Space Exploration

Meet REMORA: The Autonomous Space Fleet Built to Tag and Track Asteroids

By Andy Tomaswick - June 11, 2026

To truly understand what an asteroid is made up of, we need to send a probe to it. Remote sensing from ground-based telescopes, or even orbiting observatories, and only do so much. A new white paper submitted to the UK Space Agency’s 2035 Space Frontiers programme, pitches just such a mission architecture. Called the REndezvous Mission for Orbital Reconstruction of Asteroids (REMORA), the plan calls for a swarm of autonomous CubeSats to tag, track, and characterize multiple near-Earth asteroids.

Building in Space With Laser "Origami"

By Matthew Williams - June 10, 2026

University of Florida researchers are exploring how lasers could help astronauts build structures on the moon using materials already available there, including lunar soil transformed into glass. The work, led by Victoria M. Miller, Ph.D., an associate professor in the Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering and researcher with the UF Astraeus Space Institute, recently completed a research phase focused on laser forming, a manufacturing process that bends materials without physical contact.

The SETI Institute Releases Technosignature Report on 3I/ATLAS

By Matthew Williams - June 06, 2026

Scientists at the SETI Institute searched for technological signals from 3I/ATLAS, the third interstellar object observed in our Solar System. Using the Allen Telescope Array (ATA) at the Hat Creek Radio Observatory in Northern California, the team scanned a wide range of radio frequencies for signs of extraterrestrial technology and found none, as expected based on other astronomical observations showing that the object exhibits natural comet-like composition and behavior. “Eventually, our own Voyager spacecraft will be extraterrestrial artifacts in other stellar systems,” said Dr. Sofia Sheikh, lead author on the paper. “Given that, it is important that we understand the natural distribution of interstellar objects so that we will be able to identify any anomalies that could one day be signs of an artificial interstellar object.” The team observed 3I/ATLAS for more than seven hours with the ATA, covering 1 to 9 gigahertz. This broad range allows scientists to search for narrowband radio signals, which are not produced by in nature and would be evidence of technology.

A “Green” Dual-Mode Engine is About to Give CubeSats the Best of Both Worlds

By Andy Tomaswick - June 06, 2026

Rocket scientists have always faced a trade-off in propulsion technologies. Chemical rockets can provide lots of oomph, but burn through fuel so quickly they can only do so for a few minutes. Electric propulsion, on the other hand, can run for days, but the pushing power they provide is miniscule compared to their chemical cousins. A new paper in the Journal of Propulsion and Power from researchers at MIT describes a system that might be the best of both worlds - a propulsion system that includes an electrospray thruster that uses a chemical rocket propellant, and can seamlessly switch to a chemical rocket when needed.

A Brief-ish History of SETI. Part IX: What Have We Found?

By Matthew Williams - June 04, 2026

In our final installment in the series, we'll examine all the close calls, possible candidates, and instances in which extraterrestrial signals could not be ruled out

Blue Origin Issues Official Statement on New Glenn Explosion

By Matthew Williams - June 02, 2026

Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin is assessing damage to its launch pad after a rocket exploded during a test firing, creating a giant orange fireball seen and felt for miles around.

Blue Origin's Lunar Lander Just Passed Its Toughest Test Yet

By Mark Thompson - May 31, 2026

Before any spacecraft can survive the Moon, it has to survive something almost as brutal, a giant metal chamber in Houston that strips away every molecule of air and swings temperatures from scorching to freezing in minutes. Blue Origin's lunar lander just spent time in exactly that chamber and it came out the other side ready for the real thing.

A Brief-ish History of SETI. Part VIII: Paradox? What Paradox?

By Matthew Williams - May 31, 2026

In recent decades, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) has seen a revival, and future surveys will benefit from new technologies. Similarly, our perception of what technologies an advanced civilization might use has expanded.

The Flash Memory That Space Can't Destroy

By Mark Thompson - May 29, 2026

Every byte of data a spacecraft collects, every image, every reading, every scientific measurement has to survive one of the most hostile environments imaginable. Space is awash with radiation, and that radiation is the silent enemy of conventional data storage. Now, a team of researchers have built a new kind of memory chip that doesn't just tolerate radiation, it laughs in its face. Using a quirk of physics called ferroelectricity, this technology can withstand radiation levels equivalent to 100 million X-rays, and it could transform how we store data on missions heading deeper into the Solar System than we've ever ventured before.

NASA's Next-Generation AI Processor Passes Early Testing

By Matthew Williams - May 25, 2026

As part of a commercial partnership, NASA is developing a sophisticated chip that will give spacecraft the processing capabilities to think for themselves.

