Space Stories: Dragonfly Issues, NASA Under a Government Shutdown, and Threats from Venus

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Image (Credit): Artist’s rendering of the Dragonfly on Titan. (NASA/Johns Hopkins APL)

Here are some recent space-related stories of interest.

—Physics World: “NASA Criticized Over its Management of $3.3bn Dragonfly Mission to Titan“

An internal audit has slammed NASA over its handling of the Dragonfly mission to Saturn’s largest moon, Titan. The drone-like rotorcraft, which is designed to land on and gather samples from Titan, has been hit by a two-year delay, with costs surging by $1bn to $3.3bn. NASA now envisions a launch date of July 2028 with Dragonfly arriving at Titan in 2034.

—USAToday: “Do Rockets Still Launch During a Government Shutdown? How NASA Could Feel the Effects“

NASA is far from immune to the effects of a looming government shutdown if congressional leaders fail to reach an agreement before midnight Oct. 1 to prevent one. At stake for the U.S. space agency if the federal government grinds to a halt? The progress of many of its science missions and access to its public outreach arm. NASA’s contingency plan for a shutdown, outlined in a guide from 2018, emphasizes that only “activities which are necessary to prevent harm to life or property” would be exempt from ceasing operations during a shutdown.

—Earth Sky: “‘Invisible’ Asteroids Near Venus: A New Danger to Earth?“

Astronomers across the globe are dedicated to identifying the near-Earth asteroids that could one day impact our planet. But there might be a group of potentially dangerous nearby asteroids that have remained invisible to astronomers so far. On September 24, 2025, an international team of researchers at the São Paulo State University (UNESP) in Brazil said that a group of asteroids sharing Venus’ orbit could have remained undetected so far due to their location in the sky. And they could pose a threat to Earth within a few thousand years.

NASA Moves Away from an ISS Cargo Contractor

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Image (Credit): The Dream Chaser and Shooting Star Cargo Module. (Sierra Space)

Back in 2016 NASA was looking for more commercial cargo haulers for its International Space Station (ISS), and Sierra Space’s reusable Dream Chaser spaceplane was one of those options. NASA contracted for multiple resupply missions to the ISS. However, all of that is now over.

NASA has announced that the contract has been modified so that Sierra Space is only to provide a “free flight demonstration” in 2026. What that means is that NASA will give the company a chance to prove its technology, but it will stop financing these efforts. And NASA will not commit to any future resupply missions, but may choose to do so at a later point.

It sounds like quite a gut-punch to another commercial option for the ISS at the same time that Boeing’s Starliner is still limping along. That leaves SpaceX and Northrop Grumman as the only players on the field as the station heads towards it decommissioning in 2030.

Sierra Space can certainly pursue other commercial space opportunities, which is expected to include commercial space stations at some point in the future. Even so, it appears NASA has lost confidence in the company’s ability to deliver on earlier promises related to the ISS.

In a recent press release, the company has put the most positive spin it can on this new arrangement:

Sierra Space is prioritizing first-flight readiness with Dream Chaser, targeting a launch in late 2026 to align with expected launch vehicle availability. Sierra Space and NASA worked together to reach this mutually beneficial agreement that provides greater mission flexibility for Dream Chaser’s first flight. This flight aims to demonstrate critical capabilities for NASA’s ISS resupply and future Commercial LEO Destinations (CLD) missions and position Dream Chaser as a national asset available for future national security and defense demonstrations.

Sierra Space has many other ongoing projects under a variety of government and private sector contracts, including NASA. For instance, it signed a contract with NASA earlier this year to study the use of the company’s expandable space station technology on the Moon.

So the company will be staying busy even after this latest setback. That said, getting the Dream Chaser into orbit on schedule has to remain a key priority for a company that want’s to be a big player in the space race ahead.

