On its 40th anniversary, we reassess 1986’s SpaceCamp

And into that post-Challenger disillusioned summer of 1986, Hollywood brought us SpaceCamp. It had all the right ingredients: A stacked cast with a solid leading duo (Kate Capshaw and Tom Skerritt), tons of real NASA location footage, and a big, brassy score by none other than John Williams. The film was completed before the Challenger disaster, leaving 20th Century Fox with something of a nightmarish choice on their hands—to shelve the film and lose millions, or send it to theaters and risk a PR disaster.

For better or for worse, Fox chose to release the film, which ultimately made about $9.6 million on a reported $25 million budget. Ouch. Audiences, it seemed, weren’t really interested in watching a bunch of kids in peril on a space shuttle. Today, on the rare occasions SpaceCamp comes up in film discussions at all—usually among geeks of a certain age who encountered it when they were younger—it’s often spoken of with derision. Kids! Robots! Thermal curtain failures! Preposterous!

But is it really a bad movie? It’s not currently available for streaming, but this is exactly the kind of scenario that physical media is made for. And so, with the movie’s 40th anniversary looming, Senior Space Editor Eric Berger and I grabbed the DVD and watched our way through it—and this is what we thought.

Lee: It’s been about 18 hours since we watched SpaceCamp, which is maybe just a bit longer than the kids spent in orbit. What did you think? Are we tearing the film apart here, or praising it?

Eric: We are bearing witness to it, I think. I had never seen the movie before, and as a 53-year-old who has read about and written about space for decades, the movie was clearly not made for me. But for what it was, an ’80s dramedy aimed at kids and teens, I think it did an admirable job of engaging its audience and building interest in the space program. You know, we decided to watch it because I wrote about the real Space Camp a couple of weeks ago, and we’re coming up on the 40th anniversary of the movie’s release in early June. All in all, it was fun to experience.

How about you? You watched it a lot as a kid and were right in the key demographic, a pre-teen in Houston. Does it hold up?

Lee: I damn near wore the VHS tape out watching it as a kid, so yeah, I was coming into this with a lot of old memories. It honestly held up a lot better than I was expecting it to! There’s epic levels of cheese—and we’ll get to that—but even in spite of the cheese, I don’t think anyone can deny that there was a lot of love put into this movie. For every huge detail they get wrong (why does the shuttle keep shaking after MECO?), there are countless minor details that they nail. Tiny stuff, that no one except insiders would notice—shuttle cockpit switch positions, authentic uniform patches, terminology. This was not a B-movie—money and care were spent, and that money and care are visible on-screen.

Eric: There were also some cringeworthy details they missed, though. One jarring example for me was a reference to a “180×33” orbit shortly after Atlantis reaches space. I mean, that’s definitely an orbit. But it’s not a stable orbit. 180 miles is pretty low for an apogee to begin with, and 33 miles is, umm, not great. At perigee the shuttle would experience pretty serious atmospheric braking, rapidly lose energy, and would definitely not be going back up to its apogee. It would meet a bad end. Regarding it being a B-movie, all you have to do is look at the cast, a mix of established actors and young up-and-comers (Joaquin Phoenix, lolwut??!) to know that this was a serious effort. But it had poor timing.

Lee: Poor timing is the understatement of the (last) century. SpaceCamp made its theatrical debut on June 6, 1986, barely four months after the very public destruction of Challenger. A movie about a space near-disaster coming so soon on the heels of an actual space disaster proved to be box office poison—which is unfortunate, because there’s a lot to love about SpaceCamp. Especially if you’re a fan of both “space” and “camp.”

For folks unfamiliar, the film depicts a group of five kids and a rookie astronaut who are accidentally shot into space when a routine main engine test of the orbiter Atlantis goes sideways. (The root cause of the problem is Joaquin Phoenix’s robotic best friend Jinx, which…well, we’ll get to Jinx in a minute.) Stranded in low Earth orbit without a functioning space-to-ground voice link and with dwindling oxygen, it’s up to lone adult astronaut Andie Bergstrom (Kate Capshaw) and her husband, camp director Zach Bergstrom (Tom Skerritt) to bring the stricken shuttle home.

It sounds like an ’80s-flavored recipe for success! And, shot on location at the actual Space Camp facilities in Huntsville and the actual Launch Control Room at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, it should have performed well—except for that pesky real-life shuttle explosion.

