Space Desk
They remember how they were made
Hubble and Webb’s first joint Trans-Neptunian Object survey finds the smallest icy bodies still look like their larger siblings — and fewer of them than some planet-formation models expected.
Space correspondent
Liora Hale
Space desk
Liora Hale is The Gold Standard's space correspondent. Hale covers astronomy, launch windows and the work of putting hardware into orbit.
Space Desk
Artemis III Got Its Engines
All four RS-25s on the work stand 1 Sep 2026 at KSC VAB for Artemis III core-stage integration. LEO risk-reduction flight NET summer 2027 under Isaacman. Crew: Douglas, Parmitano, Bresnik, Rubio.
Space Desk
Spectrum Flew From Andøya
Isar Aerospace’s second Spectrum flight left Arctic Norway and, on company and EU reporting, reached orbit with customer payloads—Europe’s first commercial orbital success from continental soil.
Space Desk
Meir and Adenot on the hull
U.S. spacewalk 99: 6 h 49 m. Retroreflector on Harmony forward, HD camera on the truss, exterior swab, partial jumpers, AMS radiator prep. Sixth all-female EVA. NASA ISS blog.
Space Desk
The coronagraph is alive
Roman’s Coronagraph powered 7:27–8:22 a.m. Eastern on 1 September. Antenna and visor already deployed. Three-month commissioning. First images early 2027. NASA blogs.
ArchiveSpace Desk
BepiColombo splits on Thursday
ESA’s Mercury Transfer Module separates 3 September 2026 at 14:00 CEST from ESOC Darmstadt. MPO and Mio stay stacked. Science in April 2027.
ArchiveSpace Desk
Roman left 39A at 7:26
Here's the clock: a SpaceX Falcon Heavy lifted NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope from Launch Complex 39A at 7:26 a.m. Eastern on Sunday, 30 August. Three months and about 1.5 million kilometres to a halo orbit around Sun-Earth L2.
ArchiveSpace Desk
NASA’s Starling swarm finds its orbit without GPS
NASA’s 17 August FALCON demo on the Starling CubeSat swarm matched star-tracker sightings to a ~20,000-object catalog, fixed its own orbit, and refined more than 200 others in three days. EraDrive’s Era-Core flew the software.
ArchiveSpace Desk
Roman is on Falcon Heavy, nine months early
NASA and SpaceX are targeting 7:26 a.m. Eastern Sunday from 39A. The readiness date was May 2027. The fairing already says Roman.
ArchiveSpace Desk
A Quiet Golden Age of Amateur Astronomy
Cheap sensors, dark-ish suburbs, and the unfashionable joy of looking up. Sample copy from the Space desk.
ArchiveSpace Desk
The Moon Is Back on the Itinerary
A sample exploration essay: public agencies, commercial landers, and a destination that still deserves a headline.