Space Quote: Three Missions Launched to Monitor the Sun

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Image (Credit): A solar flare and eruption of solar material captured on June 20, 2013. (NASA/Goddard/SDO)

“These three unique missions will help us get to know our Sun and its effects on Earth better than ever before…This knowledge is critical because the Sun’s activity directly impacts our daily lives, from power grids to GPS. These missions will help us ensure the safety and resilience of our interconnected world.”

–Statement by Joe Westlake, Heliophysics Division director at NASA Headquarters, regarding Wednesday’s launch of three missions to investigate the Sun’s influence across the solar system – NASA’s Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP), Carruthers Geocorona Observatory, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Space Weather Follow On-Lagrange 1 (SWFO-L1) missions.

Pic of the Week: The Indescribable NGC 2775

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Image (Credit): NGC 2775, which is 67 million light-years away, as captured by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. (ESA/Hubble & NASA, F. Belfiore, J. Lee and the PHANGS-HST Team)

This week’s image is from the NASA/European Space Agency (ESA) Hubble Space Telescope. It shows the odd galaxy NGC 2275 that is hard to describe. Is it an elliptical galaxy, a spiral galaxy, or something else?

The ESA weighs in on the issue below:

NGC 2775 sports a smooth, featureless centre that is devoid of gas, resembling an elliptical galaxy. It also has a dusty ring with patchy star clusters, like a spiral galaxy. Which is it, then: spiral or elliptical — or neither?

Because we can only view NGC 2775 from one angle, it’s difficult to say for sure. Some researchers have classified NGC 2775 as a spiral galaxy because of its feathery ring of stars and dust, while others have classified it as a lenticular galaxy. Lenticular galaxies have features common to both spiral and elliptical galaxies.

It’s not yet known exactly how lenticular galaxies come to be, and they might form in a variety of ways. Lenticular galaxies might be spiral galaxies that have merged with other galaxies, or that have mostly run out of star-forming gas and lost their prominent spiral arms. They also might have started out more similar to elliptical galaxies, then collected gas into a disk around them.

Some evidence suggests that NGC 2775 has merged with other galaxies in the past. Invisible in this Hubble image, NGC 2775 has a tail of hydrogen gas that stretches almost 100 000 light-years around the galaxy. This faint tail could be the remnant of one or more galaxies that wandered too close to NGC 2775 before being stretched apart and absorbed. If NGC 2775 merged with other galaxies in the past, it could explain the galaxy’s strange appearance today.

Space Stories: Artemis II to Launch February 2026, 10 New Astronauts Selected, and Plans to Destroy an Incoming Asteroid

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Image (Credit): Artemis II mission map. (NASA)

Here are some recent space-related stories of interest.

—BBC News: “Nasa Plans First Crewed Moon Mission in 50 years for February 2026“

Nasa has said it hopes to send astronauts on a ten-day trip around the Moon as soon as February. The US space agency had previously committed to launching no later than the end of April but said it aims to bring the mission forward…Artemis Launch Director, Charlie Blackwell-Thompson explained that the powerful rocket system built to take the astronauts to the Moon, the Space Launch System (SLS) was “pretty much stacked and ready to go”. All that remained was to complete the crew capsule, called Orion, connected to SLS and to complete ground tests.

—CNN: “NASA Selects 10 New Astronauts as it Chases Bold Plans for the Moon and Mars“

NASA on Monday introduced the 10 people — selected from a pool of 8,000 applicants — who will join the agency’s astronaut corps as it races to return to the moon before attempting an unprecedented crewed mission to Mars. The group includes six women and four men, whom acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy called “America’s best and brightest.”…This astronaut class marks the first in which there are more women than men, according to NASA.

—IFLScience: “Forget Saving Earth, NASA Wants Us To Save The Moon From Asteroid 2024 YR4“

A large asteroid strike on the Moon could have negative consequences for the artificial satellites we now depend on. That being the case, a NASA-led team has looked into the options for preventing Asteroid 2024 YR4 from making such an impact in 2032. Contrary to the usual conclusions that asteroids should be diverted, not destroyed, they think this is a time for a Hollywood-approved demolition event.