“Russia remains a capable space power, even while its space industry suffers from systemic underfunding, quality control issues, international sanctions, and export controls,” US intelligence agencies wrote in their annual unclassified threat assessment released earlier this year.

Russia’s space industry has far less money than the US and Chinese space programs. Russian factories produce fewer satellites, and Russian rockets launch less often than the world’s other two leading space powers. But Russia seems to have a unique theory for the use of anti-satellite, or ASAT, weapons.

Whiting said Russia “has come to the conclusion that they’re a conventional arms deficit” compared to the United States and its NATO allies. Russian forces are seeking to get an asymmetric advantage anywhere they can.

“They’re looking for novel ways to try to balance that correlation of forces, to use a Soviet term,” Whiting said. “So they’re looking at nuclear, cyber, and space, and that’s why, when we read the reports over the last two years that Russia may be considering placing a nuclear ASAT on orbit, we find those just incredibly troubling.”

US forces rely on space-based assets for all major military operations. Satellite capabilities, such as overhead surveillance, navigation, missile warning, and electronic warfare, are now “fully nested in” all military planning. If you take away any of these capabilities, US forces “cannot fight the way they are designed or sized,” Whiting said.

“We’ve noted that the Chinese and the Russians have studied us since Desert Storm (in 1991),” Whiting said. “They deeply have tried to understand how is it that the United States is able to create such global effects with what appears to be such small number of forces, and they’ve assessed that space is one of those foundational issues. So now they have developed a suite of counter-space weapons.”

The United States, China, Russia, and India have each demonstrated the ability to destroy a low-Earth orbit (LEO) satellite using a ground-launched missile. Russia’s development of co-orbital ASAT, or counter-space, weapons has long focused on LEO. That may be changing with the launch of a suspected Nivelir or similar mission last year toward geosynchronous orbit more than 20,000 miles above Earth.

https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/04/us-space-command-russia-is-now-operationalizing-co-orbital-asat-weapons/

Scientifically, it will be used to image exoplanets in distant orbits from their stars. But it also serves an engineering purpose: starting the development of a coronagraph for the planned Habitable Worlds Observatory that will need to be 100 times more effective at blocking out stars.

Compared to something like the Webb Telescope, Roman is also delightfully simple. It has relatively few moving parts that need to be deployed once in space, and those that exist, like the solar arrays and high-gain antenna, are simple spring-loaded devices. Once latches are released, they’ll simply open into place, a process that NASA’s Melton said will start as soon as 20 minutes after the NGRST separates from the launch vehicle. Commissioning is planned to take only 90 days, and Melton told Ars that it could be doing science before it completes the final burn to put it into orbit around the L2 Lagrange point.

He said the fuel needed to keep it in orbit will be the primary factor limiting the observatory’s life. Using very conservative estimates of its rate of use, NGRST will be sent to space with 10 years of fuel, so barring a major hardware failure, it’s likely to be operational for quite a bit longer.

What will we be looking for?

One of the key targets of the NGRST surveys is what are called baryon acoustic oscillations. In the extremely early Universe, matter was dense enough that sound waves could create interference patterns in the material, with areas forming that had higher or lower densities than average. As the Universe expanded, these patterns were frozen into place and ultimately formed regions with a higher or lower density of galaxies.

Identifying these patterns at large scales can tell us about the composition of the Universe, including the factors that shape most of its structure: dark matter and dark energy. Tracking how they evolve over time could also help us determine whether dark energy is changing with time rather than being in constant acceleration. There have been hints that some details of our understanding of these factors are wrong, and the NGRST will provide an independent measure of them.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/04/eight-months-early-and-under-budget-the-roman-telescope-is-ready-to-launch/

The Pentagon has canceled a ground control system for the US military’s GPS satellite navigation network after the program’s enduring problems “proved insurmountable,” the US Space Force announced in a press release Monday.

The Global Positioning System Next-Generation Operational Control System, known by the acronym OCX, was officially canceled by Michael Duffey, the Pentagon’s defense acquisition executive, on Friday, April 17, the Space Force said.

