Exactly 64 years ago today, Scott Carpenter became the fourth American to orbit the Earth aboard Aurora 7. His five-hour flight produced new science, a tense reentry, and 39 minutes of silence in which the country wondered if it had just lost its astronaut.
ESA and JAXA finalize collaboration for asteroid Apophis 2029 flyby at 32,000 km—closer than geostationary orbit. Historic near-Earth encounter being heavily observed.
Katalyst's Link spacecraft passes key testing milestone ahead of June 2026 launch to rescue NASA's $500M SPARCS telescope. In-space servicing mission will create trackable conjunction risk during approach and docking phase.
NASA's Artemis 3 lunar landing mission schedule continues slipping over 2 months after revised plans announced, with no crew or surface activity details released publicly yet.
SpaceX's Falcon Heavy flew for the first time in 18 months on April 29, while Starlink hit 51 Falcon 9 launches in 2026 with 10,280 satellites working.
On April 27, 1961, a Scout rocket lifted a 37-kilogram NASA satellite into orbit from Wallops Island carrying the first serious instrument for detecting cosmic gamma rays. Explorer 11 operated for seven months before its tape recorder failed. In that time it registered 22 gamma-ray photons - a pitiful number by modern standards, but enough to launch an entire branch of astronomy.
