron flights in the first quarter, then stacked three same-day announcements: an Anduril hypersonics order, a Raytheon-paired Space Force selection, and a Mars-veteran robotics acquisition.
Skyroot Aerospace Becomes India's First Space-Tech Unicorn With $60 Million Round Ahead of Vikram-1 Maiden Orbital Launch
Hyderabad-based Skyroot raised $60 million co-led by GIC and Sherpalo Ventures at a $1.1 billion valuation, with Vikram-1's first orbital flight targeted for June 2026.
ICARUS 2.0 Launches RAVEN, the First Independent European Satellite Built to Track Small Animals From Space
RAVEN, a shoebox-sized CubeSat receiver, rode SpaceX's CAS500-2 rideshare to orbit on May 3 as the first dedicated satellite of the Max Planck-led ICARUS 2.0 wildlife-tracking constellation — three years after Germany ended ISS cooperation with Russia.
GalaxEye Launches World's First OptoSAR Satellite Aboard SpaceX Falcon 9, Marking India's Largest Privately Built Earth Observation Spacecraft
Bengaluru-based GalaxEye flew Mission Drishti, a 190-kilogram OptoSAR satellite fusing radar and multispectral optics, on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rideshare from Vandenberg.
Ireland Becomes 65th Country to Sign Artemis Accords as NASA Extends Civil Space Coalition
Ireland signs the Artemis Accords at NASA Headquarters on May 4, 2026, joining a coalition that reached 64 countries with Morocco's accession days earlier and continuing a rapid spring of new signatories.
JWST Maps Buckyballs Concentrated in a Thin Spherical Shell Around a Dying Star, 16 Years After Their First Detection in Space
A Western University team led by Jan Cami used JWST's MIRI instrument to image planetary nebula Tc 1, finding C60 buckyballs confined to a hollow shell around the white dwarf and revealing an unexplained question-mark structure at the center.
Princeton's T16 Pipeline Mines NASA's TESS Archive for 10,091 New Exoplanet Candidates, More Than Doubling the Mission's Tally
A Princeton-led reanalysis of 83.7 million TESS light curves used random forest classifiers to surface 11,554 planet candidates, including one confirmed hot Jupiter, by reaching stars 16 times fainter than prior searches.
China's Orbital Chenguang Lines Up $8.4 Billion to Build a Gigawatt Data Center in Sun-Synchronous Orbit
Beijing-backed Orbital Chenguang secured $8.4 billion in credit lines from twelve Chinese banks to build a gigawatt-scale orbital computing constellation by 2035, opening a state-aligned third front against SpaceX and Blue Origin in the race to put AI compute in orbit.