A Brief-ish History of SETI. Part VII: Brief Windows and Transcendence

By Matthew Williams - May 24, 2026

Could the "Great Silence" be the result of extraterrestrial civilizations dying out before they can make contact, or will they evolve to the point where communication with them is no longer possible?

Mars Fungi Could Make Red Planet Regolith Fertile for Crops

By Laurence Tognetti, MSc - May 23, 2026

You’re on the fourth human mission to Mars, and you’ve been tasked with establishing the first self-sustaining food crop on a Martian settlement. You’re nervous because you’re using a new type of fungi called beneficial fungi, which you’re told will help enhance Martian regolith, enabling it to be used for growing crops. You were privately told that doing this will not only get a high school named after you, but you will successfully feed future settlers without the need to bring food from Earth. But you really only care about having your name on a high school.

Future Mars Rovers Could Mimic a Swimming Motion to Traverse the Planet's Surface

By Evan Gough - May 20, 2026

Some animals can move efficiently beneath granular surfaces. These include the sandfish (Scincus scincus), a lizard native to the Sahara. It can burrow into the sand and then literally "swim" through the desert sand to hunt or escape predators. German researchers are working on a rover wheel design that mimics that swimming motion. In testing, the wheel system outperformed regular wheels.

Breaking the Martian Sound Barrier

By Andy Tomaswick - May 20, 2026

Ingenuity, the Mars helicopter, which performed the first controlled, powered flight on another planet, was an excellent demonstration of human ingenuity. But it was just that - a demonstrator. The intention with Ingenuity was simply to prove that we could, in fact, fly on another planet. But now we’ve proved that we can, it’s time to do something more useful with that new ability - like do actual science. A new mission designed to do just that recently passed a critical testing milestone, opening the way for future Mars helicopter missions that will make Ingenuity look like our very first steps.

A Brief-ish History of SETI. Part VI: The Great Silence and the Great Filter

By Matthew Williams - May 19, 2026

In the closing decades of the 20th century, several proposed explanations were put forward for why humanity has not yet found evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence in the cosmos.

A Brief-ish History of SETI. Part V: The First Interstellar Messengers

By Matthew Williams - May 18, 2026

During the 1970s, the first interstellar probes were launched, carrying messages specifically designed to be intelligible to extraterrestrial species. The messages were essentially a "message in a bottle" intended for an advanced civilization, should they find the probes someday.

Asteroid 2022 OB5 Spins Too Fast For Current Prospectors Highlighting the Divide Between "Accessible" and "Exploitable"

By Andy Tomaswick - May 18, 2026

Asteroid mining seems simple in theory. A spacecraft flies up to a giant rock in space, scoops out some material, and either processes it on site or returns it back to a huge central processing facility. But in practice, it is certainly not that simple, and a new paper from some Spanish researchers, available in pre-print form on arXiv, showcases one of the reasons why - many small asteroids are spinning ridiculously fast.

New Algorithm Cracks the Asteroid Routing Problem

By Andy Tomaswick - May 18, 2026

The Traveling Salesman is a classic problem in mathematics that requires a solution to the most efficient path to take to visit a given number of cities in the least amount of time. But scale this relatively simple concept up to space travel and the calculation becomes much more complex. Instead of visiting a stationary spot on Earth, when calculating the most efficient path to visit asteroids you must account for the fact they are traveling tens of thousands of miles an hour, and their exact position will change based on when a spacecraft leaves. This is known as the Asteroid Routing Problem, and a new paper from a group of Canadian and European researchers lays out a framework that can find the exact solution to any particular combination of asteroids to be visited.

A Brief-ish History of SETI. Part IV: Arecibo and the WOW! Signal

By Matthew Williams - May 14, 2026

During the 1970s, pioneering experiments were conducted that are known today as Messaging Extraterrestrial Intelligence (METI). At the same time, NASA launched four spacecraft bound for interstellar space, each carrying "messages in a bottle" intended for extraterrestrial beings.

Psyche Spacecraft Spies Mars Ahead of May 15th Gravitational Assist

By David Dickinson - May 13, 2026

A close flyby past the Red Planet this week will send NASA’s Psyche mission on its way towards its final destination. The mission’s closest approach to Mars occurs on Friday, May 15th, when the spacecraft passes only 4,500 kilometers (2,800 miles) from the surface of the Red Planet. That’s just 1.3 Mars radii distant, inside the orbits of Phobos and Deimos.

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