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October 2026
Section: Tech ✕ Reset
NEO Surveyor’s Sunshade Moves Closer to Flight Form
NASA’s asteroid-hunting spacecraft has reached a significant hardware milestone with the integration and testing of solar cells on its towering sunshade. The component will both power the observatory and protect its infrared telescope from solar glare.
Mike Lippert Makes His X-59 Flight Debut
NASA test pilot Mike Lippert flew the X-59 for the first time on October 21, reaching Mach 1.4 at 55,000 feet. The one-hour sortie combined a personal milestone with systems and handling checks after scheduled maintenance.
ISS Crew Links Laboratory Work With the Next Phase of Lunar Exploration
Expedition 75 closed its week with vascular bioprinting, containerless furnace research and preparations for an October 29 spacewalk. NASA also placed the station’s work within its broader effort to return astronauts to the lunar surface by 2028.
ISS Crew Combines Bioprinting with Spacewalk Preparations
Expedition 75 astronauts carried out vascular tissue printing, spacesuit checks, robotics practice and Earth imaging during a tightly coordinated orbital workday. The preparations also supported a spacewalk scheduled for October 29 to install a roll-out solar array.
ISS Crew Links Bioprinting Research With Power-System Preparations
Expedition 75 used microgravity to study vascular tissue, cancer cells and exercise mechanics while preparing equipment for two planned spacewalks. The day’s work illustrated the station’s dual role as a biomedical laboratory and an engineering test bed.
NASA puts commercial space-relay networks to an orbital test
Two NASA-backed demonstrations reached low Earth orbit on SpaceX’s Bandwagon-5 rideshare. Viasat and SES are expected to test distinct combinations of high-rate, low-rate, and multi-orbit communications.
Student CubeSats Head to Space Station for Open Communications Tests
PROVES-Maia and PROVES-Taygeta were launched aboard SpaceX’s 35th NASA resupply flight. The university missions combine hands-on spacecraft training with amateur radio, radiation sensing, and planned intersatellite networking experiments.
X-59’s first-flight pilot earns Kincheloe Award
NASA test pilot Nils Larson was honored for guiding the X-59 through its maiden flight and safely extending its envelope to Mach 1.4 at 55,000 feet. The award marked the first recognition of a NASA flight-test project in 44 years.
Three NASA-backed small spacecraft put propulsion, cosmic evolution and orbital inspection to the test
The Transporter-18 launch carried a trio of missions whose ambitions extend far beyond their compact hardware. Together, ASCENT, SPRITE and SSPICY will test dual-mode propulsion, probe ultraviolet processes in galaxies and rehearse autonomous inspections of defunct satellites.
Webb Turns a Masked Mirror Into a Precision Cosmic Interferometer
A specialized observing mode is extracting information below the scale of conventional Webb images. Results from a dusty binary, two forming planets and Jupiter’s moon Io show both the reach and the complexity of the technique.
Humanoid Robots Gain Better Balance and Motion Control
Advances in sensing, simulation and adaptive control are enabling humanoid machines to move with greater stability and precision in changing environments.