Still from SpaceCamp showing the shuttle Atlantis unexpectedly launching — “Welp.” Credit: 20th Century Fox

Eric: What is striking to me is that, despite the movie’s poor timing, it has had a long shelf life. It only came out four years after the actual Space Camp opened in Huntsville, and I’ve spoken with more than one space enthusiast who watched the movie and then signed up for a week in Alabama. In its own way I think the film helped to fuel interest in the space program at a time, the late 1980s and 1990s, when quite frankly there was just not that much exciting happening in human spaceflight. The movie also correctly anticipates NASA having a large space station in orbit, called Daedalus, nearly a decade and a half before one exists. Man, I’ve got to tell you I could not get over the station’s truss design. There was so much metal for no apparent purpose, other than serving the plot I suppose.

Speaking of liberties taken by the writers, shall we talk about the biggest one? As an adult, what did you think about the mechanism by which NASA launched five kids into space?

Lee: THERMAL CURTAIN FAILURE! I’d have to leave it to you as the resident shuttle expert about whether or not there’s a thing called the “thermal curtain” that stops the shuttle’s solid rocket boosters from overheating during a Flight Readiness Firing—or maybe toss that to collectSpace’s Robert Pearlman, who basically knows everything about everything. I remember when I was younger scoffing at the idea that the SRBs would be fueled during a main engine test, but now that I’m older, I’m pretty sure that particular detail is accurate, and that the solid propellants are essentially “manufactured” into the boosters during their refurbishment between flights.

Of course, as noted above, the conversion of “FRF” into “actual launch” is the fault of Jinx, a spherical maintenance robot apparently exhibiting full artificial general intelligence (in 1986, no less!) and seemingly given unrestricted access to the entire space center. Jinx and Max (the aforementioned Joaquin Phoenix, credited as “Leaf Phoenix”) are friends forever, and Jinx conspires with the all-powerful NASA mainframe computer (another runaway AGI!) to arrange a “THERMAL CURTAIN FAILURE.” And just like that, Jinx puts Max in space, along with Bergstrom and four other campers chosen to ride out the FRF on board Atlantis.

I have to wonder if Jinx is supposed to be under the control of a project officer or a principal investigator somewhere, and if that person’s career survived this incident.

What’s your take on the FRF shown in the film? Did NASA do these kinds of tests on the shuttle fleet, and how often?

Still from SpaceCamp showing Jinx the robot — It wouldn’t be an ’80s adventure without a schlocky, dumb robot sidekick. Credit: 20th Century Fox

Eric: Yes, NASA did perform FRFs in the early days of the Space Shuttle program, igniting the main engines on the pad for about 20 seconds. This happened for the first time in February 1981, in advance of the first shuttle launch, and maybe before half a dozen other launches. It’s common practice for a lot of new rockets, but once engineers are comfortable with a vehicle, they typically stop doing them unless there are anomalies to resolve.

Astronauts were typically on board for these tests, so the idea that people would be on the shuttle during a flight readiness firing is plausible. However, I think you and I both know just how restricted access to the Space Shuttle was during the run-up to missions, so “campers” from Space Camp never would have been allowed near the vehicle, let alone on board during such a dynamic test. And don’t get me started on “thermal curtain failure.” The solid rocket boosters were, of course, never ignited during a test like this, and I can’t really see how one of them could be ignited. There are a lot of other plot holes (like the total loss of voice communication with a hapless “Mission Control” being run out of the firing room at KSC), but all in all it’s good fun.

One theme of the movie is the desire of Lea Thompson’s character to become a space shuttle commander, and as part of that she has to learn to rely on other teammates. She also has trouble learning to fly the shuttle during reentry. And this represents the climax of the film, when Thompson (Kathryn Fairly in the movie) must pilot the shuttle during peak heating. How did you feel about this?

Lee: I mean, it’s screenwriting 101: If we seen the gun (or in this case, the multi-axis trainer) on the mantlepiece in Act 1, then chances are that gun’s going to shoot someone by Act 3. We see Thompson’s Fairly struggle with spin recovery on the ground, and so of course Atlantis gets away from her just before re-entry. Contrived, silly, unrealistic, but definitely genre-appropriate!

But like you said at the outset, this movie wasn’t for us, the two old farts who can quote shuttle abort mode procedures at each other—it was for the kid I used to be in 1986, the kid who positively knew he could do a way better job in space than Phoenix’s Star Wars-obsessed Max, if only I’d been given the chance. The movie has faults, giant gaping faults, but it’s also trying to condense a ton of real (or at least reality-adjacent) space flight concepts into forms that are understandable by viewers who can’t tell an AJ10-190 from an RS-25. Which is most people! Some glossing over of the details is expected.

