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NASA will provide coverage as astronauts venture outside the International Space Station during three spacewalks in August to continue upgrading solar arrays, replace a communications antenna, and connect power and data cables in support of space station operations.
Experts will preview the upcoming spacewalks during a news conference at 2 p.m. EDT, Thursday, July 30, from NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.
NASA will stream these events through a variety of platforms. Learn where to watch online:
NASA participants in the news conference include:
United States-based media interested in attending in person must contact the Johnson newsroom no later than 3 p.m., Wednesday, July 29, at jsccommu@mail.nasa.gov. Media joining by phone should request dial-in details by the same deadline. To ask a question, media must dial in no later than 15 minutes before the start of the news conference.
Thursday, Aug. 6
NASA astronauts Jessica Meir and Anil Menon will exit the Quest airlock to install hardware that will modify the station’s 3B power channel and prepare it for the future installation of an International Space Station Roll-Out Solar Array (IROSA). The solar array, scheduled for delivery later this year, will be the seventh IROSA and will provide additional power to support critical station operations, including its safe and controlled deorbit.
Watch NASA’s live coverage of U.S. spacewalk 96 beginning at 6:30 a.m. The spacewalk is expected to start at 8 a.m. and last about six and a half hours.
This spacewalk will be the sixth for Meir and the first for Menon. Meir will serve as spacewalk crew member 1 and will wear a suit with red stripes. Menon will serve as crew member 2 and will wear an unmarked suit.
Thursday, Aug. 13
During U.S. spacewalk 97, two astronauts will replace a Space-to-Ground antenna on the orbital complex. The antenna is a critical communication system NASA uses to transmit data and high‑speed communication between the Mission Control Center in Houston and the space station.
Tuesday, Aug. 25
The U.S. spacewalk 98 crew members will connect power channel cables and data relay systems as part of ongoing maintenance, including preparations for the space station’s future deorbit. The astronauts also will replace a navigational aid used for spacecraft docking on the Harmony module’s forward port.
NASA will share additional details about U.S. spacewalks 97 and 98, including timing, assigned crew members, and coverage information, closer to each operation.
The spacewalks will be the 281st, 282nd, and 283rd conducted in support of space station assembly, maintenance, and upgrades.
To learn more about International Space Station research, operations, and its crews, visit:
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Joshua Finch / Jimi Russell
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1100
joshua.a.finch@nasa.gov / james.j.russell@nasa.gov
Sandra Jones / Anna Schneider
Johnson Space Center, Houston
281-483-5111
sandra.p.jones@nasa.gov / anna.c.schneider@nasa.gov
2026-07-27 14:00

A new study using data from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope finds that star formation in the nearby Andromeda galaxy has undergone a 500-million-year decline, with an even steeper drop in the last 40 million years. Andromeda, a spiral galaxy comparable in size to our Milky Way, is close enough to be seen with the unaided eye from areas with dark skies. Located about 2.5 million light-years from Earth, practically our cosmic backyard, Andromeda offers an opportunity for astronomers to examine its stellar populations in detail, leading to better understanding of the past of galaxies like our own.
The results published Monday in The Astrophysical Journal.
To reach this conclusion, the researchers combined data from two Hubble surveys: the Panchromatic Hubble Andromeda Treasury and the Panchromatic Hubble Andromeda Southern Treasury. Together, these two surveys mapped two-thirds of the disk of Andromeda in ultra-sharp detail. In total, the team measured about 200 million individual stars across the galaxy, giving them a detailed picture of Andromeda’s past activity.
“We need to measure the individual stars because they are the fossil record of the galaxy’s formation. Hubble is the only telescope that can give you high enough spatial resolution over a large enough area to be able to do that in Andromeda,” said Ben Williams, astronomer at the University of Washington and a co-author on the study.
Massive stars are bluer and short-lived, while less massive stars are redder and longer-lived. As a result, areas that have experienced recent star formation tend to have a larger fraction of blue stars, while areas with less recent star formation typically have a redder population. The team divided the Andromeda images into thousands of squares, spanning 300 light-years on each side of the square, and determined the history of star formation within each parcel to gain a comprehensive view of the galaxy’s past.
