The James Webb Space Telescope team continues to make progress in aligning the observatory's mirrors. Engineers have completed the first stage in this process, called "Segment Image Identification." The resulting image shows that the team has moved each of Webb's 18 primary mirror segments to bring 18 unfocused copies of a single star into a planned hexagonal formation.

With the image array complete, the team has now begun the second phase of alignment: "Segment Alignment." During this stage, the team will correct large positioning errors of the mirror segments and update the alignment of the secondary mirror, making each individual dot of starlight more focused.

NASA's Perseverance rover has notched up a slew of firsts since touching down on Mars one year ago, on Feb. 18, 2021, and the six-wheeled scientist has other important accomplishments in store as it speeds toward its new destination and a new science campaign.

Weighing roughly 1 ton (1,025 kilograms), Perseverance is the heaviest rover ever to touch down on Mars, returning dramatic video of its landing. The rover collected the first rock core samples from another planet (it's carrying six so far), served as an indispensable base station for Ingenuity, the first helicopter on Mars, and tested MOXIE (Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment), the first prototype oxygen generator on the Red Planet.

Perseverance also recently broke a record for the most distance driven by a Mars rover in a single day, traveling almost 1,050 feet (320 meters) on Feb.

On 11 November 2021, ESA astronaut Matthias Maurer was launched to the International Space Station for his first mission, Cosmic Kiss. Around 100 days later, we reflect on some highlights from space.

Matthias flew to the Station on a SpaceX Crew Dragon alongside NASA astronauts and fellow first-time fliers Kayla Barron and Raja Chari, and NASA spaceflight veteran Tom Marshburn. Collectively known as Crew-3, they were welcomed as members of Expedition 66 by Commander Anton Shkaplerov, cosmonaut Pyotr Dubrov and NASA's Mark Vande Hei.

While in orbit, Matthias is supporting over 35 European and many more international experiments. The outcomes of these experiments will advance our knowledge in areas ranging from human health to materials science, physics, Earth observation, technology development and more.

Matthias is expected to spend approximately six months in orbit and there are many more highlights to come. Find out more about the science he's supported to date in this 100 days of Cosmic Kiss science round-up.

NASA has announced plans for the International Space Station (ISS) to be officially decommissioned in 2031. After dozens of launches since 1998 got the station up and into orbit, bringing it down will be a feat of its own—the risks are serious if things go wrong.

NASA's plans for the decommissioning operation will culminate in a fiery plunge into the middle of the Pacific Ocean—a location called Point Nemo, also known as the "spacecraft graveyard," the furthest point from all civilisation.

Finding Point Nemo will be the final stop in a complex and multi-staged mission to transition the operations of the ISS to new commercial space stations, and to bring the remaining structure safely down to Earth.

Originally commissioned for a 15-year lifespan, the ISS is outliving all expectations. It has already been in operation for 21 years, and NASA has given the go-ahead for one more decade, thereby doubling its total planned time in orbit.

Purpose of the ISS