Still from SpaceCamp showing Atlantis approaching Daedalus station — *Atlantis* approaches “Daedalus,” a fictional space station resembling the early ’80s “Power Tower” station concepts. Credit: 20th Century Fox

…though I still don’t like the autonomous AGI-exhibiting robot who can infiltrate NASA systems and launch shuttles at will. Seriously seems like someone would get fired over that.

When the film was done, we talked for a bit about what the aftermath of SpaceCamp might be like, if something as ludicrous as happened in the film had happened in real life. In a lot of ways, gaming that out was as fun as watching the movie. As someone who actively reports on NASA policy, what do you think might have happened if the agency had in fact accidentally shot five American teenagers into LEO?

Eric: What I know for sure is that it would be one hell of a story to cover. Not that I want NASA to accidentally send kids into space, but whooboy that would be extremely fun to dig into as a reporter if they did.

If such a thing happened today, I have to believe the NASA administrator would be fired or resign, and similarly the launch director at Kennedy Space Center. Also whoever was responsible for the SRBs igniting. Then, as you say, there would be the program manager or PI responsible for a robot that, in 1986, can magically communicate wirelessly with NASA’s mainframe. Even R2D2 required a scomp link to plug into computers back in that era’s movies. That person may end up in jail.

It would be devastating for NASA in so many ways, and it would undermine the trust the public has long held in an agency known for having the right stuff. I wish we had seen how the movie handled this, but it cuts to the credits after the shuttle lands in White Sands, New Mexico.

Lee: I’d have to imagine that if anyone comes out of it unscathed, it’d be Capshaw’s Andie Bergstrom, the one adult on board Atlantis. She survived injury and nearly lost her life bringing her crew home; that’s a solid PR opportunity if ever there was one. I’d figure Andie ends up with the Presidential Medal of Freedom or something similar, presented in a big fancy White House ceremony. The presidential speech practically writes itself: “Astronaut Bergstrom represents the highest ideals of the astronaut corps and of America—bravery, dedication to duty, and unwavering resolve…” Also, I’d bet she never flies in space again—her name attached to any shuttle flight from then on becomes a lightning rod of media attention. They probably park her in a senior position where she can be paraded out as needed and otherwise kept quiet.

I also have to imagine that SpaceCamp 2: The Joint Congressional Inquiry would be fascinating, as such things go. Watching the chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation rip Tom Skerritt’s character to shreds on live TV would make for extremely spicy viewing.

Still from SpaceCamp showing Tom Skerrit's character staring at the shuttle launching — You think those flames are hot, Zach? Just wait until Congress comes for you… Credit: 20th Century Fox

Eric: Skerrit’s character was, as best I can tell, an astronaut who had recently flown to space, the head of Space Camp, and also apparently the mission director. He had a lot going on. Safe to say he probably never would be going to space again. Conversely, the delight of the movie for kids of all ages is that it allows us all to imagine, however briefly, how we might act were we accidentally launched into space. Speaking for myself, I’d have to say I’d hope it would be on Crew Dragon, which flies autonomously, and does so very well.

Lee: Coming back to the movie after decades away, I enjoyed it a hell of a lot more than I thought I would. It’s fun, it’s silly, and the inaccuracies ultimately serve the audience and solve narrative problems. Could they have tried harder? Sure—but it was the ’80s, and the cinematic bar for realism in summer blockbusters-to-be was, shall we say, perhaps a bit lower than today. I give the movie a final rating of two flaming SRBs up (which is a good rating on the flaming SRB scale that I just invented). Any final words from our space editor?

Eric: The movie was campy fun—see what I did there? I’m glad to have finally watched it, and I’m glad I’ll probably never watch it again. If I’m going to spend a couple of hours with a space-based movie that stretches the bounds of reality, give me Gravity.

https://arstechnica.com/culture/2026/05/on-its-40th-anniversary-we-reassess-1986s-spacecamp/

Rocket Report: A dark day for Blue Origin; Pentagon eyes new launch site

Worst practices… The recent growth of Chinese upper stages has been driven by the country’s increased launch rate as it begins to deploy satellite megaconstellations, Shell said. China’s space industry is just at the beginning of launching megaconstellations to compete with SpaceX’s Starlink satellite service, suggesting that if the country does not curb this practice, it will deteriorate an already congested space environment. Chinese constellations such as Guowang and Spacesail are typically at higher altitudes, above 800 km, and China may launch 1,000 or more rockets over the next decade to support these constellations. That’s a lot of new junk if the trend continues.

