NASA

SAN JOSE – October 29, 2026 -- NASA has awarded LeWiz Communications, Inc. a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase III contract to develop a TTE-to-TSN Bridge System that links spacecraft electronics running on two different Ethernet standards. The award builds on the company's collaboration with multiple NASA centers and the U.S. Navy.

LeWiz will connect Time-Triggered Ethernet with Time-Sensitive Networking

Conventional Ethernet does not fully meet the deterministic timing and reliability demands of aerospace systems. Time-Triggered Ethernet (TTE), advanced by SAE International and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, has been deployed aboard NASA's Orion spacecraft in support of the Artemis program. Time-Sensitive Networking (TSN) extends Ethernet to time-critical communications, improved interoperability and advanced network management.

United States – October 28, 2026 -- Path2Response bans generative AI from production modeling and decisioning, and its co-founder and CTO Michael Pelikan says competitors moving to a single generative AI model for data science put their clients at risk.

Pelikan separates statistical modeling from generative AI

Pelikan, who built neural networks at NASA's neurocomputing institute in the 1990s, distinguishes two categories: statistical models, machine learning and expert systems on one side, and large language models that synthesize content from training-data patterns on the other. He argues the second category does not meet the needs of statistical modeling.

Kennedy Space Center – October 23, 2026 -- SpaceX is scheduled to launch its CRS-25 mission on Thursday, October 23, 2026, at 8:44 p.m. EDT, marking the 25th commercial resupply services launch for NASA.

Cargo Dragon and Falcon 9 roll out to Launch Complex 39A on July 12

SpaceX's Cargo Dragon spacecraft, mounted atop the company's Falcon 9 rocket, was rolled out to the launch pad at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida on October 23, 2026, two days before the planned liftoff.

The launch is planned from Space Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center.

United States – October 23, 2026 -- Procter & Gamble's Febreze Unstopables Touch Fabric Spray is the first P&G product to incorporate materials based on the company's space-based research, sponsored by the International Space Station (ISS) National Laboratory. P&G household products are used every day by more than 4 billion people worldwide, more than half the Earth's population.

Touch-activated scent release is the first commercial output of P&G's ISS work

The latest Febreze formulation features touch-activated scent release technology. It contains microscopic capsules of perfume suspended in a liquid that, according to P&G researcher Matt Lynch, looks and feels like water. The capsules release a small burst of fragrance when a hand is rubbed on a sprayed surface or someone walks over it, countering unpleasant odors.

Washington – October 06, 2026 -- NASA has been named recipient of the 2026 Inspiration Award by the Intellectual Property Owners Education Foundation (IPOEF), recognizing the agency's use of intellectual property to drive space innovation and commercialization.

IPOEF cites NASA's Artemis program as a model for IP-driven collaboration

The foundation credited NASA's Artemis program with bringing together protected inventions that are shared and built upon to support the return to the Moon and future deep-space missions. IPOEF said NASA's innovations in advanced propulsion systems and materials have delivered impact both in orbit and on Earth through partnerships with universities, research institutions, and private industry.

Paris – September 19, 2026 -- Kongsberg Satellite Services (KSAT) has been selected by Intuitive Machines to provide ground station and satellite operations support for NASA's EAGLE VSWIR mission, targeted for launch in 2028.

KSAT will operate the IM 300 spacecraft carrying JPL's VSWIR instrument

The Explorer for Artemis Geology, Lunar, and Earth mission will host NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Visible to Shortwave Infrared instrument aboard Intuitive Machines' IM 300 spacecraft. The sensor will measure ground and water temperature, snow reflectivity, active geologic processes, vegetation traits, and algal biomass, while also testing technology relevant to future lunar and Mars exploration.

Yorktown Heights, N.Y. – September 16, 2026 -- IBM and NASA released the open-source NASA-IBM Lunar Foundation Model, one of the first publicly available foundation models built for scientific exploration of the Moon, outperforming widely used detection methods by up to 23% in identifying craters, ice deposits and volcanic formations.

Model cuts ice-detection error by up to 22% versus baseline

The model reduced root-mean-square error in identifying areas with high potential for lunar ice by up to 22% compared with the SwinV2-B (ImageNet) benchmark, according to a technical paper authored by IBM and NASA researchers. Permanently shadowed lunar regions -- among the hardest environments to observe -- may hold subsurface ice, a resource NASA considers essential for a future Moon base and for producing rocket fuel for Mars missions.

Houston – September 15, 2026 -- Fiber broadband has added an estimated $1.6 billion in aggregate home value to single-family homes sold across Houston since 2020, according to an independent study commissioned by Ezee Fiber titled "Fueling Houston's Growth with Fiber."

Fiber coverage jumped from 75% to 94% of Harris County in three years

Access to fiber broadband providers in Harris County rose from 75% in 2022 to 94% by late 2025, reflecting sustained infrastructure investment across the region. Median download speeds nearly tripled over the same period, climbing from roughly 80 Mbps in December 2022 to more than 280 Mbps by December 2025, approaching the national average of 308.11 Mbps.

SHERIDAN, WYOMING - April 14, 2026 - The ISS National Laboratory has opened applications for its 2026 Orbital Edge Accelerator, a structured startup program that combines private capital with direct access to low Earth orbit research infrastructure aboard the International Space Station. The program offers participating founders $500,000 to $750,000 in private capital alongside mentorship from investors and industry leaders. It marks the organization's latest move to position LEO as an active commercial and industrial domain, building on a record-breaking year for ISS-based scientific output reported in January 2026.