Deep Space Extra

Here is a list of news that were published in our Newsletter during the week of Feb 2, 2026:

Human Space Exploration

• NASA’s next space suit for Artemis has out-of-this-world mobility
  Coalition Member in the News – Axiom Space;
• What happened at Artemis-II Wet Dress Rehearsal, and what is next;
• House Committee approves new NASA authorization bill;
• NASA will wait until March for Artemis II;
• What’s the point of a space station around the Moon?
  Coalition Members in the News – Maxar, Northrop Grumman;
• Suborbital’s descending trajectory;
• China’s Shenzhou-21 astronauts in good health, science goals on track after 3 months in space;
• ‘Back to the Moon’: Artemis II astronauts land on Time magazine cover, a callback to Apollo 8 history;
• Artemis II Wet Dress Rehearsal, critical milestone to launch – Attempt 1 scrubbed
  Coalition Members in the News – Aerojet Rocketdyne, L3Harris;
• NASA conducts Artemis II fuel test, eyes March for launch opportunity;
• Artemis II SLS Wet Dress Rehearsal latest news: NASA begins countdown for critical fueling test;
• Axiom wins fifth private astronaut mission to space station
  Coalition Member in the News – Axiom Space;
• ISRO targets March 2026 launch for Gaganyaan programme’s first uncrewed space mission;

Space Science

• Jupiter is smaller and more ‘squashed’ than previously believed, new Juno data reveal;
• Will a bright comet adorn our early spring sky? Why astronomers are getting excited about Comet C/2026 A1 (MAPS);
• Space dust reveals rapid evolution after dino-killing asteroid;
• Life-friendly molecules are leaking out of Jupiter’s giant moon Europa, Galileo images hint;
• Hundreds of bright streaks suggest Mercury’s still active;
• Neutron scans reveal hidden water in famous Martian meteorite;
• An unusual dust storm on Mars reveals how the Red Planet lost some of its water;
• Geomagnetic storm watch;
• NASA’s Perseverance rover completes the first AI-planned drive on Mars;
• For the first time, scientists detect molecule critical to life in interstellar space;
• Giant sunspot alert;

Opinion

• The race to the Moon is back NASA needs to get serious to beat the ChineseNASA is counting on the success of Artemis II and efforts to accelerate and successfully develop a Human Landing System (HLS) to transport the Artemis III and future Artemis mission astronauts back and forth between lunar orbit and the surface of the Moon, writes Tom Jones, a planetary scientist and former NASA astronaut in an op-ed. Time is running out to reach the lunar surface with human explorers ahead of China, he stresses.
  

Other News

• Voyager Technologies and Max Space partner on lunar infrastructure
  Coalition Member in the News – Lockheed Martin;
• Senate committee delays consideration of bill to streamline FCC satellite licensing;
• Final FY2026 defense, FAA bills signed into law;
• SpaceX experiences Falcon 9 upper stage anomaly following Starlink deployment;
• Another partial government shutdown this weekend, but could be short;
• SpaceX seeks go-ahead from the FCC to put up to a million data center satellites in orbit;

Major Space-Related Activities for the Week

• At NASA, moving forward with the Artemis II Wet Dress Rehearsal (WDR) overnight on Monday is critical to determining whether the mission with three NASA and a Canadian Space Agency astronaut can lift off on a 10-day mission around the Moon as soon as late next Sunday during a two hour launch window that opens at 11:20 p.m. ET. A sequence of potential February launch dates extends until February 11, followed by launch opportunities in March and April that correspond to favorable alignments between the Earth and Moon.
• Though the federal government entered a partial shutdown on Friday at midnight, NASA is among the federal agencies now funded through September 30 and marching along.
• The U.S. House Science, Space, and Technology Committee is slated to conduct a full committee markup of a new NASA Authorization measure on Wednesday at 10 a.m. ET, though the text was not publicly available as last week drew to a close. The most recent NASA authorization policy establishing legislation was enacted in 2022.
• Launch plans for Artemis II will determine when NASA’s Crew-12 mission launches to the ISS with three astronauts and a Russian cosmonaut. If possible, NASA would like to complete Artemis II in February before launching Crew-12.

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