In the mid- and upper-latitudes on Earth, during the early evening hours, thin and wispy clouds can sometimes be observed in the upper atmosphere.

These clouds have an ethereal feel and consist of ice crystals in very high clouds at the edge of space, typically about 75 to 85 km above the surface. The clouds are still in sunlight while the ground is darkening after the Sun sets. Meteorologists call these noctilucent clouds, which essentially translates to "night-shining" clouds.

There is no reason why these clouds could not also exist on Mars, which has a thin atmosphere. And about two decades ago, the European Space Agency's Mars Express orbiter observed noctilucent clouds on Mars and went on to make a systematic study .

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After a relatively short period of just two and a half years, the chief of the Russian space corporation Roscosmos, Yuri Borisov, was dismissed from his position last week. The Kremlin announced he would be replaced by 39-year-old former Deputy Minister of Transport Dmitry Bakanov.

An economist by training, Bakanov has worked in the past for a satellite communications company named Gonets. However, he is largely an unknown entity to NASA as the US space agency continues to partner with Russia on the operation of the International Space Station.

NASA had developed a reasonably good relationship with Borisov, who brought a much more stable presence to the NASA-Roscosmos relationship after his pugnacious predecessor, Dmitry Rogozin, was sacked in 2022.

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Last October, United Launch Alliance started stacking its third Vulcan rocket on a mobile launch platform in Florida in preparation for a mission for the US Space Force by the end of the year.

That didn't happen, and ULA is still awaiting the Space Force's formal certification of its new rocket, further pushing out delivery schedules for numerous military satellites booked to fly to orbit on the Vulcan launcher.

Now, several months after stacking the next Vulcan rocket, ULA has started taking it apart. First reported by Spaceflight Now , the "de-stacking" will clear ULA's vertical hangar for assembly of an Atlas V rocket —the Vulcan's predecessor —to launch the first batch of operational satellites for Amazon's Kuiper Internet constellation.

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The primary contractor for the Space Launch System rocket, Boeing, is preparing for the possibility that NASA cancels the long-running program.

On Friday, with less than an hour's notice, David Dutcher, Boeing's vice president and program manager for the SLS rocket, scheduled an all-hands meeting for the approximately 800 employees working on the program. The apparently scripted meeting lasted just six minutes, and Dutcher didn't take questions.

During his remarks, Dutcher said Boeing's contracts for the rocket could end in March and that the company was preparing for layoffs in case the contracts with the space agency were not renewed. "Cold and scripted" is how one person described Dutcher's demeanor.

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Welcome to Edition 7.30 of the Rocket Report! The US government relies on SpaceX for a lot of missions. These include launching national security satellites, putting astronauts on the Moon, and global broadband communications. But there are hurdles —technical and, increasingly, political —on the road ahead. To put it generously, Elon Musk, without whom much of what SpaceX does wouldn't be possible, is one of the most divisive figures in American life today.

Now, a Democratic lawmaker in Congress has introduced a bill that would end federal contracts for special government employees (like Musk), citing conflict of interest concerns. The bill will go nowhere with Republicans in control of Congress, but it is enough to make me pause and think. When the Trump era passes and a new administration takes the White House, how will they view Musk? Will there be an appetite to reduce the government's reliance on SpaceX? To answer this question, you must first ask if the government will even have a choice. What if, as is the case in many areas today, there's no viable replacement for the services offered by SpaceX?

As always, we welcome reader submissions . If you don't want to miss an issue, please subscribe using the box below (the form will not appear on AMP-enabled versions of the site). Each report will include information on small-, medium-, and heavy-lift rockets as well as a quick look ahead at the next three launches on the calendar.

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Something in the sky captured the attention of astronomers in the final days of 2024. A telescope in Chile scanning the night sky detected a faint point of light, and it didn't correspond to any of the thousands of known stars, comets, and asteroids in astronomers' all-sky catalog.

The detection on December 27 came from one of a network of telescopes managed by the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS), a NASA-funded project to provide warning of asteroids on a collision course with Earth.

Within a few days, scientists gathered enough information on the asteroid —officially designated 2024 YR4 —to determine that its orbit will bring it quite close to Earth in 2028, and then again in 2032. Astronomers ruled out any chance of an impact with Earth in 2028, but there's a small chance the asteroid might hit our planet on December 22, 2032.

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NASA should soon announce a new plan for the return of two of its astronauts, Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, to Earth as early as March 19. This is about two weeks earlier than the existing public timeline for their flight home from the International Space Station.

Bringing the two astronauts back to Earth next month will require some shuffling of spacecraft here on the ground and a delay of the privately operated Axiom-4 mission to the International Space Station to later in the spring.

Wilmore and Williams flew to the station on Boeing's Starliner in June 2024. The plight of "Butch and Suni," as they are often referred to, was a major story in the space community last summer after their Starliner spacecraft experienced significant propulsion issues before docking. NASA ultimately decided the safest course would be for the pair to return home on a SpaceX Dragon vehicle, and launched the Crew-9 mission last September with two empty seats. Thus, Butch and Suni's ride home has been docked to the station since last fall.

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The US space agency said Wednesday it will host a live Twitch stream from the International Space Station on February 12.

NASA, which has 1.3 million followers on the live-streaming video service, has previously broadcast events on its Twitch channel . However, this will be the first time the agency has created an event specifically for Twitch.

During the live event, beginning at 11:45 am ET (16:45 UTC), viewers will hear from NASA astronaut Don Pettit, who is currently on board the space station, as well as Matt Dominick, who recently returned to Earth after the agency’s Crew-8 mission. Viewers will have the opportunity to ask questions about living in space.

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Last year was not a good one for a lunar lander company based in Pittsburgh named Astrobotic.

In January, the company's very first spacecraft finally launched after years of delays, carrying dozens of payloads, scientific instruments, and time capsules. But within hours of launch, the Peregrine spacecraft developed a propellant leak in its propulsion system. Although the Astrobotic engineering team fought valiantly, they could not control the leak long enough to attempt a lunar landing. Instead, operators returned it to Earth's atmosphere , where it burned up.

This immediately raised questions about Astrobotic's next mission. Its second spacecraft, Griffin, would be larger. The company had received a large "task order" from NASA to use this lander to deliver the VIPER robotic rover to the south pole of the Moon in 2025 worth more than $300 million. However, NASA officials were concerned that, after Peregrine's problems, the significantly more ambitious Griffin lander might fail.

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