- Prada Designs NASA’s Next-Generation Lunar Spacesuit — parametric-architecture.com
The Italian fashion house is collaborating on the next lunar spacesuit for NASA's Artemis program. The design focuses on improved mobility and thermal protection for extended surface operations. Engineers are integrating advanced materials that must withstand extreme temperature swings on the Moon. The suit will support crewed landings planned after the initial Artemis III mission.
- GEO Cancellations Complicate Space Insurance Recovery — SpaceNews
Three geostationary satellites were recently cancelled, reducing expected premiums for insurers. SES disclosed the pullbacks after a period of heavy claims from other losses. Legacy GEO assets had long provided steady income that offset riskier segments of the market. The shortfall now pressures carriers to adjust rates or seek new business lines.
- Chesley Bonestell Dies on June 11, 1986 — Astronomy Magazine
Born in 1888, Bonestell created realistic paintings of space that spanned decades. His best-known work came from the 1952–54 Collier’s series “Man Will Conquer Space Soon!” produced with Wernher von Braun. Those illustrations helped turn speculative ideas into believable engineering targets for the public. His art appeared in many magazines and books through the mid-twentieth century.
- KIOXIA Highlights Flash Storage for Space Exploration — Business Wire
The company is presenting radiation-tolerant memory solutions at HPE Discover Las Vegas 2026. These storage systems target the demanding conditions of AI workloads, hybrid cloud, and deep-space missions. KIOXIA’s technology must handle high radiation levels while maintaining data integrity over long durations. The announcements focus on future hardware for both commercial and government space programs.
- ESA Seeks European Footprints on the Moon After Artemis III — Aviation Week
European Space Agency officials are planning independent lunar surface activities following NASA’s Artemis III landing. The goal is to establish distinct European contributions to exploration infrastructure. Discussions include science instruments and potential logistics support for sustained presence. These efforts build on existing ESA participation in the Artemis program.
- Open Cosmos Seeks Deadline Extension for Broadband Constellation — SpaceNews
The British firm has requested more time to deploy its planned European sovereign broadband network. Launch delays have pushed the original schedule beyond the current regulatory window. The constellation is intended to provide independent connectivity for the continent. Regulators are reviewing the extension request alongside updated deployment milestones.
- Thousands of Nanosatellites Now Orbit Earth — ZME Science
The current population of small satellites has reached several thousand units in low Earth orbit. Most belong to large commercial constellations providing communications or imaging services. Launch rates continue to climb as costs per kilogram fall. Operators are now studying how this density affects collision risk and orbital debris management.
- JWST Pushes Cosmic Lookback to First Stars Era — phys.org
After four years of operations, the James Webb Space Telescope has extended observations to the period when the earliest stars and galaxies formed. UCL astronomer Richard Ellis and collaborators are using the data to trace the initial buildup of cosmic structure. The telescope’s infrared sensitivity allows it to detect light from objects more than 13 billion years old. Follow-up programs are now prioritizing the faintest, most distant sources.
- Why Stars Show Different Colors in Night Sky — Space.com
Star color directly reflects surface temperature, with blue stars hottest and red stars coolest. Observers can estimate temperature by eye once they learn the sequence from blue-white through yellow to orange-red. The article explains how atmospheric conditions and a star’s evolutionary stage also influence perceived hue. Simple backyard observations can therefore reveal basic stellar properties without instruments.
- Australia Revives Molonglo Radio Telescope — Sky & Telescope
The historic Molonglo Observatory has been rescued from retirement and restored for new observations. Engineers have upgraded receivers and signal processing to support modern radio astronomy projects. The telescope’s large collecting area offers sensitivity for surveys of pulsars and transient events. Australian researchers expect the revived facility to contribute to international observing campaigns.
- Moonshot Aims to Grow Food in Space — Yahoo Tech
Experiments are testing crop growth under lunar and microgravity conditions to support long-duration missions. Researchers focus on closed-loop systems that recycle water and nutrients with minimal mass. Early trials use hardy plants that can tolerate radiation and limited light. Success would reduce reliance on resupply missions for future crews.
- ESA Awards Radar Satellite Contracts — SpaceNews
Thales Alenia Space and Airbus Defence and Space received contracts to build next-generation radar satellites for the Copernicus program. The spacecraft will deliver higher-resolution imaging for environmental monitoring and disaster response. Both companies will incorporate advanced synthetic aperture radar technology. The satellites are expected to extend Europe’s Earth-observation capabilities through the 2030s.
- Ariane 6 Gains Upgraded P160C Boosters — European Space Agency
The P160C solid motor replaces the earlier P120C and carries 14 tonnes more propellant. The upgrade delivers roughly 10 percent more performance to orbit for the same rocket configuration. Structural work occurs in Italy, nozzles in France, and igniters in Norway. The first flight with the new motors is scheduled for an upcoming Ariane 6 mission carrying Amazon satellites.
- Long March 5 Launches Classified Satellite — SpaceNews
China’s largest operational rocket placed a classified payload into orbit from Wenchang. A separate commercial launch of the Zhuque-2E vehicle carried test satellites for direct-to-device communications. Both missions advance national and commercial communications infrastructure. The dual launches occurred within hours of each other.
- SpaceX Prepares 24-Starlink Launch from Vandenberg — Spaceflight Now
A Falcon 9 is scheduled to lift 24 Starlink satellites from Vandenberg Space Force Base at 8:05 a.m. PDT. The mission will deploy the satellites into a polar orbit to expand global coverage. Liftoff occurs one day before SpaceX begins public trading on Nasdaq. The launch marks the company’s continued high cadence of constellation replenishment.
Webb’s observations of GLIMPSE-17775 show a black hole still embedded in a dense gas cocoon 1.8 billion years after the Big Bang. The surrounding material absorbs most X-rays, explaining why these “little red dots” appear faint at high energies. Typical growing black holes lack such thick cocoons and therefore shine brightly across multiple wavelengths. The finding adds one more data point to the puzzle of how supermassive black holes assembled so quickly in the early universe. Next, astronomers will search for similar objects to test whether dense cocoons were common at that epoch.
If the Sun were scaled to the size of a basketball sitting in downtown Toronto, the nearest star would still be another basketball roughly 7,000 kilometres away in Vancouver. Star colour works the same way a heated metal bar changes hue: hotter objects emit shorter-wavelength light that our eyes register as blue or white, while cooler ones peak at longer red wavelengths. A star only 3,000 kelvin cooler than the Sun appears noticeably orange; one 10,000 kelvin hotter looks blue-white. The exact shade also shifts as the star ages and its surface temperature changes by hundreds of degrees over millions of years. We can therefore read a star’s temperature, and roughly its mass and age, from a single glance on a clear night. Yet the precise mapping between observed colour and interior structure still contains gaps for stars caught in rapid evolutionary phases.
Space keeps delivering new pieces to long-standing puzzles.
