NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is the United States government agency responsible for civil space exploration, aeronautics research, and scientific discovery. Established on July 29, 1958, in response to the Soviet Union's launch of Sputnik, NASA has led American efforts in human spaceflight, planetary science, Earth observation, and astrophysics for over six decades. The agency is composed of four mission directorates—Aeronautics Research, Science, Space Technology, and Human Exploration and Operations—and operates ten field centers across the United States.
NASA's human spaceflight programs progressed from the single-occupant Mercury capsules through the Gemini and Apollo programs, which landed 12 astronauts on the Moon between 1969 and 1972. The Space Shuttle program flew 135 missions from 1981 to 2011, deploying the Hubble Space Telescope, constructing the International Space Station, and launching interplanetary probes. Since the Shuttle's retirement, NASA has developed the Space Launch System and Orion spacecraft for the Artemis program, which aims to return astronauts to the Moon and establish a permanent lunar base. Artemis II completed a crewed lunar flyby in April 2026, sending four astronauts on a 10-day mission around the Moon and setting a new distance record for humans from Earth at 252,756 miles. The crew—Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen—returned to Kennedy Space Center in July 2026 to reunite with their Orion capsule; Wiseman reported that a member of the public had handed him a message reading: "Thank you for reminding us about joy and hope in the universe again."[^c10] In June 2026, NASA announced the four-person Artemis III crew—Commander Randy Bresnik, Pilot Luca Parmitano, and Mission Specialists Andre Douglas and Frank Rubio—for a 2027 Earth-orbit test mission to validate commercial lunar landers ahead of the first planned surface landing on Artemis IV in 2028. The agency formally announced the Moon Base program in May 2026, a three-phase, multi-company initiative: phases 1 and 2 are estimated to cost $20 billion over seven years, with phase 3 expected to cost $10 billion or more, aiming to establish a permanent human outpost at the lunar south pole. On June 30, 2026, NASA awarded approximately $590 million to Astrobotic, Firefly Aerospace, and Intuitive Machines for four new lunar delivery missions in late 2028, each carrying standardized science payloads.[^c2][^c7] In July 2026, Voyager Technologies completed its acquisition of Astrobotic, rebranding it as Voyager Lunar Systems, and secured an additional $298 million CLPS task order for the Peregrine-2 mission to deliver three NASA payloads to the Gruithuisen Domes by 2028. Griffin Mission One (Moon Base II) shipped to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory for environmental testing carrying 10 payloads from NASA, ESA, and commercial customers, targeting launch no earlier than November 2026.[^c12][^c13][^c14] Also in July 2026, NASA terminated the CP-12 CLPS task order with Draper valued at $73 million after repeated lander redesign delays pushed the planned far-side landing mission to 2030 or 2031; NASA had paid $43 million for completed milestones and said it would deliver the three science payloads through other CLPS missions.[^c15][^c16] A New Glenn rocket explosion at Cape Canaveral in May 2026 severely damaged the only launch pad capable of supporting Blue Origin's lunar lander. Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp stated the pad could be repaired within approximately seven months, targeting return to flight by the end of 2026, while NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman clarified that Moon Base missions are not due until 2028, which should be within the pad recovery window. In parallel, NASA's CAPSTONE spacecraft completed all primary and extended mission objectives by June 2026, successfully validating the near-rectilinear halo orbit around the Moon that was designed for the Lunar Gateway, and demonstrating autonomous navigation and software-defined satellite technology for cislunar operations.[^c11] In January 2026, Congress formally cancelled the Mars Sample Return program, ending the top-priority planetary science objective of two consecutive Decadal Surveys.
In astrophysics, the James Webb Space Telescope continued its transformative science program with two major discoveries published in June 2026: the most distant direct mass measurement of a dormant supermassive black hole (6 billion solar masses, 10 billion light-years away, published in Science), and the detection of a galaxy-killing wind from the early universe that may explain why many massive galaxies died young (published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society). In July 2026, astronomers using Hubble and Webb announced the discovery of the first stellar-mass black hole in the globular cluster Omega Centauri—designated oMEGACat BH-2 with a mass of 4.46 solar masses—whose visible companion star orbits once every 94 years, the longest orbital period of any known black hole binary system.[^c17][^c18] The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, NASA's next flagship astrophysics observatory, completed construction in November 2025 and is scheduled for launch on August 30, 2026, aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy from Kennedy Space Center.[^c1] The Habitable Worlds Observatory, designed to directly image Earth-like planets and search for atmospheric biosignatures, received a major funding boost to $150 million in FY 2026 and awarded seven industry contracts to mature its technologies.
