Missions

Japan's Hayabusa2 completed a successful July 5 flyby of asteroid Torifune, passing about 10 km away and returning first optical and thermal images that show a two-lobed contact binary.

ESA's Euclid Q2 release maps 4.8 square degrees of the galactic bulge, previewing Roman's 2027 exoplanet survey.

SpaceX flew the first demo of Starfall, a parachute-recovered capsule that can return 1,000 kg of cargo from orbit, on June 23.

Rocket and aircraft integration is complete for the June 27 air-launch of Katalyst's LINK servicer, riding the final flight of Northrop Grumman's Pegasus XL to reboost the sinking Swift Observatory.

LeoLabs says it detected and cataloged an object released by China's secretive Shenlong space plane, repeating a pattern from earlier missions.

JAXA's extended Hayabusa2 mission will pass roughly 1 km from asteroid Torifune at 5 km/s on July 5, testing guidance for planetary defense.

After a year in transit, Tianwen-2 has rendezvoused with the tiny near-Earth asteroid and will map it before attempting to collect a sample for return to Earth.

NASA will supply the four-instrument Aeolus suite while Relativity Space builds and launches the orbiter under the agency's first six-year reimbursable Space Act Agreement.

NASA has set a firm August 30 launch date for the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, eight months ahead of schedule, as the observatory is packed for its barge trip to Kennedy Space Center.

NASA declared MAVEN unrecoverable on June 3, 2026, six months after the orbiter went silent and was found spinning at 2.7 rpm.

A Nature Communications study argues Kamo'oalewa likely came from the Flora asteroid family, not the Moon, weeks before Tianwen-2 reaches its target.

Shenzhou 23 lifted off May 24 carrying Lai Ka-ying, Hong Kong's first astronaut, with one of the three crew members set for China's first year-long spaceflight.