Space Systems

Flying on Mars isn't just hard, it may be the hardest thing you can do in aerospace engineering – and NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab in California has just broken through one of its biggest barriers yet.

The US space agency's latest breakthrough in experimental drives passed a major test in February, with experiments showing it was 25 times more powerful than the current king of ion drive technology, Psyche.

Any rubble from a partially-destroyed asteroid could still threaten humanity, so we really need a way to detect killer asteroids on collision-course for Earth while we still have time to stop them.

If an alien in Alpha Centauri were craving pizza, it’d take millennia to deliver it using today’s technology. Researchers may have developed a technology that would one day reduce delivery to a mere 20 years, using nothing but light for propulsion.

On April 23, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) launched several satellites into low-Earth orbit including a 10-cm (3.9-inch) "origami" cube satellite with a reflectarray antenna that unfurls, origami-like, to 25 times its size when folded.

Humanity took its first step back to the Moon after 53 years as the US Artemis II circumlunar mission lifted off from the Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Complex 39B in Florida at 6:35 PM EDT with four astronauts aboard.

SpaceX's Starlink communications satellite constellation is doing double duty as the company announces that it's moonlighting as the Stargaze Space Situational Awareness system that can track and manage traffic in low Earth orbit.

China showed off its ambitions for space in the 21st century as its first reusable heavy booster, the ZhuQue-3 (ZQ-3) Y1 from the Landspace company, conducted its first static firing at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China.

In a bit of an oops, Australia's return to space after almost 54 years hasn't exactly gone to plan. On July 30, 2025 at the Bowen Orbital Spaceport in North Queensland, Gilmour Space Technologies' Eris rocket crashed just 14 seconds after launch.

Northrop Grumman has successfully ground tested the motor that could be used for the historic first orbital rocket launch from another planet. The solid rocket booster is intended to help return the first geological samples from the planet Mars.

Maybe cars, trucks, and motorcycles aren't exciting enough, because Honda is moving into space vehicles. The company has announced that it has successfully flown a reusable rocket to an altitude of almost 300 m (1,000 ft) and then safely landed it.

Satellites could have a longer life and space become a bit tidier if Starfish Space's Otter Pup 2 mission pans out. Scheduled to launch later this year, it aims to demonstrate how a small craft can dock with unprepared satellites for service or disposal.

Given the fact that satellites orbit amongst one another at thousands of miles per hour, it's important to know exactly how fast they're going. A new device offers an improved way of doing so, and it's appropriately named the Spacecraft Speedometer.

It seems too good to be true, but UK-based Pulsar Fusion has revealed its new Sunbird self-contained nuclear rocket tug that uses a fusion propulsion engine that could reduce a trip to Mars to under four months and Pluto to under four years.

Northrop Grumman has written a new line in the history books, the company's Mission Extension Vehicle 1 (MEV-1) executing the first undocking of two commercial satellites in geosynchronous earth orbit (GEO) – heralding a new age of commercial space operations.