SpaceX is scheduled to launch the Starlink 15-22 mission from Vandenberg Space Force Base early Wednesday, with liftoff set for 2:35 a.m. PDT (5:35 a.m. EDT / 0935 UTC). The Falcon 9 booster, designated B1082, will carry 27 Starlink broadband satellites to low Earth orbit and then attempt a landing on the droneship Of Course I Still Love You in the Pacific Ocean, which would represent the 221st landing for that vessel and the 655th for the Falcon series. The mission follows the Starlink 10-49 launch from Cape Canaveral the previous day. SpaceX Vice President Kiko Dontchev said the Falcon 9 has been the most reliable launch vehicle and has supported the deployment of the Starlink constellation, and that future Starlink launches will transition to Starship. The launch marks the final planned Falcon 9 Starlink mission from Florida, after which Starlink missions are expected to use Starship for subsequent flights.
Breakthroughs from labs, observatories, and clinical trials worth your attention.
Ukrainian forces struck the Progress factory in Samara, Russia, on August 15, 2026, damaging the only production site for the Soyuz-2 launch vehicle. Satellite imagery showed large holes in the roofs of two buildings, and the Ukrainian General Staff said the missiles hit Building 106A, where guidance systems are made, and an adjacent aviation repair facility, igniting a fire that consumed more than 53,820 sq ft. The attack used two FP-5 “Flamingo” cruise missiles, each carrying about 1,150 kg warheads. Officials said the strike was intended to disrupt the rollout of Russia’s Rassvet satellite internet constellation rather than to impede crewed spaceflight. The Soyuz-2 rocket supports both cargo and crew missions to the International Space Station, and the next scheduled launch, Progress MS-35, is set for September 9. While immediate operational impacts are uncertain, the damage threatens Russia’s ability to launch military and civilian payloads, as the Angara launcher is currently used far less frequently and at higher cost. Repairing the facility will require significant funding, likely drawn from the reduced budget allocated to Roscosmos, further constraining Russia’s space ambitions. The Kremlin’s oversight of Roscosmos raises concerns that safety certifications could be compromised to meet schedule demands, potentially endangering future launches. Roscosmos has long operated largely insulated from the conflict, but the Soyuz-2’s role in military payloads makes its production infrastructure a legitimate target under international law. The incident underscores how the war is increasingly affecting Russia’s space sector, which had previously remained relatively separate from direct combat operations.
SpaceX announced on Tuesday that it intends to invest up to $100 billion in a new spaceport in southern Louisiana, with construction slated to begin in 2027 and an initial launch targeted for 2029.
The company would gain access to roughly 125,000 acres near Pecan Island, an area that supports diverse waterfowl and other wildlife. State officials said the site became available after a legal settlement addressing ExxonMobil pollution and coastal land loss claims.
SpaceX said its early efforts would focus on preventing coastal erosion, which the state reports is losing one to three meters annually, and on partnering with state and federal agencies to incorporate shoreline protection structures into Louisiana’s Coastal Master Plan. The facility is intended to support Starship launches that can reach polar orbits, allowing a trajectory over the Gulf of Mexico toward polar routes. Proximity to the Intracoastal Waterway provides deep‑water barge access, and the location lies within a short distance by barge from SpaceX’s Starfactory in South Texas. The company pledged to create at least 3,000 local jobs, with the potential to add up to 10,000 as construction expands to support the world’s largest rocket program.
While the investment represents one of the largest private commitments to a U.S. spaceport, environmental reviews and permitting processes remain pending before construction can commence.
The James Webb Space Telescope captured a composite image of the Lion's Head Nebula (NGC 2392) on August 26, 2026.
The image was taken with the NIRCam and MIRI instruments.
NGC 2392 is the remnant of a Sun-like star that shed its outer layers after core fusion ceased.
A hot white dwarf remains at the core of the nebula.
Intense radiation from the white dwarf ionizes the surrounding gas, creating a bubble-like structure.
Dust clumps that survived the radiation and ionized gas form the nebula's mane.
The detailed view allows scientists to examine how gas and dust interact with the white dwarf's radiation.
These observations contribute to understanding planetary nebula formation and the evolution of Sun-like stars.
The observation adds to current research on the life cycle of Sun-like stars.
