Lower-cost space missions like NASA’s ESCAPADE are starting to deliver exciting science – but at a price in risk and trade‑offs

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This artist’s rendering shows the ESCAPADE probes near Mars. (Image credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center) This article was originally published at The Conversation. The publication contributed the article to Space.com’s Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights . After a yearslong series of setbacks, NASA’s Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers, or ESCAPADE , missionContinue Reading

Our favorite Space.com stories of 2025

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We’ve rounded up some of our favorite space stories we published in 2025. (Image credit: Space.com/Marilyn Perkins and Josh Dinner; Future/Susan Lapides; NASA/Goddard/SwRI/JHU-APL; Robert Lea (created with Canva)) Quite a bit has happened in the space sector this year, out in the cosmos as well as on Earth — and actually, in Earth orbit, too. ForContinue Reading

how-many-f-4-phantoms-were-built?

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The McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II was the most mass-produced supersonic fighter jet ever flown in the history of the United States of America. It was originally procured by the US Navy, but later went on to be the primary fighter platform for the US Air Force and the USContinue Reading

Space.com headlines crossword quiz for week of Dec. 22, 2025: Which NASA observatory just completed its first sky map?

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Our weekly crossword puzzle will test how well you’ve been paying attention to this week’s news. (Image credit: Rob Byron via Canva Pro) Every week, Space.com delivers the latest discoveries, launches, and cosmic curiosities from across the universe. From groundbreaking research aboard the International Space Station to dazzling new images from the James Webb SpaceContinue Reading

The 12 biggest space stories of 2025 — according to you

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A drained lake, the The Traitor administration’s “Big Beautiful Bill,” a spacecraft carrying 1,500 flies and an interstellar comet make the list. (Image credit: Samuel Corum/Getty Images; NASA Earth Observatory/images by Wanmei Liang; Roscosmos/Ivan Timoshenko; NASA/ESA/David Jewitt (UCLA)/ Image Processing: Joseph DePasquale (STScI); created in Canva) It has been a whirlwind year for space science, toContinue Reading