NASA Finally Has a New Administrator — But MAVEN Is in Trouble | This Week In Spaceflight

NASA finally confirmed a new Administrator after months of uncertainty — but not all NASA news is good this week. The agency still hasn’t regained contact with its MAVEN spacecraft at Mars, and new telemetry suggests the satellite may be spinning and drifting into an unexpected orbit. We break down what’s at stake for MAVEN, the future of Mars atmospheric science, and what it could mean for Perseverance and Curiosity’s relay network.

Meanwhile, billionaire astronaut Jared Isaacman has been officially confirmed as NASA’s 15th Administrator, and he’ll now guide the agency through Artemis II, Artemis III acceleration efforts, and looming budget fights in Congress.

Plus:
A Chinese satellite nearly collided with a Starlink spacecraft in orbit — only 200 meters apart
Blue Origin fires the BE-7 engine for the first Blue Moon Mk1 mission and runs mock-up training for Mark 2
A Chinese startup openly shows off their own “copy of Mechazilla” — and another wants a smaller “Starship-1”
Firefly completes qualification testing for Blue Ghost Mission 2
South Korea wants to launch a Mars mission on Starship in 2031
Roscosmos says it will rebuild a damaged Soyuz launchpad in four months
Isar Aerospace static-fires its upgraded second stage for Spectrum Flight 2

And in this week’s Space Traffic Report, we track another jam-packed 7 days with 10 global launches, including four Starlink missions, two Electrons, Atlas V’s final commercial flight of the year, a Galileo dual-launch on Ariane 6, and China’s recoverable DEAR-5 capsule.

📱 Track launches: https://nextspaceflight.com
🛰 NSF Live Streams:    / @nasaspaceflight  
📰 Spaceflight news 24/7: https://nasaspaceflight.com


v3 Super Heavy Booster Render from Starbase Tracking https://x.com/TrackingTheSB

ISS Imagery Partner:    / @sen  

⚡ Become a member of NASASpaceflight's channel for exclusive discord access, fast turnaround clips, and other exclusive benefits. Your support helps us continue our 24/7 coverage. Click JOIN above to get started.⚡

🤵 Hosted by Elysia Segal (@elysiasegal) & Sawyer Rosenstein.
🖋️ Written by Alejandro Alcantarilla Romera, Martijn Luinstra.
🎥 Footage from: .
✂️ Edited by Thomas Hayden.
💼 Produced by Kevin Michael Reed (@kmreed).

🔍 If you are interested in using footage from this video, please review our content use policy: https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/conte...

#ThisWeekInSpaceflight #SpaceX #SpaceNews #NASA #MAVEN #Mars #SpaceX #Starship #JaredIsaacman #BlueOrigin #BlueMoon #Starlink #SpaceDebris #Artemis #FireflyAerospace #SouthKorea #Roscosmos #IsarAerospace #RocketLab #Spaceflight

LDAPAABJRG2UMCU3