At the 2026 Small Satellite Conference in Salt Lake City, Utah, SpaceNews reporter Mike Gruss interviewed Kevin Lausten, chief executive of Morpheus Space, discussing the growing importance of propulsion systems for small satellite operations amid increasing orbital congestion and competition. Lausten said propulsion enables satellites to adjust orbits and perform maneuvers necessary for mission flexibility, which is becoming essential as the number of spacecraft in orbit rises and commercial pressures intensify. He explained that sovereign control over propulsion allows operators to maintain independent capabilities without reliance on external providers, and that greater autonomy in propulsion design is influencing how propulsion units are produced and integrated into satellite platforms. The discussion highlighted the technical challenges of miniaturizing propulsion systems while meeting performance requirements for diverse missions. Analysts noted that the sector is seeing increased investment in electric and cold‑gas propulsion technologies to meet these demands. The interview underscores a shift toward more self‑sufficient satellite architectures as the space industry confronts a crowded orbital environment.
Expedition 75 flight engineers Anil Menon of NASA and Sophie Adenot of the European Space Agency performed a six‑hour 23‑minute spacewalk outside the International Space Station on August 18, 2026, according to NASA. They installed a high‑speed communications antenna on the station’s exterior, a task expected to be completed by August 25, 2026. The spacewalk, the longest of the year, was broadcast live and documented by NASA cameras. The antenna is intended to enhance data transmission for scientific research and commercial communications.
Tendeg unveiled its NewTEN two‑axis steerable compact antenna on Aug. 24 at the 40th Annual Small Satellite Conference in Salt Lake City, offering expanded communications performance and pointing access for small spacecraft.
Proliferated satellite constellations require antennas that can be mass‑produced, integrated repeatedly and meet strict size, weight and power limits. Designers have increasingly sought high‑performance hardware that can be deployed across dozens or hundreds of vehicles without custom tooling.
The NewTEN antenna combines a compact offset‑fed reflector with a two‑axis gimbal, allowing the RF feed to stay fixed to the spacecraft, which simplifies RF routing, integration and thermal management. It supports X‑band through Q/V‑band frequencies for missions constrained by SWaP requirements.
Gregg Freebury, founder and CEO of Tendeg, said the antenna provides a flexible low‑SWaP solution that can be easily integrated and produced at scale, eliminating the need for mission architects to choose between limited pointing access and complex custom gimbaled designs.
Tendeg, a U.S. space manufacturer based in Louisville, Colorado, is ramping up production capacity to support higher‑rate output. The NewTEN antenna is on display at the conference booth 2019, and technical information is available at www.tendeg.com/newten.
The company expects the antenna to become a standard option for future smallsat constellations as production volumes increase.
NASA’s Deep Space Network added a 34‑meter (114‑foot) radio antenna at its Goldstone complex in California, increasing the network’s capacity to communicate with more than 40 sp...
NASA’s Deep Space Network added a 34‑meter (114‑foot) radio antenna at its Goldstone complex in California, increasing the network’s capacity to communicate with more than 40 spacecraft.
The Deep Space Network uses three global sites—Goldstone, Madrid, and Canberra—to support missions throughout the solar system and beyond.
The new antenna, designated Deep Space Station 23 (DSS‑23), began operations on August 3 after a testing period from May through July.
It will track missions such as the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, Psyche, Juno, Voyager 1, and the Chandra X‑ray Observatory.
Construction started in February 2020, with the 133‑ton reflector framework installed in December 2024 and panel installation and calibration completed thereafter.
The antenna is the fifth 34‑meter addition to the Goldstone site, joining three other 34‑meter dishes and a 70‑meter dish.
The Aperture Enhancement Project, launched in 2009, plans to add six 34‑meter beam‑waveguide antennas; DSS‑23 is the fifth, and a sixth will become operational at Canberra in 2029, bringing the network total to 13.
The 34‑meter antennas can be arrayed to provide redundancy for the older 70‑meter dishes, which have served for over 50 years but are increasingly costly to maintain.
More than 100 NASA and non‑NASA missions rely on the network, including those supporting the International Space Station and future Artemis lunar missions.
James Kenyon, associate administrator of NASA’s Research and Technology Mission Directorate, said the expansion strengthens NASA’s communications foundation for upcoming lunar and deep‑space missions.
