Artemis II, the first crewed mission under the Artemis program, is scheduled to launch today, April 1. NASA is opening a two-hour window for its lift off, starting at 6:24 PM Eastern time, at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The agency said the forecast for launch day “shows an 80 percent chance of favorable weather conditions” and that, on March 31, its engineers had finished critical health checks on the Space Launch System rocket that the mission will use.

On the evening of March 31, the engineers shifted the launch system into its final configuration. In the early hours of April 1, they will activate the ground launch sequencer. You can start watching Artemis II’s launch event at 7:45AM ET when the Artemis team will load propellant into the SLS rocket. Full launch coverage begins at 12:50 PM ET on NASA+, Amazon Prime or the YouTube video embedded below.

The Artemis II mission will take NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, as well as Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen on a 10-day trip around the moon. It will be NASA’s first flight with a crew onboard the SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft system, and it will be humanity’s first foray into deep space since the Apollo program. During their 10-day mission, the astronauts will observe how journeys beyond Earth’s orbit affect human health. Artemis II was supposed to launch in February, but the attempt had failed due to a hydrogen leak. Another attempt in March was delayed yet again due a helium issue. If the launch doesn’t take place today as planned, NASA’s next launch opportunity is on April 6.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/science/space/watch-the-first-crewed-artemis-mission-take-flight-092800981.html?src=rss

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SpaceX has lost contact with Starlink satellite 34343 after it suffered an unspecified anomaly on March 29 while it was in orbit, the company has announced on X. The event happened while the satellite was approximately 348 miles above our planet. Since that is a relatively low altitude, SpaceX’s analysis showed that the remains of the satellite pose no risk to the International Space Station or the upcoming launch of the Artemis II mission. It also won’t affect the company’s Transporter-16 mission, which launched with small satellites from its clients on March 30.

In its statement, SpaceX also said that it will monitor any trackable debris, indicating that the satellite is no longer in one piece. LeoLabs, an American company tracking satellites in Low Earth Orbit, said it detected a “fragment creation event” involving Starlink 34343 on March 29. It also mentioned that this event is similar to another incident that happened on December 17, 2025. SpaceX had lost Starlink satellites to events like geomagnetic storms in the past, but it doesn’t seem like these two recent incidents were caused by external factors. The company has yet to announce what led to the anomalies, but LeoLabs believes that both of them were “likely caused by an internal energetic source rather than a collision with space debris or another object.”

At the moment, the Starlink team is still working on determining the root cause of the incidents. SpaceX said that once it has come to a conclusion, the company will “rapidly implement any necessary corrective actions.”

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/science/space/spacex-loses-contact-with-one-of-its-starlink-satellites-115538554.html?src=rss

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The first crewed mission of NASA's Artemis moon program may take off in a matter of days, with a launch window that opens on April 1, and as preparations are underway for that, the space agency is refocusing its plan to establish a human presence on the moon. NASA announced major changes to its approach for moon landings that are expected to play out over the coming years, including axing its plan to build an orbiting station called Gateway. Read on to learn more about the agency’s new vision for the moon, along with other interesting science stories from this week. 

Gateway out, moon base in

Just a few weeks after overhauling its Artemis program, NASA this week announced even more changes to its plans for putting astronauts back on the moon. Most notably, the space agency is abandoning the lunar Gateway project, which was intended to be the first ever space station orbiting the moon. Gateway, an international collaboration, wasn't just going to support exploration of the lunar surface, but deep space missions too. But the writing has been on the wall for some time; in the Trump administration's proposed budget cuts last May, Gateway was among the programs selected for the chopping block. Now, NASA is officially putting it on "pause" and plans to build a $20 billion moon base instead. 

“NASA is committed to achieving the near‑impossible once again, to return to the moon before the end of President Trump’s term, build a moon base, establish an enduring presence, and do the other things needed to ensure American leadership in space," NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said at the agency's Ignition event on Tuesday. 

There are three phases to the moon base plan, according to NASA: first using contractors to send rovers and instruments to the moon through the Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program; next establishing "semi-habitable infrastructure," with astronauts on the ground and collaboration with other space agencies; and finally adding "heavier infrastructure" to support long-term stays on the lunar surface, including the Italian Space Agency's Multi-purpose Habitats and the Canadian Space Agency's Lunar Utility Vehicle. NASA says it's aiming to start this plan off with crewed moon landings every six months following the Artemis V mission, which is currently planned for 2028.

Comet 41P pulls a reverse card

A study published this week in The Astronomical Journal describes what's said to be the first observation of a comet reversing its spin. Observations taken several months apart in 2017 show the comet 41P/Tuttle-Giacobini-Kresák starting to spin more slowly after making a close flyby of the sun, before picking up speed again by December of that year. Its spin period, measured using NASA’s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory, was about 46-60 hours in May 2017, but later observations by the Hubble Space Telescope showed it was just 14 hours, according to NASA. The researchers say what likely happened is that the heat from the sun caused the comet's ice to sublimate, sending gases spewing off its sides.

“Jets of gas streaming off the surface can act like small thrusters,” author David Jewitt of the University of California at Los Angeles, said in a statement. “If those jets are unevenly distributed, they can dramatically change how a comet, especially a small one, rotates.” Jewitt compares it to pushing a merry-go-round. “If it’s turning in one direction, and then you push against that, you can slow it and reverse it.”

Comet 41P is thought to have come from the Kuiper Belt and passes through the inner solar system every 5.4 years. It's small, with a nucleus of just around .6 miles, and the researchers found it's become less active over recent years, indicating that there are changes taking place on the surface. While it's thought to have been in this orbit for about 1,500 years, it now appears to be rapidly evolving, and the rotational changes — which could cause structural instability if it continues — could mark the beginning of the end for it. “I expect this nucleus will very quickly self-destruct,” said Jewitt.

Saturn in a new light

NASA/ESA/CSA

Stunning images of Saturn released this week by NASA, ESA and CSA provide a more detailed look at the many layers of the ringed planet's "busy" atmosphere. The images, which show storms, clouds at different depths, Saturn's "ribbon wave" jet stream and so much more were taken by the Hubble Space Telescope and the James Webb Space Telescope in 2024. Read more about it here.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/science/space/nasa-pauses-its-lunar-gateway-plan-a-comet-reverses-its-spin-and-more-science-news-160000163.html?src=rss

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This week the EU Parliament voted in favor of an amendment that would ban vegetarian and vegan products from using terms including “burger” and “sausage.” But the proposed ban goes further than that, and would also prevent cell-cultured meat — a.k.a. lab-grown — from using the same terms.

The regulation, passed by lawmakers 355 to 247, still needs to get past the EU Commission and member state governments before it becomes law. But if it does, it requires that terms including “steak,” “burger,” “sausage,” and even “egg white” be “reserved exclusively for products containing meat.” That’s a non-exhaustive list, and the legislation is intended to cover all names currently used for meat products.

But the bill is also explicit that the meaty terms “shall exclude cell-cultured products,” which could pose a problem for the burgeoning cultured meat industry. “Lab-grown flesh disk” doesn’t have the same ring as “hamburger,” and while the industry is still years away from perfecting lab-grown steak, it would like to be able to call it that once it does.

The restriction was proposed with the aim of supporting European livestock farmers, and backed by an increasingly right wing parliament, but has been opposed by supermarkets, climate groups, and even Burger King. A similar measure was voted down in 2020, but the EU does have precedent here, having banned the use of dairy terms like “milk” or “cheese” for plant-based alternatives.