The week on Astrometrik in one page: 28 new stories, 4 launches, 5 asteroids passing Earth and the best night to look up from New York.
This week’s news
From the United States
Three new science payloads for NASA’s Moon BaseNASA picked three investigations to ride commercial landers: a long-term station to monitor the environment at the lunar south pole, a search for underground lava tubes at the Marius Hills pit, and…
September 30, 2026 · NASA
NASA orders a 5G network for the MoonModulate Space Corporation won a contract of about $38 million, run from NASA Glenn in Cleveland, to combine 5G and Wi-Fi 6 for surface operations at the planned Moon Base: first a “network in a box” tested in…
September 30, 2026 · NASA
Roman’s coronagraph takes its first lookAfter guidance-system tests on 15–21 September, NASA’s Roman Space Telescope pointed its Coronagraph Instrument at a faint star in the Large Magellanic Cloud on 22 September, then again on 27 September with…
September 30, 2026 · NASA Science
From around the world
Webb pins down the most distant fast radio burst ever seenA team led by Manisha Caleb of the University of Sydney used the James Webb Space Telescope to find the home galaxy of FRB 20240304B, a millisecond radio flash caught by South Africa’s MeerKAT array on 4 March…
October 8, 2026 · NASA Science
Crew-12 splashes down off Los Angeles after 237 days in spaceNASA’s SpaceX Crew-12 mission ended at 15:34 UTC on 8 October 2026, when the Dragon capsule Freedom splashed down in the Pacific Ocean off Los Angeles. On board were NASA astronauts Jessica Meir and Jack…
October 8, 2026 · NASA
Artemis II Moon science: astronauts saw five meteoroid impact flashesNASA presented the preliminary lunar science results of Artemis II on 7 October 2026 at the International Astronautical Congress in Antalya, Türkiye, and opened more than 800 GB of mission data to researchers…
October 7, 2026 · NASA Science
South Korea’s Nuri rocket puts 14 of 15 satellites in orbit on 5th flightSouth Korea’s home-built Nuri (KSLV-II) rocket lifted off from the Naro Space Center in Goheung at 03:25 UTC (12:25 local time) on 7 October 2026. It carried a record 15 satellites, about 1,071 kg in total…
October 7, 2026 · Korea Times
Nobel Prize in Physics 2026 goes to IceCube’s Francis HalzenThe Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded the 2026 Nobel Prize in Physics on 6 October to Francis Halzen of the University of Wisconsin–Madison. The Belgian-American physicist was honoured for his decisive…
October 6, 2026 · Nobel Prize
The sky over New York
The Moon is a waning crescent (6% lit). Full moon on October 26, 2026, new moon on October 10, 2026. Planets above the horizon around 21:00: Saturn (south-east, 30°).
Best night to look up: October 15, 2026. Tonight’s sky map for wherever you are →
Next meteor shower
The Draconid peak on the night of October 8, 2026: up to 10 meteors an hour under a dark sky, 1 days from now. Meteor shower calendar →
Launches
4 launches in the last 7 days, 4 of them reached orbit.
Coming up
- October 9, 2026 at 7:25 PM UTCUnknown Payload · Long March 12 · Wenchang Space Launch Site, People's Republic
- October 10, 2026 at 7:29 AM UTCSDA Tranche 1 Transport Layer A · Falcon 9 Block 5 · Vandenberg SFB, CA, USA
- October 12, 2026 at 11:00 PM UTCStarlink Group 15-25 · Falcon 9 Block 5 · Vandenberg SFB, CA, USA
- October 13, 2026 at 10:33 AM UTCDragon CRS-2 SpX-35 · Falcon 9 Block 5 · Cape Canaveral SFS, FL, USA
- October 15, 2026 at 11:44 PM UTCUSSF-481 · Falcon 9 Block 5 · Vandenberg SFB, CA, USA
Asteroids passing Earth
Space weather
Solar wind right now: 373 km/s. Space weather and aurora →
Events near you
- October 10, 2026Legendary Telescope TourArmagh · Armagh Observatory and Planetarium
About these numbers
Astrometrik measures these things itself, every hour, from NOAA, NASA, CelesTrak and Launch Library data. The sky map shows tonight from wherever you are, with visible ISS passes and the best observing nights; the launch board lists every rocket like an airport departure board; space weather tracks the solar wind and the aurora. This bulletin is the week, written down.
Sources
Launches: Launch Library 2 (The Space Devs). Asteroids: NASA/JPL via NeoWs. Space weather: NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center. ISS orbit: CelesTrak. Cloud forecast: MET Norway. Headlines: Spaceflight News API, each linked to its original publisher.