Dave Gallagher, director of JPL, said the upgrade modernizes the network and prepares it for a new era of exploration after more than 60 years of continuous service.
Germaine Aziz, manager of the Aperture Enhancement Project, said the primary challenge was integrating mechanical, electrical, software, radio frequency and infrastructure subsystems into a single, mission‑ready asset.
The addition brings the Deep Space Network closer to a fully modernized system that can support current and future missions, including Artemis, while reducing reliance on aging 70‑meter antennas.
SpaceX announced on August 25, 2026 that it will construct a new launch facility, Starbase Louisiana, near Brownsville in Vermilion Parish. The site will support Starship launches, aiming for multiple daily flights to meet a goal of thousands of launches per year. Construction is scheduled to begin in 2027, with the first Starship launch expected in 2029. The company plans to spend at least $100 billion on the project. Louisiana Economic Development estimates 3,000 direct jobs and 8,100 indirect jobs over ten years. Governor Jeff Landry called the development a pivotal moment for the state. Elon Musk said the facility will enable a future where space travel is routine. SpaceX noted that the new site will include five launch complexes, each with two pads, propellant farms, production facilities, power generation, deep‑water shipping, housing and an airport. The company will coordinate with state and federal agencies to protect shoreline and restore wetlands, given the rapid loss of coastal land in Louisiana. The White House released a National Space Transportation Policy on August 24, 2026 that targets 1,000 launches and reentries per year by 2030, up from 176 orbital attempts in 2025. The policy calls for expedited environmental reviews and facilitation of new launch sites.
Roman will launch on 30 August 2026 at 07:26 EDT from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket. The mission is a joint effort by NASA and the European Space Agency, with ESA contributing star trackers, batteries, coronagraph detectors and deep‑space communications through its 35‑metre antenna in New Norcia, Australia. Roman carries two instruments: a 300‑megapixel Wide Field Instrument that records visible and near‑infrared images and spectra, and a Coronagraph Instrument designed to block starlight for direct exoplanet imaging. The telescope will scan about 12 % of the sky above the galactic plane, searching for weak gravitational lensing in millions of distant galaxies to map dark matter distribution. It will also measure cosmic expansion by observing type Ia supernovae and baryon acoustic oscillations, aiming to constrain the nature of dark energy, which together with dark matter comprises roughly 95 % of the Universe. Roman is expected to detect more than 1200 new exoplanets via microlensing and to identify over 100 000 transiting planets, while its coronagraph may directly image exoplanets that are over 100 million times fainter than their host stars. The launch will be streamed live on NASA’s YouTube channel, and mission operations will be coordinated by NASA with scientific oversight from ESA. Roman will complement ESA’s Euclid mission in investigating dark energy and dark matter.
SpaceX is expanding production capacity at its Starbase launch site in Boca Chica, Texas. The effort is aimed at supporting a higher number of Starship vehicle launches in the coming years. Starbase functions as the main development and launch hub for Starship, a reusable spacecraft intended for lunar, Martian and Earth orbital missions. SpaceX says the upgrades will raise annual assembly capacity to about 100 Starship vehicles by 2027, according to internal project documents. The expansion includes new welding stations, upgraded propellant handling equipment, and additional quality‑control laboratories. Executives say the changes are driven by growing launch demand and the need to streamline production workflows. The Federal Aviation Administration has been notified and will review the modifications during the remainder of the year. The higher production rate could allow more frequent Starship flights, supporting NASA’s Artemis program and commercial satellite deployments. Final timelines remain subject to regulatory approval and project milestones.
Starbase in Louisiana, a privately operated launch facility, is the largest private spaceport in the world.
The spaceport, located near the town of Starbase in St. Landry Parish, covers approximately 2,000 acres and includes multiple launch pads designed for orbital and suborbital missions. Private spaceports have become increasingly common as the commercial space industry has expanded, with the Federal Aviation Administration issuing licenses to operators.
The facility is owned by a subsidiary of a major aerospace company, which announced its intention to develop the site in 2023 and began operations in 2025. The operator said the spaceport is capable of supporting up to 12 launches per year and offers infrastructure for vehicle integration, propellant storage, and mission control. The FAA issued a license for the site in March 2025, noting that it meets safety and environmental standards. No public launch schedule has been released, and the company has not disclosed details about the types of vehicles that will use the site.