Beyond human spaceflight, NASA conducts a broad portfolio of scientific research. Robotic missions have explored every planet in the Solar System, from the Voyager spacecraft in interstellar space—which is expected to reach one light-day from Earth in November 2026—to the Perseverance rover searching for signs of ancient life on Mars. On June 23, 2026, the New Horizons spacecraft awakened after 321 days of hibernation, the longest such period since its launch in 2006, at a distance of 9.5 billion kilometers from Earth, and will begin transmitting scientific data from the edge of the Solar System.[^c4] On July 3, 2026, NASA launched the LINK robotic servicing spacecraft aboard a Pegasus XL rocket to boost the orbit of the aging Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory, extending its operational life through a rapid-response satellite servicing demonstration—after an initial launch attempt on June 26 was aborted due to a software issue.[^c5][^c22] In June 2026, NASA announced a public-private partnership with Relativity Space to send the Aeolus atmospheric science instrument to Mars by 2028, producing the first daily global maps of Martian wind, temperature, dust, and clouds. The agency's Mars Exploration Program, however, faces significant budget pressure: the program has been directed to absorb the SkyFall helicopter payload for the Space Reactor-1 Freedom mission within its existing budget, which will eliminate new Mars mission developments and may force termination of currently operating missions to cover cost overruns.[^c9] Space Reactor-1 Freedom, the first nuclear fission-powered interplanetary spacecraft, will use a 20+ kWe HALEU uranium dioxide fission reactor with a closed Brayton cycle power conversion system and boron carbide shielding, repurposing the Power and Propulsion Element originally built by Lanteris Space Systems for the Lunar Gateway.[^c21] The Dragonfly mission to Titan entered its integration and testing phase in March 2026, and its PICA-D heat shield completed thermal-structural testing at 4,500 degrees Fahrenheit in June 2026. In July 2026, the Dragonfly fuselage was delivered and system integration began, with the rotorcraft massing just shy of 1,000 kg and featuring a redesigned three-blade rotor system to resolve vibration issues.[^c23][^c24][^c25]
The agency also operates over 20 Earth-observing satellites that monitor climate change, severe weather, and natural hazards. On June 30, 2026, NASA astronauts Chris Williams and Jessica Meir completed a 7-hour 20-minute spacewalk to replace a failed wrist joint on Canadarm2, the ISS's robotic arm, restoring its functionality after a May 27 malfunction and marking the 280th spacewalk in support of station assembly and maintenance.[^c3] On the International Space Station, a first-ever medical evacuation was conducted in January 2026, and five astronauts sheltered in a SpaceX Crew Dragon in June 2026 during repairs to the aging Zvezda module's air leak. In July 2026, NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman visited the Baikonur Cosmodrome for the first visit by a NASA chief in eight years, meeting with Roscosmos CEO Dmitry Bakanov and attending the Soyuz MS-29 launch carrying NASA astronaut Anil Menon alongside cosmonauts Pyotr Dubrov and Anna Kikina.[^c19][^c20] In June 2026, SpaceX's CRS-34 Dragon cargo capsule returned to Earth carrying bioprinted organ and cartilage tissue, cryogenic fuel storage data, and DNA-inspired materials for developing new cancer treatments.
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in collaboration with Loft Orbital, successfully tested the NAVI-Orbital AI system onboard the YAM-9 satellite, integrating Google DeepMind's Gemma 3 visual-language model to process natural language queries in orbit and transmit only relevant imagery—achieving 88.2 percent accuracy in classifying terrain types across nearly 8,000 test images and completing two successful orbital observations by July 2026.[^c6] The technology could enable near-real-time global monitoring networks and be adapted for lunar or Martian probes as an intelligent assistant for astronauts.
In June 2026, the House Appropriations Committee advanced a FY2027 funding bill that keeps NASA's topline flat at $24.4 billion but provides $110 million for nuclear thermal propulsion and $50 million for nuclear electric propulsion, including the first dedicated congressional funding for Space Reactor-1 Freedom. By NASA inspector general estimates, each SLS launch costs $2.2 billion, bringing the total per Artemis launch beyond $4 billion including Orion.[^c26] The X-59 experimental aircraft achieved its first supersonic flight on June 5, 2026, reaching Mach 1.1 at 43,400 feet as part of the Quesst mission to enable quiet commercial supersonic flight over land, with the program set to advance to Mach 1.4 mission conditions testing.