Mars 2022 – Spaceflight Now

June 7, 2026

Breaking News

[ June 6, 2026 ] SpaceX to launch 2 Starshield satellites during Saturday night Starlink mission Falcon 9
[ 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

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.