Mars 2022 – Spaceflight Now

January 9, 2026

Breaking News

[ January 9, 2026 ] Crew-11 to cut mission short and return to Earth due to medical issue Mission Reports
[ January 8, 2026 ] SpaceX scrubs midday Starlink mission launch from Cape Canaveral Falcon 9
[ January 7, 2026 ] NASA weighs an earlier end to the Crew-11 mission after a ‘medical situation’ with an ISS crew member postpones first spacewalk of 2026 Mission Reports
[ January 6, 2026 ] Dept. of the Air Force opens bidding for Space Launch Complex 14 at Vandenberg SFB News
[ January 4, 2026 ] SpaceX launches first Starlink deployment mission since problem strikes satellite Falcon 9

NASA developing plans for commercially-built Mars orbiter

July 27, 2016 Stephen Clark

NASA is advancing a plan to send a robotic orbiter to Mars in the early 2020s, developing designs with five U.S. satellite makers for a mission to extend high-resolution mapping capabilities, telecommunications relay functions, and potentially act as a waypoint for Martian soil samples destined for return to Earth.

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.