The development marks a significant expansion of private launch capability in the United States, though the long‑term impact on the regional economy and launch frequency remains to be seen.
Post‑doctoral researcher Reese Richardson of Northwestern University found that images used to showcase the performance of commercial antibodies had been altered, and a broader review identified manipulation in more than 17,000 antibody listings. Antibodies are proteins used to detect specific targets in laboratory assays and are sold by numerous suppliers for research applications. The manipulations included background removal, duplicated data, and other edits that would be considered scientific misconduct if presented in published research. Richardson’s investigation, which examined publicly available product images, revealed inconsistencies that could affect the reproducibility of experiments relying on these reagents. Suppliers have not publicly addressed the findings, and the extent to which the altered images influence research outcomes remains unclear. The discovery highlights concerns about data integrity in commercial laboratory supplies and may prompt further scrutiny of quality‑control practices across the industry.
Space Angel, a Perth-based space infrastructure company, received a $1.75 million grant from the Western Australian government to advance its Western Australian spaceport proposal. The grant is part of the state’s $2 million Made in WA initiative to accelerate local space industry development. The funding was awarded after an open competitive process, while the government separately conducts a feasibility study to identify other potential spaceport sites. Science and Innovation Minister Stephen Dawson said the spaceport could generate economic benefits and high‑skilled jobs for Western Australia. Ram Kuppusamy, founder and CEO of Space Angel, said the funding enables critical site assessments and a rigorous business case for a commercially viable, safe, and globally competitive spaceport. He added that Western Australia’s experience in resources, engineering, logistics, technology and remote infrastructure provides a strong foundation for the project. The grant supports consultation with the Western Australian government and compliance with planning and regulatory requirements, with the next steps depending on those processes.
ESA announced on 17 August that the Draco mission has passed its Critical Design Review, permitting the start of full-scale manufacturing, integration and testing ahead of a planned 2027 launch. The mission will evaluate in‑flight data from a satellite as it breaks apart during atmospheric reentry. ESA aims to improve models that predict spacecraft fragmentation and burn‑up. Development is led by Spain’s Indra Group, which took over the program after acquiring Deimos Space in October 2024. Prior to the acquisition, ESA had awarded Deimos a €17 million contract for the mission. The spacecraft will be placed on a destructive reentry trajectory by its launch vehicle’s upper stage at an altitude of about 1,000 kilometres. Approximately 12 hours after liftoff, Draco will re‑enter Earth’s atmosphere, and its approximately 200 sensors and four cameras will record the event. The 40‑centimetre reentry capsule will deploy a parachute to slow descent, connect with a geostationary satellite and transmit data for roughly 20 minutes before splashdown. Stijn Lemmens, the Draco project manager, said the review was completed in just over a year, keeping the schedule on track. The flight will provide data to refine predictions of reentry behaviour and support future design standards.
NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is scheduled to launch on August 30 and will investigate dark energy, dark matter, exoplanets and the evolution of galaxies, with researchers at NASA’s Ames Research Center providing key software and hardware support.
The mission includes a Wide Field Instrument that will capture high‑resolution images in optical and near‑infrared light, and a Coronagraph Instrument designed to directly image planets around other stars. Both instruments face challenges from scattered light and zodiacal emission that can obscure faint signals.
A team at NASA Ames, together with collaborators at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and IPAC/Caltech, has developed ROSALIA, software that predicts and removes stray light and zodiacal light from Wide Field Instrument images, allowing astronomers to study faint structures and the darkest regions of the universe.
Stray light appears as glints or a diffuse background that can mimic real astronomical objects, while zodiacal light originates from interplanetary dust scattering sunlight within the solar system.
The Roman Coronagraph Instrument, one of two instruments on the spacecraft, uses deformable mirrors to create a dark zone around a star, enabling detection of faint planet light.
Current coronagraph modes are limited to single‑star systems, but roughly half of Sun‑like stars are in multi‑star systems, which presents a challenge for direct imaging.
Researchers at Ames have created Multi‑Star Wavefront Control, a technology that adds custom masks and software to suppress light from multiple stars, making it possible to image planets in binary or triple systems such as Alpha Centauri.