The decision to terminate the OCX program ends a 16-year, multibillion-dollar effort to design, test, and deliver a command and control system for the military’s constellation of GPS navigation satellites. The program consisted of software to handle new signals from the latest generation of GPS satellites, GPS III, which started launching in 2018, along with two master control stations and modifications to ground monitoring stations around the world.

The Pentagon awarded the OCX contract to Raytheon, now known as RTX Corporation, in 2010, with a timetable for completion in 2016 at a cost of $3.7 billion. Budget projections to finish the program grew to nearly $8 billion, nearly as much as the cost of an entire fleet of some 30 new GPS satellites.

The schedule for OCX extended out a decade longer than anticipated. RTX finally delivered the control system to the Space Force last year, but further tests revealed it was still not ready for GPS operations. Ars reported on the long-running issues with OCX last month.

“We discovered problems”

“Regrettably, extensive system issues arose during the integrated testing of OCX with the broader GPS enterprise,” said Col. Stephen Hobbs, commander of the Space Force’s Mission Delta 31, which operates the GPS constellation. “Despite repeated collaborative approaches by the entire government and contractor team, the challenges of onboarding the system in an operationally relevant timeline proved insurmountable.

“We discovered problems across a broad range of capability areas that would put current GPS military and civilian capabilities at risk,” Hobbs said in a statement.

“RTX is aware of the US Government decision regarding the GPS OCX program,” an RTX spokesperson said in a statement. “Raytheon delivered the system in 2025 and has continued to support the US Space Force in post-delivery activities. We remain committed to supporting our customers and will work closely with the government on the next steps.”

https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/04/pentagon-pulls-the-plug-on-one-of-the-militarys-most-troubled-space-programs/

The third flight of Blue Origin’s heavy-lift New Glenn launcher began Sunday with the company’s first successful reflight of an orbital-class booster, but ended with a setback for Jeff Bezos’ flagship rocket, a key element in NASA’s Artemis lunar program.

The 321-foot-tall (98-meter) New Glenn launch vehicle ignited its seven methane-fueled BE-4 engines at 7:25 am EDT (11:25 UTC) Sunday, beginning a slow climb from its launch pad at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida.

The main engines, each producing more than a half-million pounds of thrust, accelerated the rocket past the speed of sound in about a minute-and-a-half. Three minutes into the flight, the booster switched off its engines and fell away from New Glenn’s upper stage, powered by two BE-3U engines burning liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen.

New Glenn’s first stage continued a downrange parabolic arc, briefly soaring into space before guiding itself toward Blue Origin’s landing platform in the Atlantic Ocean nearly 400 miles southeast of Cape Canaveral. Reigniting its engines for two braking burns, the booster settled onto the ship for a smoky but on-target touchdown less than 10 minutes after liftoff.

The landing marked the end of the second flight for this booster, named Never Tell Me The Odds, after debuting with a good launch and recovery on Blue Origin’s previous New Glenn mission in November. Blue Origin, founded and owned by Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, has landed and reused its smaller New Shepard suborbital booster numerous times, but New Glenn surpasses New Shepard in difficulty and scale. It flies higher, travels faster, and is three times the height of the New Shepard.

Technicians installed new engines on the booster for Sunday’s flight, but the Blue Origin intends to reuse the engines from the November launch on future New Glenn missions, according to Dave Limp, the company’s CEO.

New Glenn allows Blue Origin to reach into a broader market for launches to low-Earth orbit and beyond. SpaceX has shown it can recycle a Falcon 9 booster for reflight in just nine days, and launch Falcon 9s five or more times in one week using a fleet of reusable boosters and three active launch pads. Blue Origin officials expect reusing New Glenn boosters will unlock a vastly faster launch rate for themselves.

https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/04/errant-upper-stage-spoils-blue-origins-success-in-reusing-new-glenn-booster/

The crew of Artemis II spoke with the media on Thursday, six days after returning to Earth following their mission around the Moon. After a news conference, the astronauts gave a handful of interviews, and Ars was able to speak with Orion’s pilot, Victor Glover.