Previous research showed the Andromeda galaxy experienced a dramatic burst of star formation about 2 billion years ago, likely due to a past interaction or merger with another galaxy. Since that time, star formation has been steadily declining.
Astronomers measure the rate of star formation in terms of the mass, or amount of gas and dust, converted into stars per year. The researchers calculated that, 500 million years ago, Andromeda formed stars at a rate of about one solar mass per year. However, the formation rate dropped to about half that by 40 million years ago. The current rate has plummeted even farther, to about one-fifth the mass of our Sun per year.
The team also examined whether that decline was consistent across the galaxy or concentrated in certain areas. They found that much of the recent star formation has occurred in a star-forming ring located about 32,000 light-years from the galaxy’s center. As a result, much of the decline they measure is driven by decreasing activity within that ring.
Rather than being the result of reduced material from which new stars can form, the decline is more likely to be a natural winding down from its previous, more active state.
“It’s just like after running a marathon, sometimes you’ve got to take a bit of a breather,” said Tobin Wainer, lead author, University of Washington.
The team also investigated whether there was any connection between the decrease of activity in Andromeda and its proximity to satellite galaxy M32 (Messier 32). The M32 galaxy is separated from Andromeda by about 16,000 light-years in the plane of the sky; however, its 3D location in space is uncertain. As a result, astronomers are unsure if or when it might have interacted with Andromeda in the past.
“One of the major motivations for this program was to probe potential interactions between M32 and Andromeda’s disk,” said Zhuo Chen, co-author, University of Washington.
Survey data from the Panchromatic Hubble Andromeda Southern Treasury allowed the team to study the history of star formation in Andromeda near M32. They found that this area showed signs of decreased star formation compared with other regions. The timing of this decrease, which this study finds began roughly 60 million years ago, could help constrain when the M32 galaxy interacted with Andromeda’s disk.
“We can’t explicitly say that we are seeing a decrease in star formation because of M32. But it’s right there, and it’s definitely the most likely suspect,” said Wainer.
The team plans to continue analyzing the Hubble data and combine it with data from ground-based observatories to gain additional insights into the history of Andromeda.
“There’s a strong scientific value to this archival data. Andromeda is important because it’s a neighbor that is close enough that we can see it in great detail while also getting a global perspective,” said Raja GuhaThakurta, co-author, University of California Santa Cruz.
An even greater global perspective is likely to come from NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope after it launches as early as Sunday, Aug. 30. Roman’s gigantic field of view can cover at least 100 times as much area as Hubble at near-infrared wavelengths in a single observation. A newly approved Roman observing program will image the entirety of Andromeda’s disk and areas of its surrounding halo, allowing astronomers to measure hundreds of millions of stars and enabling groundbreaking new science.
The Hubble Space Telescope has been operating for more than three decades and continues to make ground-breaking discoveries that shape our fundamental understanding of the universe. Hubble is a project of international cooperation between NASA and ESA (European Space Agency). NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the telescope and mission operations. Lockheed Martin Space also supports mission operations at Goddard. The Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, conducts Hubble science operations for NASA.
Claire Andreoli
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
Greenbelt, Maryland
claire.andreoli@nasa.gov
Christine Pulliam
Space Telescope Science Institute
Baltimore, Maryland
2026-07-26 10:59
Concluding an eight-month science mission aboard the International Space Station, NASA astronaut Chris Williams returned to Earth on Sunday alongside Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and Sergei Mikaev.
The crew made its safe, parachute-assisted landing at 5:27 a.m. CDT (3:27 p.m., Kazakhstan time), southeast of Dzhezkazgan, after departing the space station at 2:03 a.m., aboard the Soyuz MS-28 spacecraft.
The crew was in space for 241 days, orbiting the Earth 3,856 times and traveling more than 102 million miles. They launched to the International Space Station on Nov. 27, 2025. The mission was the first for Williams and Mikaev and the second for Kud-Sverchkov.