DARPA, Voyager team up on solid rocket motors. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has awarded Voyager Technologies a $16.5 million contract to continue development of a solid rocket motor thrust-control technology designed to make missile propulsion systems more adaptable across different missions and weapons programs, Space News reports. The contract is part of DARPA’s “Burn n’ Go” program. Solid rocket motors are used for a wide range of applications, from tactical missiles to space launch vehicles. The upside for solid rocket motors is their reliability and manufacturability. Solid rocket motors can vary their thrust, but these thrust profiles are predetermined by propellant grain patterns and the dimensions of the motor. In other words, the thrust profiles are locked in once the motor is manufactured. Unlike liquid-fueled rocket engines, solid-fueled rockets typically can’t be throttled up or down on the fly.

It’s in the propellant… Voyager is working with DARPA on a new “propellant-embedded” method of controlling the thrust of solid rocket motors after they are manufactured. The recent contract is for Phase 2 of the Burn n’ Go program. During Phase 1, Voyager worked on architecture concepts and preliminary designs. Voyager’s Phase 2 contract will culminate in “tailorable SRM hot-fire demonstrations,” the company said in a press release. “This award reflects confidence in our ability to translate advanced propulsion technologies into field-ready capabilities that support US national readiness and deterrence,” said Matt Magaña, president of space, defense, and national security programs at Voyager. “Our approach is designed not only to demonstrate performance gains at the system level, but to establish a credible path to industrialization that can reshape how solid rocket motors are produced, mission tailored and controlled.”

https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/05/rocket-report-blue-origin-suffers-setback-spacexs-falcon-9-wins-new-business/

Here’s why the failure of Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket is so catastrophic

Could Blue Moon Mark 1 launch on other rockets? SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy and United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan vehicles both likely have the lift capacity to push the vehicle to the Moon. But Vulcan is also sidelined at present and has a long line of Space Force payloads in the queue. So what of Falcon Heavy?

The Mark 1 lander is powered by the BE-7 engine, which runs on liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen. There may be compatibility issues related to the Falcon rocket’s kerosene-powered upper stage, although this has not been confirmed. Also, it is unlikely that Blue Origin would partner with a direct rival, SpaceX, in this manner.

Artemis program

Due to the Mark 1 issues outlined above, there will either be significant delays to, or the need to restructure the early phases of, the Moon Base program. The lunar rovers under development by Astrolab and Lunar Outpost, for example, have a mass of about 1 ton. Only Mark 1 and SpaceX’s Starship have that kind of delivery capacity.

There are also major implications for the main Artemis crewed missions.

NASA recently changed Artemis III to become a mission that will see the Orion spacecraft rendezvous with one or both of the Human Landing Systems under development by Blue Origin (Blue Moon) and SpaceX (Starship) in low-Earth orbit. NASA appears determined to launch this mission in 2027 and plans to announce its four crew members in a couple of weeks.

But it’s now all but certain that a Blue Moon lander will not be ready for such a mission within the next 18 months. NASA will need to decide whether to wait on Blue Origin or press ahead solely with a Starship mission.

As for Artemis IV, the lunar landing mission, this failure further complicates that plan. It is difficult to imagine a scenario in which a crew-rated Blue Moon lander is ready at any point in 2028 now. Even if the hardware is far along, Blue Origin still needs to fly test missions with Blue Moon Mark 1, which are on hold indefinitely.

A number of senior NASA officials had come to view Blue Origin’s plan to use a slimmed down version of the Mark 2 lander, which would not require in-space refueling, as the prime option for Artemis IV. Now, like much of the US space industry, NASA finds itself highly dependent on SpaceX’s ability to deliver with Starship.

Note: This article has been edited to clarify interoperability issues between the Blue Moon Mark 1 lander and the Falcon Heavy rocket.

https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/05/heres-why-the-failure-of-blue-origins-new-glenn-rocket-is-so-catastrophic/

The most spectacular rocket explosion since N1 just happened in Florida

Then there is the larger Blue Moon Mark 2 lander, which is due to fly on a larger and more powerful version of the New Glenn rocket with nine first stage engines, known as 9×4. NASA is counting on the Mark 2 lander, alongside SpaceX’s Starship vehicle, to carry humans to the Moon on a regular basis—and soon.