Glover and Ars first connected nearly a decade ago as part of our homage to Apollo, The Greatest Leap. Glover now stands at the vanguard of our modern Apollo program, named Artemis, which aims to return humans to the Moon and establish a semi-permanent base there.

Glover, an accomplished naval aviator, first went to space in November 2020 as the pilot on the first operational Crew Dragon mission to the International Space Station. Two years after he landed back on Earth, Glover was assigned to the Artemis II mission and tasked with a majority of the test piloting of the Orion spacecraft during the outbound and return journey from the Moon.

We spoke mostly about that experience at NASA’s Johnson Space Center on Thursday afternoon. This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.

Ars: You flew Dragon with touchscreens and Orion with more traditional, hands-on controls. I’m pretty sure I know the answer, but which did you prefer?

Victor Glover: You know me. We talked about Dragon a lot before, and it’s a fantastic ship to get humans to the space station. But I was really thrilled to have a translational hand controller, a THC, on Orion.

Ars: How did Orion handle compared to the simulations you did on Earth?

Glover: The real vehicle had better springs. There was less pre-play, less wobble in the stick, so when I would move something, the thruster sounds we had in the sim? Totally wrong. It was more of a rumble like driving a pickup on a dirt road.

The SM (Service Module) was nice—we could tell it was pressurizing and thrusting. It felt responsive. I could feel the push, but also I could see it in the camera instantly that there was motion. The integrated system flew so much better than the sim. That team should be very proud.

https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/04/artemis-ii-pilot-describes-landing-in-orion-from-intense-to-pure-elation/

More swaps coming?… The Vulcan rocket is many months from returning to flight for the US military. One industry source told Ars that the Space Force may not fly another mission on Vulcan before the end of the year. Space Systems Command has moved four launches of new GPS navigation satellites from ULA to SpaceX in the past two years as Vulcan encountered delays. Col. Eric Zarybnisky, head of Space Systems Command’s Space Access office, said the military is “working through a significant number” of potential additional rocket swaps from Vulcan to another launch vehicle, likely SpaceX’s Falcon 9 or Falcon Heavy.

ESA’s first Mars rover finally has a ride. NASA confirmed Thursday that SpaceX will launch the European Space Agency’s Rosalind Franklin Mars rover, perhaps as soon as late 2028, on a Falcon Heavy rocket from Kennedy Space Center, Florida, Ars reports. So why is NASA deciding which rocket will launch a flagship European Mars mission? It’s a long story involving the search for extraterrestrial life, crippling political hatchets, and, of all things, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Ars explores the mission’s tortured history, a nearly quarter-century of broken promises, technical setbacks, and geopolitical drama.

Taking aim on Mars… The announcement is also notable because it is the first time SpaceX has won a launch contract for a mission to Mars. The red planet is the apple of Elon Musk’s eye, with utopian concepts for a Mars settlement to go along with SpaceX’s more tangible work on a massive rocket to actually fly there. This new rocket, named Starship, is still a ways away from reaching Mars. Therefore, it’s likely SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy, no slouch itself, will make the company’s first Mars run on behalf of NASA and the European Space Agency.

Next-gen Starship tested at Starbase. The new, juiced-up version of SpaceX’s Starship mega-rocket cleared a big hurdle this week on the path to its first launch, Space.com reports. That liftoff, targeted for early or mid-May, will be the 12th overall for Starship but the first for the vehicle’s “Version 3,” which is bigger and more powerful than its predecessors. The first Starship V3 vehicle fired its six Raptor engines on Tuesday while anchored on a test stand in South Texas. The static fire test follows a series of cryogenic proof tests earlier this year.

https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/04/rocket-report-starship-v3-test-fired-esas-tentative-step-toward-crew-launch/

Instead, the agency turned to Russia to launch the orbiter and rover on two Proton rockets and provide the descent system to deliver the rover to Mars. In exchange, ESA agreed to add Russian science instruments to the orbiter and rover missions. This was a boon for Russian scientific institutions. Without an international partnership like ExoMars, they lacked any realistic prospect of ever sending their own research payloads to the red planet.

