JPL – Spaceflight Now

June 5, 2026

Breaking News

[ June 5, 2026 ] NASA crew briefly shelters inside Dragon capsule as Russia addresses new space station leaks Mission Reports
[ June 4, 2026 ] NASA head urges new launcher for Blue Origin’s moon landers to meet Artemis mission deadlines Moon Base
[ June 3, 2026 ] SpaceX launches 24 Starlink satellites on Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Falcon 9
[ June 3, 2026 ] Blue Origin vows to resume New Glenn flights by year’s end Mission Reports
[ June 3, 2026 ] SpaceX launches sunrise Starlink mission following weather scrub Falcon 9

NASA eyes ion engines for Mars orbiter launching in 2022

March 3, 2015 Stephen Clark

NASA officials want the agency’s next Mars orbiter to pull double duty as a communications relay station for a fleet of surface landers and as a trailblazer for a future round-trip sample return mission and human expeditions to the red planet.

Rover data suggest Mars crater once contained long-lived lake

December 10, 2014 Stephen Clark

Scientists analyzing imagery from NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover believe sediments left by an ancient lake more than three billion years ago formed a towering mountain that is set to be the robot’s research subject for the rest of its mission on the red planet.