Pad infrastructure severely damaged

It is too early to determine the impacts from this failure, but they will be considerable. Early reports from sources suggest that the launch infrastructure at LC-36A is severely damaged. A source indicated that one of the lightning towers may not be salvageable, and that the transporter-erector may also be damaged beyond repair.

The company recently began construction on a second New Glenn launch site nearby, LC-36B. However, the work there is in its early stages. It is possible, however, that completing this new launch tower may be faster than rebuilding LC-36A. New Glenn almost certainly will not launch again in 2026, and frankly a launch during the first half of 2027 would be heroic given the launch site concerns.

Blue Origin has been doing a lot of developmental work on the larger 9×4 rocket, which is expected to become the workhorse of the fleet over the smaller 7×2 rocket variant that exploded on Thursday evening in Florida. It is possible that the company now throws all of its efforts into completing work on this larger rocket.

Bezos, who made his fortune from Amazon, has largely funded Blue Origin since its founding a quarter of a century ago. He has put tens of billions of dollars into the company. Fortunately for Blue Origin, he has the financial wherewithal to sustain the company through this failure and to accelerate its recovery efforts. NASA, too, will be very keen to see Blue Origin get back on its feet as expeditiously as possible.

If there’s a small silver lining, it’s that the rocket that exploded Thursday night did not carry its payload of Amazon Leo Internet satellites. They were safe, in a nearby integration facility, awaiting launch.

https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/05/blue-origins-new-glenn-rocket-just-exploded-during-a-static-fire-test/

Engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab make a breakthrough in rotor technology

Engineer Jaakko Karras inspects a next-generation Mars helicopter rotor blade prior to testing it at supersonic speeds in the 25-foot Space Simulator at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in November 2025. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

The first series of tests used a three-bladed rotor design that could be flown on missions after SkyFall. A second test campaign used the actual two-bladed design that will fly on SkyFall. These blades are slightly longer, so they reached the same supersonic speed at a lower rpm. The faster spin resulted in a 30 percent boost in lift capability.

The team pushed rotor tip speeds to Mach 1.08, boosting the Mars vehicle’s lift capability by 30 percent. This breakthrough allows future missions to support heavier scientific payloads, including advanced sensors and larger batteries for extended flight.

“We thought we’d be lucky to hit Mach 1.05, and we reached Mach 1.08 on our last runs. We’re still digging into the data, and there may be even more thrust on the table. These next-gen helicopters are going to be amazing,” said Shannah Withrow-Maser, an aerodynamicist from NASA’s Ames Research Center.

At the same time that engineers are preparing to send more helicopters to Mars, NASA is working on a more massive rotorcraft named Dragonfly destined for Saturn’s moon Titan. Dragonfly will weigh nearly a ton, but flying on more distant Titan poses fewer challenges than on Mars because its atmosphere is thicker than Earth’s.

The only payloads on the Ingenuity helicopter were two cameras: a black-and-white imager for navigation and a higher-resolution color camera. Its longest flight in 2022 covered less than a half-mile and lasted 161 seconds. The aircraft had to land and recharge its batteries using solar arrays, and it used the nearby Perseverance rover as a base station to communicate with ground teams on Earth.

The SkyFall mission won’t have a rover nearby. The helicopters will have to communicate with mission controllers through orbiting relay satellites or a direct-to-Earth link. Future rotorcraft will use larger batteries to enable longer flights. Scientists would like to mount more sophisticated instruments on Mars helicopters to search for things like ice in the Martian soil. All of this will require heavier vehicles.

Breaking the sound barrier without breaking hardware moves us a step closer to fully exploiting this new mode of planetary exploration.

https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/05/engineers-at-nasas-jet-propulsion-lab-make-a-breakthrough-in-rotor-technology/

The US military just released a bunch of UAP files, but there’s no there there

And on Friday, the Department of Defense (which has renamed itself the Department of War without the required authorization from the US Congress) began releasing those files.

So what’s in there? You can see for yourself here. The short answer is “not much.”

Example photo from the UAP files released Friday. Credit: US military

The longer answer is that there are pages and pages of old FBI records, unresolved cases, eyewitness interviews, and the usual grainy, black-and-white images that show dots but nothing remotely conclusive about aliens, alien spaceships, or any alien technology.