Russia successfully launched the European-built ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter spacecraft on a Proton rocket in 2016. The orbiter is still operating around Mars today, returning scientific data and serving as a communications relay for NASA’s Curiosity and Perseverance rovers. A small European tech demo probe riding piggyback on the orbiter crash landed upon reaching the red planet.

Artist’s illustration of the Rosalind Franklin rover departing its landing platform on Mars.

Credit: Airbus

Additional delays pushed the launch of the ExoMars rover from 2018 until 2020. The rover, by then named for the late British chemist and DNA research pioneer Rosalind Franklin, was nearly ready for launch in 2020 when a series of parachute test failures and the COVID-19 pandemic prompted another delay until late 2022.

Everything changed again when Russian forces invaded Ukraine in February 2022. ESA severed most ties with Russia’s space agency, ending the partnership on ExoMars after all of the mission’s elements, including the Russian rocket and Mars descent stage, were already built and ready for final assembly. ESA also removed two Russian science instruments from the mission.

Once again, the US government stepped in to give the Rosalind Franklin rover a ride to Mars. NASA and ESA formalized the new agreement in 2024, with the US side committing to provide a launch vehicle, the braking engines needed to land, and small nuclear-powered heaters to keep the rover’s sensitive electronics warm during Martian nights. NASA long ago delivered a mass spectrometer for the European rover that will analyze Martian soil to look for markers of organic molecules.

ESA is providing the rover and the carrier spacecraft to ferry it to Mars. Europe is also responsible for the overall assembly of the landing platform and operating the rover on the Martian surface. Airbus built the rover in the United Kingdom and is supplying the main structure for the lander, which will settle onto Mars and deploy ramps for the rover to disembark and begin its mission. German company OHB manufactured the carrier spacecraft, or cruise stage, to shepherd the rover from Earth to Mars. Thales Alenia Space of Italy is in charge of putting all the pieces together and readying the mission for launch.

https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/04/after-a-saga-of-broken-promises-a-european-rover-finally-has-a-ride-to-mars/

Koch said one thing she and her fellow astronauts learned was that they were well-trained to handle whatever issues arose.

“This mission taught me that the unknown is way scarier than the known,” she said. “Every single time we accomplished a mission test objective, we all looked at each other and were like, ‘ That actually went pretty well.’ That was actually not necessarily easy, because it took a ton of work, but it was easy to accomplish as a team because we had put in the work.”

Landing on the Moon is “absolutely doable”

Another crew member, Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen, said that as NASA takes further steps into deep space, including setting up a lunar base, astronauts and the teams supporting them on the ground must be ready for a potentially bumpy ride. And, he said, astronauts have to be willing to embrace that risk.

“We have to be willing to accept a little more risk than we were willing to accept in the past, and to just trust that we will figure it out in real time,” he said. “We’re not going to be able to pound everything flat before we go; we’re going to have to trust each other. It was very evident to us out there that this one went really smoothly. I’m not surprised—extraordinary team. But it was also very clear to us that it could get real bumpy, real fast.”

The mission’s commander, Reid Wiseman, said he had a technical epiphany 250,000 miles from Earth. He felt a strong urge to land on the Moon, and if they’d had a lander, they would have eagerly done it. The Moon, he said, was right there for the taking.

“It’s not—oh, I’m gonna eat these words—it’s not the leap I thought it was,” Wiseman said. “If you had given us the keys to the lander, we would have taken it down and landed on the Moon. It’s going to be extremely technically challenging, but this team needs to show up every day knowing it is absolutely doable, and it’s doable soon.”

https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/04/artemis-ii-astronauts-say-landing-on-the-moon-is-absolutely-doable-soon/

Shuffling the deck

Space Systems Command has moved four launches of new GPS navigation satellites from ULA to SpaceX in the past two years. The next GPS payload, previously assigned to Vulcan, will instead launch next week on a Falcon 9 rocket. This satellite was already at the launch site in Florida to prepare for a Vulcan launch this spring when ULA encountered the booster malfunction in February. Military officials made a quick swap to the Falcon 9, which flies from the launch pad next to ULA’s Vulcan launch complex at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida.

