{"id":10711,"date":"2026-04-18T07:49:02","date_gmt":"2026-04-18T12:49:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/scienceandsf.com\/?p=10711"},"modified":"2026-04-18T07:49:03","modified_gmt":"2026-04-18T12:49:03","slug":"space-news-for-april-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scienceandsf.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/18\/space-news-for-april-2026\/","title":{"rendered":"Space News for April 2026.\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Of course, the big news in space this month is the Artemis II spaceflight that took human beings beyond Earth orbit and back to the vicinity of the Moon for the first time since 1972, fifty-four years ago. This mission has obviously been a long time in coming and I’ll have a great deal more to say about it later in this post but first I’m afraid that I have to talk about something even more important, if much less interesting, NASA’s budget!\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Back in the heady days of Apollo, NASA’s budget was over 4% of the total federal budget. Nowadays it’s less than 1\/2% and will get even smaller if Trump gets his way! (Credit: NASA)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Back on the 31st of March NASA chief Jered Isaacman announced his agency’s grand plan for building a permanent base on the Moon in the early 2030’s. This Lunar base would then be followed by a mission to Mars aboard a nuclear powered rocket. The first nuclear powered rocket would be used for an unmanned mission to Mars taking a series of three small helicopters, upgrades of the Ingenuity helicopter that went to mars aboard the rover Perseverance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The success of Ingenuity on Mars has inspired NASA to plan for more such airships on Mars and Saturn’s moon Titan. (Credit: NASA Science)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Then, just a few days later, the Trump administration announced their planned budget for fiscal year 2027 that included an almost 50% increase for the Department of Defense while enacting severe cutbacks pretty much everywhere else. NASA’s budget is scheduled to be reduced by $5.6 Billion or 23%. Taking inflation into account this would make the 2027 NASA budget the agency’s smallest since 1961! The biggest cuts will come to the Science Mission Directorate, a whopping 47% decrease, so say goodbye to that nuclear rocket taking any helicopters to Mars.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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From the very beginning of the space program, and for all of our science programs the budget has been dependent on support from a bunch of politicians who rarely understand and never care about science. (Credit: Yarn)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The Trump budget is going to make drastic cuts in many other parts of American science as well. If passed by congress and carried out it will undoubtedly mean the end of our nation’s leadership in science and technology. I’ll be writing more about the threat of Trump’s budget to our country in a later post.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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About 90% of Americans think it’s important for America to lead the world in science, but few think it’s doing a good job of it! (Credit: Pew Research Center)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

But let’s get back to some good news, the Artemis II mission that took human beings further from the Earth than even the Apollo program did. In short they’re back, safe and sound after a very successful mission.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Launch of the Artemis 2 rocket and capsule taking four astronauts back to the Moon for tthe first time since 1972. (Credit: SpaceNews)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Launched on the first of April, April fool’s day, the giant Space Launch System (SLS) rocket took off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida and effortlessly placed the Orion capsule and it’s Service Module into Low Earth Orbit (LOE). After spending a day checking out their spacecraft the four person Crew were given the go ahead for Trans Lunar Injection (TLI) a command that had not been given to any manned mission since 1972.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In December of 1968 the Apollo 8 mission was given the signal for TLI or Trans Lunar Injection. That was the first time that human beings ever truly left Earth. (Credit: PBS)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The voyage to the Moon was uneventful; so much so that the only problem the media had to talk about was a malfunctioning toilet. A malfunction that was quickly corrected by the way. On the mission’s fifth day the Orion capsule looped behind the Moon enabling the crew of Artemis II to set a new record for the farthest that any human being had ever been from planet Earth. The mission profile for Artemis II did not actually call for the spacecraft to enter Lunar orbit so the Orion capsule made only one loop around the Moon. As the Orion capsule swung behind the Moon radio contact with Earth was lost just as had happened with the command module in every Apollo Lunar mission. Forty minutes later communication with Artemis II was restored as the crew began their journey home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Because they traveled higher above the Lunar surface than the Apollo astronauts did the Artemis crewmembers got to see parts of the Dark Side that no humans had ever seen! (Credit: Yahoo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The journey home was if anything even more routine. On the 10th of April the Orion capsule separated from its Service Module and entered our Atmosphere. Splashdown came minutes later just off the coast of San Diego in the Pacific.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Splashdown! (Credit: European Space Agency)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

With the success of the Artemis II mission it might seem like a landing on the Moon should only be a couple of months away. After all the Apollo 8 mission orbited the Moon in December 1968 while Apollo 11 landed there in July of 1969, just seven months later. However, while the SLS and Orion capsule have proven themselves capable of getting humans to the vicinity of the Moon, NASA still needs a lander to get them down to the Lunar surface, and the two companies assigned the task of building landers have been having more than a few problems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The two planned Artemis Lunar landers compared with the old Apollo Lunar Module. Both are much larger to allow the astronauts to have a more extended stay on the Moon. But let’s be real, Starship is really a bit much!!!! (Credit: Human Mars)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

One of the companies is Space X, who hopes to use a modified version of their starship upper stage as the landing vehicle. Problem is that over the last several years Space X has seen a series of problems in the development of their starship launch system. These problems have pushed back the timeline generating considerable doubt about Space X’s ability to deliver a lander by 2028, the current schedule for an Artemis Moon landing mission.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Artist’s illustration of how the Orion Capsule will link up with the Starship lander in Lunar orbit. (Credit: NASA)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Another problem with the Space X lander is the fact that once the starship upper stage is in LOE it will require as many as 20 refueling missions before it can leave Earth and go to Lunar orbit, where it will rendezvous with the Orion manned capsule. With 20 refueling missions it just seems like there’s a lot of opportunity for something to go wrong!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Murphy’s law works in space just like it does here on Earth! (Credit: YouTube)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile Blue Origin is the other company that has been developing a lander, they call theirs the Blue Moon Lander. The problem here is that the Blue Moon Lander was not scheduled for its first mission until 2032 but because of Space X’s difficulties Blue Origin has been asked by NASA to accelerate their lander’s development. Rushing the development of a spacecraft is just never a good thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Rushing to complete a job is the surest way to get behind schedule! (Credit: A-Z Quotes)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In fact on March 10th NASA’s Office of Inspector General released a report criticizing both the companies developing the lander as well as NASA’s own management of the lander program. So right now it is questionable if either lander will be ready by 2028.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Still, it’s good to be back to NASA’s prime mission of human exploration of the Universe! (Credit: Space)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Still, right now we can sit back and enjoy the fact that once again human beings are voyaging into deep space rather than just whirling around in LOE.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Of course, the big news in space this month is the Artemis II spaceflight that took human beings beyond Earth orbit and back to the vicinity of the Moon for the first time since 1972, fifty-four years ago. This mission has obviously been a long time in coming and I’ll have a great deal more … Continue reading “Space News for April 2026.\u00a0“<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[2527,2529,2528,2526],"class_list":["post-10711","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-science","tag-artemis-2-mission","tag-artemis-lunar-landers","tag-cuts-in-nasas-budget","tag-space-news-for-april-2026"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scienceandsf.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10711","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scienceandsf.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scienceandsf.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scienceandsf.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scienceandsf.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10711"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/scienceandsf.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10711\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10729,"href":"https:\/\/scienceandsf.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10711\/revisions\/10729"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scienceandsf.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scienceandsf.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scienceandsf.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}