Tokyo, Japan (SPX) Feb 18, 2026
Pale Blue has begun operating its new Tsukuba Production Engineering Base to support mass production of satellite propulsion systems and shorten delivery lead times. The Tsukuba Production Engineering Base in Tsukuba, Ibaraki Prefecture, centralizes the full product lifecycle from technical development for mass production through manufacturing, final inspection, and global shipping. By bri

Berlin, Germany (SPX) Feb 18, 2026
Hyperion will move KSATs HYPER concept from design into on orbit demonstration, using relay satellites to act as ground stations in space and shorten the time it takes operators to receive satellite data when speed is critical. Announced at the SmallSat Symposium in Silicon Valley, the Hyperion mission will extend KSATs global ground network into low Earth orbit and test how an in orbit re

Pasadena CA (JPL) Feb 17, 2026
The results from our first visit to the "Nevado Sajama" drill location were intriguing enough to motivate our return to do a deeper dive into the minerals and compounds locked in this rock with SAM (the Sample Analysis at Mars instrument suite). As explained in the last blog, that deeper dive involves using the second of two vials of a chemical reagent, tetramethylammonium hydroxide (TMAH)

Kourou (AFP) Feb 18, 2026
"Stop. Danger of death. Work in progress." This sign, written in Russian, is still hanging inside an office at the site where Russia once launched its Soyuz rockets from Europe's spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana. However the jungle has been slowly reclaiming the launchpad on South America's northeastern coast ever since Russia hastily left in the aftermath of invading Ukraine in Februa

Sydney, Australia (SPX) Feb 17, 2026
NASA is preparing for the second wet dress rehearsal of the Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft ahead of the Artemis II test flight, targeting Thursday, Feb. 19, as the day to load propellants into the vehicle at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Teams spent the weekend replacing a filter in ground support equipment that was suspected of restricting liquid hydrogen flow during a

Los Angeles CA (SPX) Feb 17, 2026
Hypersonica has completed its first hypersonic test flight at Andoya Space in Norway, marking what the company describes as a major step toward a European sovereign hypersonic strike capability by 2029. The Anglo-German defense and aerospace company reported that its missile prototype accelerated to speeds above Mach 6 and flew more than 300 kilometers during the mission. All systems perfo

Sydney, Australia (SPX) Feb 19, 2026
For more than sixty years, astronomers have searched the sky for signs of advanced extraterrestrial technology, scanning the Milky Way for artificial radio transmissions, optical flashes and excess infrared heat. Despite these efforts, no technosignature has been confirmed so far, a silence often attributed to the fact that only a tiny fraction of the cosmic search space has been explored.

Employing NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope in combination with ESA Euclid and ground-based NAOJ Subaru Telescope, astronomers identified a galaxy that appears to be almost entirely dominated by dark matter with only a smattering of stars. The galaxy, known as Candidate Dark Galaxy-2 (CDG-2), appears to contain just four globular star clusters (compared to the Milky Way’s 150-plus), and dimly shines with the light of only about 1 million Suns.