Zarybnisky said the military is “working through a significant number” of potential additional rocket swaps from Vulcan to another launch vehicle. “I really take in two factors as we’re working through how we do swaps,” he said. “One is the availability of the spacecraft. If the spacecraft is ready to go, that’s going to give it a priority.”

“It’s also talking to the warfighter, talking to Combat Forces Command, talking to the Headquarters, and understanding their priorities, that’s how we decide which missions we’re going to swap,” Zarybnisky said. “As far as the maximum number, I will say there are definitely missions that need Vulcan. We need Vulcan flying for this nation, but I continue to push my team… How do we get capability on orbit as fast as possible?”

Officials are also looking at modifying payload packages to make them light enough to launch on a Vulcan rocket without any solid rocket boosters. Garrant said this is an option for rideshare missions for the Space Development Agency, a Space Force unit deploying a fleet of missile-tracking and data-relay satellites. Each launch for the Space Development Agency carries multiple satellites—21 spacecraft in the case of a SpaceX launch last year. Removing a few satellites from a launch could make the payload stack light enough to reach orbit without needing the extra boost from strap-on motors.

Technicians prepare to mate a Northrop Grumman-built solid rocket motor to the core stage of ULA’s Vulcan rocket.

Credit: United Launch Alliance

Other national security missions awaiting launch on Vulcan rockets this year include the first in a new generation of Space Force missile-warning satellites in geosynchronous orbit. The Pentagon considers these satellites, each costing several billion dollars, as critical strategic assets. Another Vulcan launch this year was supposed to deliver the next set of Silent Barker space surveillance satellites to geosynchronous orbit for the Space Force and the National Reconnaissance Office. The launch of a new wide-band geosynchronous communications satellite is also affected by the Vulcan grounding.

https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/04/space-force-looks-at-moving-significant-number-of-launches-from-ula-to-spacex/

The Artemis era well and truly began Friday evening when a shiny spacecraft that had traveled 700,000 miles around the Moon, carrying four astronauts, splashed down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California.

For NASA, for its international partners, and for all of humanity the successful conclusion of the Artemis II mission marked a return to deep space by our species after more than half a century.

It was a spectacular achievement, and NASA deserves credit for making something what is very difficult look relatively easy. But it also raises an important question: What comes next?

NASA recently revised its mission plans for Artemis III and IV, to provide a stepping stone mission before undertaking the landing of humans on the Moon. Much, and more, work needs to be done to make those flights happen. And to be perfectly blunt, the Artemis II mission that concluded Friday was the lowest hanging fruit of the Artemis Program.

“The work ahead is greater than the work behind us,” said Amit Kshatriya, NASA’s associate administrator, after the landing on Friday night.

What comes next involves more complex operations, requiring multiple vehicles, and ultimately going down to another planetary body. To reach its objectives, NASA will have to take the training wheels off. Here, then, is the status of the major elements that must come together to land humans on the Moon.

Space Launch System

Multiple NASA officials have praised the performance of the Space Launch System rocket during the Artemis II launch on April 1, saying it nailed the target orbit for the mission with greater than 99 percent accuracy.

The core stage for the Artemis III mission is expected to leave the factory in Michoud, Louisiana, later this month for delivery to Kennedy Space Center, Florida. Other rocket elements have already arrived, or will soon.

Meanwhile, the Mobile Launch Tower sustained moderate damage, and it will soon be returned to the Vehicle Assembly Building in Florida for refurbishment and then stacking operations for the next mission.

https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/04/the-artemis-ii-mission-has-ended-where-does-nasa-go-from-here/