NASA has approved the Rosalind Franklin Support and Augmentation (ROSA) project and contracted SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy to launch the European Space Agency’s Mars rover in late 2028, even as the White House’s fiscal year 2027 budget proposal would zero out funding for the same project. The $175.7 million launch contract, announced April 16, commits the […]

The post The Rosalind Franklin Paradox: NASA Signs a Launch Contract for a Mission the White House Wants to Kill appeared first on Space Daily.

The U.S. Space Force is asking commercial companies to move faster, build more, and integrate deeper into national security missions — but its own budget keeps telling a different story. That tension sits at the center of a new Space Minds podcast interview with Col. Tim Trimailo, where the service’s industry engagement is framed as […]

The post The Space Force Talks Commercial-First. Its Budget Tells a Different Story appeared first on Space Daily.

The most destabilizing conflicts in long-duration crews aren't about resources or command authority — they're about the social allocation of solitude. Why the role of 'the quiet one' becomes the most contested position on any isolated team, and what it means for Mars.

The post Psychologists studying long-duration crews have found that the hardest conflicts aren’t about tasks or resources. They’re about who gets to be the quiet one. appeared first on Space Daily.

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There's a piece of Cold War infrastructure in the Mojave Desert that has been silent since September 16, 2025, and almost no one outside a small circle of deep space mission planners ha

The post Inside the Deep Space Network: the three dishes that make every interplanetary mission possible and why they’re quietly running out of capacity appeared first on Space Daily.

json { “content”: “ Texas A&M University has reactivated a mothballed NASA centrifuge to create what its operators describe as one of the most capable human space research facilities in the United States, filling a gap that has forced American researchers to run partial-gravity studies overseas for more than a decade. The Anthony Wood ’87 […]

The post A NASA Centrifuge Comes Back to Life, and With It a Rare Chance to Study Astronauts on Earth appeared first on Space Daily.

India assumed the chairmanship of a BRICS bloc that has expanded its membership and shrunk in purpose — and that contradiction is India’s problem now. New Delhi inherits the job of leading an organization whose members cannot agree on what it is, and India’s own foreign policy depends on never answering that question. The country […]

The post India’s BRICS Year: Inheriting a Bloc That Cannot Decide What It Wants to Be appeared first on Space Daily.

Displaced Lebanese families began returning to southern Lebanon this week to find ruined homes, active Israeli bulldozers and reports of a newly drawn buffer zone affecting dozens of towns and villages. A temporary ceasefire that reportedly took effect in mid-April has not stopped Israeli military operations, and diplomats on both sides concede the pause is […]

The post Ceasefire on Paper: Why Demolitions Continue in Lebanon’s Buffer Zone appeared first on Space Daily.

NASA just paid SpaceX $175 million to launch a Mars rover that the White House is simultaneously trying to kill. The contract, announced in April by NASA, sends Europe’s Rosalind Franklin rover to Mars aboard a Falcon Heavy in late 2028 — marking the first time Elon Musk’s company will deliver a payload to the […]

The post NASA Signs $175M SpaceX Mars Deal That the White House Is Trying to Kill appeared first on Space Daily.

Brent crude closed Friday in the high $80s per barrel, its lowest level in recent weeks, after Iran’s foreign minister declared the Strait of Hormuz open to commercial shipping for the duration of a 10-day Israel-Lebanon ceasefire. By Saturday morning, Tehran had partially walked the statement back. The oil market’s whipsaw reaction over 24 hours […]

The post Why a 24-Hour Tehran Reversal Sent Oil Markets Into Freefall and Then Back Up appeared first on Space Daily.

Morocco has become the reluctant terminus for Sudanese refugees fleeing a civil war now in its third year, yet the country’s refusal to implement a long-promised asylum law has left thousands in a legal vacuum with no right to work, no state housing, and the constant risk of being pushed back south. The pattern reveals […]

The post Morocco’s Stalled Asylum Law Leaves Sudanese Refugees in Legal Limbo appeared first on Space Daily.