Q&A with Earl Maize, Cassini project manager (members only)

Two spacecraft that launched as rideshare payloads on Intuitive Machines’ IM-2 mission are dealing with post-deployment challenges that might put the missions in jeopardy.

Using the sensitivity of the James Webb Space Telescope, astronomers have managed to detect a vast plume of water vapor spewing from the southern pole of Saturn’s moon Enceladus, a jet extending nearly 6,000 miles and feeding a previously detected torus circling the entire planet.

A pair of European-built, NASA-backed research satellites set for launch Tuesday from California will extend 15 years of global gravity field measurements collected by the GRACE mission before it ended last year, supplying scientists with data to help track the melting of Earth’s ice sheets and chart the impacts of floods and droughts.