The Alpha Centauri system, a triple star 4 light‑years away, includes a binary pair of Sun‑like stars and a smaller companion; a planet candidate has been detected in the habitable zone of Alpha Centauri A by the James Webb Space Telescope.
Ames also leads the hardware working group in the Roman Coronagraph Participation Program, which allows international teams to add new capabilities, including multi‑star modes, to the coronagraph after the baseline demonstration.
The Ames Advanced Supercomputing Division has provided expertise in data pipelines and high‑performance computing, supporting mission operations and the development of simulation tools for the multi‑star wavefront control technique.
The Roman mission, with these contributions, aims to deepen understanding of cosmic structure and increase the likelihood of discovering life beyond the solar system; the added capabilities are expected to be available after the primary technology demonstration phase.
NASA's Pandora mission began observing exoplanets and their host stars on January 11 after launching into low Earth orbit.
The SmallSat is part of NASA's Astrophysics Pioneers program, which funds low‑cost missions that address fundamental questions about the universe. Pandora carries an 18‑inch all‑aluminum telescope and will observe planets and their stars simultaneously in visible and near‑infrared wavelengths.
The mission will determine the atmospheric composition of at least 20 exoplanets, including the presence of hazes, clouds and water, according to the principal investigator. Elisa Fucina, principal investigator at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, said the mission was designed to resolve uncertainties about how stellar light influences atmospheric measurements. Jordan Karburn, deputy project manager at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, said the spacecraft is healthy and all instruments are performing as expected.
Pandora's telescope, built by Corning in New Hampshire together with Livermore, includes an all‑aluminum 45 cm aperture instrument that records visible and near‑infrared light simultaneously while also measuring the planet’s signal during transit. Over its one‑year primary mission the spacecraft will observe each of at least 20 targets ten times, with a transit included in each 24‑hour observation, according to mission planners. The near‑infrared detector used on Pandora is a spare originally developed for the James Webb Space Telescope, according to the project team. The combined data from Pandora and Webb will allow scientists to separate stellar and planetary signals, according to the mission scientist. The mission is managed by NASA Goddard, with project management and engineering from Lawrence Livermore, spacecraft bus and integration by Blue Canyon Technologies, data processing by NASA Ames, and science operations led by the University of Arizona, with additional university partners supporting the science team, according to agency releases.
The observations will provide a baseline for interpreting future data from Webb and other observatories seeking habitable worlds, and the mission is expected to continue delivering data throughout its planned year‑long primary phase, according to NASA.
The European Space Agency (ESA) is working to improve detection of GNSS jamming and spoofing as reliance on satellite navigation expands, with 10% of European GDP depending on these systems. In the second quarter of 2025, more than 10,000 ships worldwide were reported as affected by malicious interference, an eightfold increase from the first quarter of 2025. GNSS signals can be disrupted by jamming, which drowns out legitimate signals, or by spoofing, which falsifies them, and by natural ionospheric disturbances caused by space weather. Such interference can impair navigation on land, air and sea and affect safety systems and critical infrastructure linked to positioning, navigation and timing, according to statements by United Nations agencies. ESA’s Navigation Innovation and Support Programme (NAVISP) supports three projects that develop new ways to monitor and map interference. The Advanced Radio Frequency Interference Detection, Alerting and Analysis System (ARFIDAAS), developed by Norway’s SINTEF, continuously monitors Galileo, GPS and GLONASS frequencies and has traced significant interference events in Europe, Greenland and Canada to a Russian military satellite system, providing near‑real‑time alerts and a database of known threats, according to the programme. Dimetor GmbH of Austria is using GNSS receivers mounted on mobile telecommunications towers to generate country‑level jamming and spoofing maps, offering continuous coverage that current pilot reports cannot match, the company said. A Swiss startup, onocoy, is combining artificial intelligence with a decentralized network of reference stations to train fraud‑detection algorithms that can identify spoofed signals and improve the resilience of high‑accuracy location services used in transport, logistics and autonomous systems, the company reported. These efforts aim to increase the resilience of GNSS-based services and ensure reliable positioning, navigation and timing for critical applications, though continued development and testing remain necessary.
NASA will announce the winners of the final phase of the LunaRecycle Challenge on Friday, August 28, at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa.
