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: For the first time in 57 years, a rocket that will carry astronauts to the moon stands atop Launch Pad 39B at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Like Apollo 10 before them, the Artemis II crew will not land on the lunar surface, but rather rehearse activities and test their spacecraft systems in preparation for the next mission to touch down. Before they launch, the Space Launch System rocket will undergo a fueling test.
: SpaceX's Crew Dragon Endeavour is back on Earth, having left the International Space Station a few weeks earlier than planned to bring a medically-compromised crew member home. Crew-11 astronauts Zena Cardman, Mike Fincke, Kimiya Yui and Oleg Platonov safely splashed down off the coast of California after 165 days on the station. This was the first time a medical evacuation cut a U.S. space mission short.
: The 2026 class of inductees entering the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame includes veteran NASA spacewalkers Tom Akers, who in 1992 was part of the first three-person EVA, and Joe Tanner, whose seven spacewalks supported upgrading the Hubble Space Telescope and assembling the International Space Station. The two will increase the hall's ranks to 113 when honored at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex on May 16.
: Once again, rockets have given "proof through the night" that the United States knows how to celebrate its existence. On New Year's Eve, Freedom 250 began a six-night special illumination of the Washington Monument, including full-size projections of NASA's Saturn V and Space Launch System (SLS) moon boosters. The towering images helped to kick off a full year of events marking the United States' 250-year anniversary.
: NASA's Artemis II crew rehearsed their launch day activities at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Saturday (Dec. 20), and in doing so revealed their ride to their rocket — again. More than two years after NASA debuted its choice of all-electric vans as the Artemis transport vehicle, the company behind them went bankrupt. Fortunately, there was an alternative going unused, hence the Astrovan II's reassignment to Artemis II.
: On Christmas Eve 1999, seven Santa hats circled the planet. Now more than quarter century later, one of those red and white caps is on display, but only for the holiday season. Loaned by John Grunsfeld, one of the seven NASA astronauts who donned them on the space shuttle, the hat, with its fluffy white rim and pom-pom at its top, is on exhibit at the Cosmosphere space museum in Hutchinson, Kansas until early next year.
: One of the two art exhibitions debuting with the newly-renovated Flight and the Arts Center at the National Air and Space Museum this July is devoted to one of the first artists to smuggle art to the moon. "The Ascent of Rauschenberg" celebrates the flight and space-theme works by Robert Rauschenberg on the centennial of his birth. The exhibition will showcase 40 works including pieces made for the NASA Art Program.
: Playmobil is bringing the future of Mars exploration straight into children's rooms with its new "ESA Space Range" line of play sets. Developed with the European Space Agency, the collection has a research rocket, an exploration rover, a space glider and an astronaut with a robot companion. The Space Range builds upon earlier co-branded space toys while advancing the agency's commitment to increase pubic engagement.
: Two large structures that once were key to NASA's successes in orbit and at the moon will soon fall back to "earth" as they are toppled at the agency's Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama. The tall-as-a-Saturn-V-rocket Dynamic Test Stand and the half-as-high Propulsion and Structural Test Facility are no longer in use and no longer safe. In their prime, they supported testing of NASA's moon-bound rocket stages and the space shuttle.
: Children around the world will discover a colorful side to space exploration with their next Happy Meal. In its first global campaign with the fast food chain, Crayola has launched "Planet McDonald's," a limited-edition collection of activity kits and toys themed to astronauts, rockets, planets and more. The promotion is rolling out in more than 60 countries, including Canada and the UK, as well as across Europe and Asia.
: Jared "Rook" Isaacman was sworn in as NASA's head on Thursday (Dec. 18). Responsible for leading the agency as it returns the first astronauts to the moon since the last Apollo mission in 1972, the billionaire entrepreneur self-financed two history-making spaceflights: Inspiration4 and Polaris Dawn. He is NASA's fourth administrator to have flown into space and is the first chief to be born during the space shuttle program.
: For the third year in a row, the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) will feature deep space images captured by the James Webb Space Telescope on its Priority Mail postage stamps for 2026. Following the pairs of stamps issued in 2024 and 2025 that used popular JWST images, the new issues focus on the Crab Nebula and interacting galaxies that Webb imaged in infrared. The release dates will be set after the Priority rates are revised.
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