Mars 2022 – Spaceflight Now

April 20, 2026

Breaking News

[ April 19, 2026 ] Live Coverage: Third flight of Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket to feature 1st reuse of booster Mission Reports
[ April 18, 2026 ] Live coverage: SpaceX to attempt 600th Falcon booster landing amid West Coast Starlink mission Falcon 9
[ April 16, 2026 ] Blue Origin hot fires its first previously flown booster, prepares for weekend launch Mission Reports
[ April 15, 2026 ] Blue Origin one step closer to launching New Glenn from Vandenberg Space Force Base New Glenn
[ April 15, 2026 ] West Coast SpaceX Falcon 9 mission launches 25 Starlink satellites 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.