The competition, launched in 2024, is a $3 million two‑phase contest that seeks new recycling systems for non‑metabolic waste to support future lunar missions.
Up to 14 finalist teams will showcase their prototypes and digital twin concepts during a Technology Showcase. Opening remarks begin at 8:30 a.m. CDT in Room 1026 of H.M. Comer Hall. Media interested in covering the event must confirm attendance with the NASA Marshall newsroom by 3 p.m. CDT on August 27.
The prize purse totals $1.325 million, with $500,000 and $225,000 awarded to the top two prototypes and $275,000 and $125,000 to the top two digital twins. Six Technical Achievement Prizes and a $25,000 People’s Choice Award will also be presented.
NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center manages the challenge through its Centennial Challenges program. The University of Alabama Lee J. Styslinger Jr. College of Engineering partners with NASA, and technical support is provided by NASA’s Kennedy Space Center and Ames Research Center. The competition attracted more than 1,200 registrations and 200 submissions, with 17 teams advancing from Phase 1.
NASA’s Chandra X‑ray Observatory and partner telescopes released a new gallery of 16 images. The collection combines decades of Chandra X‑ray data with observations from the James Webb, Hubble, IXPE, Swift, NuSTAR and other instruments.
Galaxies are commonly grouped into spirals, ellipticals and irregulars. The images illustrate each class. Face‑on spirals such as Messier 33 and NGC 3938 show star‑forming regions along their arms. Barred spirals like NGC 1672 and NGC 1385 reveal how central bars channel gas toward burst events. NGC 4725 demonstrates star formation triggered by a past collision. Edge‑on systems including NGC 4631, the Whale Galaxy, and Messier 82 expose extensive halos and superwinds of million‑degree gas.
Active galactic nuclei in Centaurus A and Messier 106 produce high‑energy jets and heated gas that shape surrounding structures. The Sombrero Galaxy (Messier 104) displays a diffuse halo of million‑degree gas around its central black hole. Mergers such as Arp 143, NGC 3256 and II Zw 096 illustrate chaotic collisions that produced rings, starbursts and dust‑shrouded phenomena. NGC 1569 serves as a nearby example of early‑universe starburst conditions. NGC 660 presents a rare polar‑ring configuration. NGC 90 shows a spiral stripped of gas as it moves through the Virgo Cluster.
The gallery is managed by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center. Science operations are conducted by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory’s Chandra X‑ray Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Additional information is available at the NASA Chandra website.
NASA awarded a Phase II Small Business Innovation Research contract to Qualtech Systems Inc. to develop fault management capabilities and improve its TEAMS modeling toolset for autonomous space missions.
Autonomous spacecraft operations require fault detection and mitigation without human intervention. Traditional design practices often add fault management after systems are built, treating it as a corrective measure rather than an integrated component.
Under the contract, QSI integrated fault management directly into the model‑based systems engineering process, using Systems Modeling Language models to evaluate how proposed fault schemes mitigate simulated component failures. The approach was demonstrated with the model‑based generation of failure modes and effects analyses and fault trees for the early design of NASA’s HelioSwarm mission.
The integrated toolset enables early trade studies of fault‑management architectures, generates fault‑mode and fault‑tree analyses, and provides design recommendations such as optimal sensor placement. These recommendations are delivered in industry‑standard formats for incorporation into the system model.
The technology may reduce development risk and lower costs, and its broader adoption across missions remains under evaluation.
NASA’s Ames Research Center will host virtual media interviews on August 26, 2026, to discuss the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, which is set to launch on August 30, 2026, from Kennedy Space Center. The Roman telescope will capture wide, detailed optical and near‑infrared images of the universe, enabling study of dark energy, exoplanets and large‑scale cosmic structures. It will also test technology to directly image planets around nearby stars. Ames researchers contributed software that refines image quality and optimizes observation schedules, and they provide expertise in data pipelines and mission operations through the Advanced Supercomputing Division. Ames staff will demonstrate Multi‑Star Wavefront Control, a technique that suppresses starlight to reveal exoplanets in multi‑star systems. Media may request interviews by emailing arc-dl-newsroom@nasa.gov or by completing an online form for agency interviews outside the scheduled window. The Ames Office of Communications can be reached at 650‑604‑4789. The Roman mission is scheduled to begin its launch period on August 30, 2026.