In short, there is no truly meaningful evidence here for aliens, alien visitations, alien abductions, or anything like that.

Shocking, we know.

This is not extraordinary evidence

The release doesn’t preclude the possibility that aliens have visited Earth, of course. It’s a massive galaxy, and in recent years, scientists have confirmed that many of the billions of stars in just our Milky Way Galaxy alone have vibrant planetary systems. And there are billions of galaxies. So there are a massive number of worlds out there where life could have evolved and attained sentience and spaceflight capabilities. Perhaps we are alone. Perhaps we live in a “dark forest” universe. We just don’t know.

But we do know that claiming aliens have visited Earth is a major statement. Here, we should remember the words of Carl Sagan: “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.”

The release of files by the US military on Friday is only the beginning. There is more to come. But what we have seen today falls far, far short of extraordinary evidence.

https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/05/the-us-military-just-released-a-bunch-of-uap-files-but-theres-no-there-there/

Rocket Report: Alpha Block 2 coming this summer; Falcon sets booster landing mark

Chosen for impact to humanity … The Falcon 9 team was chosen from a long list of impressive nominees. “In the end, the deciding factor was what we felt like was the team’s impact to humanity,” said Dan Dumbacher, chair of the Neil Armstrong Space Prize selection committee. “Their work has had a very clear impact and a very visible impact.” Hard to disagree with that.

Chinese firm pursues aerodynamic recovery. Chinese commercial launch startup Nayuta Space has completed consecutive Pre-A financing rounds to support development of its unconventional Xuanniao-R rocket concept, Space News reports. The two-stage, 70-meter-long, 3.8m-diameter Xuanniao-R launcher features an aerodynamic deceleration and horizontal landing approach to reusability, with Nayuta targeting a debut test flight of the Xuanniao-R in the first half of 2027.

Probably not going to meet that target … While Nayuta Space claims its aerodynamic deceleration approach can reduce the dependence on a launcher engines’ reignition, propulsive braking, and high-precision control capabilities for vertical recovery, the approach will demand new aerodynamic structures, bringing challenges, including increased weight and complexity. The size of the launcher, the novel and unproven approach, and uncertain funding levels suggest that the 2027 timeline for a debut flight is very ambitious.

New record set for safe booster landings. On Tuesday, SpaceX launched another routine Falcon 9 mission from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, putting yet another batch of Starlink v2-mini satellites into orbit. It was the 611th successful recovery overall of a Falcon booster.

That’s a lot of landings … However, a writer at NASASpaceflight.com, Alex Alcantarilla Romera, noted that this actually represents a significant milestone. With this landing, SpaceX has set a record for consecutive successful booster landings at 268. This matters because with its Starship program, SpaceX ultimately aims to land humans back on Earth via vertical landing, and demonstrating a sustained record of success with this method builds confidence in this technology.

Starship nearing Flight 12. SpaceX on Thursday conducted a 15-second test firing of the Super Heavy booster stage for its Starship launch vehicle, and it appeared to go well based on independent videos of the test. This was a critical test in the campaign to ready the newest iteration of Starship, V3, for its debut launch. SpaceX has not announced a launch date, but mid-May appears possible.

https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/05/rocket-report-flying-past-peak-falcon-9-rocket-lab-revenue-soars/

Artemis II broke Fred Haise’s distance record, but he is happy to pass it on

The bottom line: Astronauts likely won’t exceed Artemis II’s distance from Earth on most lunar landing missions, but it’s conceivable that on some occasions, circumstances will align to propel a crew a little beyond the 252,756-mile mark. The sure bet will come when someone finally takes aim at Mars.

“Big disappointment”

Haise, the only Apollo 13 astronaut still living, didn’t care much for the record he and his crewmates set in 1970. It was a consolation prize, of sorts, for Haise. You probably know the story of Apollo 13’s aborted lunar landing and the around-the-clock, high-stakes effort to bring the crew home.

Still, among the more than 100 billion people who have walked the Earth in human history, the Artemis II astronauts have ventured farther from the cradle than anyone else. Sure, it’s not walking on the Moon, but it’s something more than a piece of trivia.

Haise, 92, spoke with Ars as Artemis II made its way back to Earth earlier this month. We present our conversation below, lightly edited for clarity.

Ars: How closely have you followed the Artemis II mission?