While aboard the orbiting laboratory, Williams supported a wide range of scientific investigations and technology demonstrations. He helped advance research for new cancer treatments and improved in-space manufacturing of materials used in high-performance computers and electronics. Williams also completed two spacewalks to prep for space station power system upgrades and to replace a faulty joint on the Canadarm2 robotic arm. The crew’s work aboard the space station helps improve life on Earth and prepare for future human missions to the Moon and Mars.
Following post-landing medical checks, the crew members will fly by helicopter to Karaganda, Kazakhstan, where recovery teams are based. Williams then will board a NASA aircraft bound for the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.
For more than 25 years, people have lived and worked continuously aboard the International Space Station, advancing scientific knowledge and making research breakthroughs not possible on Earth. The space station helps NASA understand and overcome the challenges of human spaceflight, expand commercial opportunities in low Earth orbit, and build on the foundation for long-duration missions to the Moon, as part of the Artemis program, and to Mars.
To learn more about International Space Station research, operations, and its crews, visit:
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Joshua Finch / Jimi Russell
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1100
joshua.a.finch@nasa.gov / james.j.russell@nasa.gov
Leah Cheshier / Anna Schneider
Johnson Space Center, Houston
281-483-5111
leah.d.cheshier@nasa.gov / anna.c.schneider@nasa.gov
2026-07-24 17:47
On July 3, one of NASA’s two Mars-destined ESCAPADE (Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers) spacecraft captured photos of Earth and the Moon in visible and thermal infrared light. At the time, the spacecraft was 363,250 miles (584,600 kilometers) from Earth and 115,600 miles (186,100 kilometers) from the Moon, making the Moon appear relatively large.
Taken with the Sun only partly illuminating Earth and the Moon, the visible light image shows the two bodies as crescents, with only around 8% of each face sunlit. Yet in the thermal infrared image, the shadowed hemisphere of Earth is illuminated by its own heat from both the atmosphere and surface, glowing at minus 10 to minus 44 degrees Fahrenheit (250 to 280 kelvins). Without the insulating blankets of oceans and atmospheres, the Moon’s far side remains at a much cooler minus 280 degrees Fahrenheit (100 kelvins).




July 3, 2026
The ESCAPADE mission used its Visible and Infrared Observation System cameras, provided by Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, to capture the images, which are more than just road trip photo album snaps.
“We are thrilled that ESCAPADE was able to accommodate these excellent space-qualified cameras which will search for visible Martian aurora and investigate thermal properties of the Martian surface and atmosphere,” said Rob Lillis, the mission’s principal investigator at the University of California, Berkeley. “Since Earth and the Moon are well-known targets, imaging them provides an important calibration check for ESCAPADE’s cameras.”
The ESCAPADE spacecraft, which were built by Rocket Lab, are currently in a “loiter” orbit around Lagrange point 2, a location in space about a million miles from Earth. In November 2026, the spacecraft will fly by Earth to use the planet’s gravity to slingshot their way to Mars. When the spacecraft arrive in September 2027, they will study how a million-mile-per-hour stream of material flowing from the Sun, known as solar wind, interacts with the Martian environment and how that drives atmospheric loss at the Red Planet.
The ESCAPADE mission is funded by NASA’s Heliophysics Division and is part of the NASA Small Innovative Missions for Planetary Exploration program. The UC Berkeley’s Space Sciences Laboratory leads the mission with key partners Rocket Lab; NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland; Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University; Advanced Space; and Blue Origin.
By Mara Johnson-Groh
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
2026-07-24 16:43
From left, Expedition 74 flight engineers Anna Kikina and Pyotr Dubrov of Roscosmos, and Anil Menon of NASA pose for a July 18, 2026, photo while holding a cake celebrating their recent arrival aboard the International Space Station. The trio arrived at the space station on July 14, 2026, after launching from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan earlier the same day.
Kikina, Dubrov, and Menon are in the second week of their planned eight-and-a-half-month mission. They are using their new skills to conduct space research while still familiarizing themselves with living and working in space.
Keep up with space station activity on the International Space Station blog.
Image credit: NASA/Chris Williams
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