Fred Haise: Not real close. Today, I have not seen anything. I just got home from my great-grandson’s baseball game. I noticed, from their projected flight plan, they’re past the Moon, sort of on their cruise back toward Earth for the reentry. I’ve seen the pictures they’ve shot, which are excellent. They have better cameras and better equipment than we had on Apollo, because it really looks like they got much higher-resolution pictures than we were able to from that altitude.

Ars: I presume this all brings back some memories for you.

Haise: Vaguely. When they splash down Friday, if you go to the next day, Saturday, the 11th, that’s when I launched, 56 years ago. So, yes, I’ve lived several lifetimes, the Shuttle program, then in the business world. It was a long time ago.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/04/artemis-ii-broke-fred-haises-distance-record-but-he-is-happy-to-pass-it-on/

This is who’s developing Golden Dome’s orbital interceptors—if they’re ever built

The US Space Force released a list Friday of a dozen companies working on Space-Based Interceptors for the Pentagon’s Golden Dome initiative, a multilayer defense system to shield US territory from drones and ballistic, hypersonic, and cruise missile attacks.

The roster of Golden Dome Space-Based Interceptor (SBI) contractors, some of which were previously reported, includes Anduril Industries, Booz Allen Hamilton, General Dynamics Mission Systems, GITAI USA, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Quindar, Raytheon, Sci-Tec, SpaceX, True Anomaly, and Turion Space.

The Space Force made 20 individual awards the 12 companies in late 2025 and early 2026 using an acquisition mechanism known as Other Transaction Authority, or OTA, agreements. OTAs allow the Pentagon to bypass federal acquisition regulations and cast a wide net to attract a larger number of potential contractors, and are especially useful for rapid prototyping. That is exactly what the Space Force wants to see with the first phase of the SBI program.

The agreements have a combined value of up to $3.2 billion, and will capitalize on a mix of public and private investment to move SBIs closer to testing in low-Earth orbit.

Officials have not released details of each company’s contribution, but the contractors come to the SBI program with different skill sets. The agreements are for early stage development and tech demos, not for full-scale production, which will come with a significantly higher price tag.

“No additional information will be available at this time due to operational security requirements regarding the SBI program,” the Space Force said in a statement.

The usual players

Some of the companies on the list, such as SpaceX, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman, are well known in the space industry. They seem positioned to become lead or prime contractors. Others, such as Anduril and True Anomaly, are full-stack developers that are newer to the space industry but have lofty ambitions in the national security market. Sci-Tec and Quindar have expertise in software. Turion develops space sensing technology, and GITAI USA had its start as an in-space robotics company.

https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/04/this-is-whos-developing-golden-domes-orbital-interceptors-if-theyre-ever-built/

Well, this is embarrassing: The Lunar Gateway’s primary modules are corroded

“Through these contracts, Thales Alenia Space will call on the full sum of our expertise to expand our knowledge base and push back the frontiers of the cislunar exploration,” Massimo Claudio Comparini, a senior official, said in 2020 when the contracts were announced.

Ars reached out to Thales on Wednesday evening for a comment about the corrosion issues. We received no reply until Friday morning, when a spokesperson said, “We are working on a statement. We will come back to you early next week.”

Northrop Grumman provided a comment within several hours of a request on Wednesday.

The European Space Agency, which was overseeing European contributions to the Gateway, finally offered a comment on Friday. The agency attributed the issue to a “combination of factors,” including materials.

“Following the identification of corrosion on HALO, a comprehensive investigation was promptly initiated,” a European Space Agency spokesperson said. “Preliminary findings indicate that the issue likely results from a combination of factors, including aspects of the forging process, surface treatment, and material properties.”

After the issue was discovered, the European Space Agency established a “tiger team” to investigate. “Based on the investigation and available data, the corrosion issue was understood to be technically manageable and did not constitute a showstopper for I‑HAB, which was, in any case, in better conditions than HALO from [a] corrosion point of view,” the spokesperson said.

The I-HAB module remains under construction and has not yet been delivered to NASA. Its fate remains unclear as European space officials contemplate their participation in the Moon base initiative.

After publication of this story on Friday, Axiom Space confirmed that it has also experienced corrosion issues. In a statement, the company said: “Axiom Space has experienced a similar phenomenon with the first module; we are leveraging the expertise of NASA and Thales Alenia Space to address the issue. Module 1 is on track to launch in 2028.”

https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/04/well-this-is-embarrassing-the-lunar-gateways-primary-modules-are-corroded/