The road ahead
Space travel moves fast. This feed pulls current headlines automatically, and below it you'll find the milestones shaping the next decade of human spaceflight.
Latest space-travel headlines
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What's coming next
Announced targets slip often — read them as direction, not appointment.
Vast assembles its first private ISS crew
Thomas Pesquet, Aleš Svoboda and Adrianos Golemis are slated for Vast-PAM-1, the sixth NASA-supported private astronaut mission to the ISS. The assignments remain subject to station-partner approval, and a fourth crew member is still to be announced.
First private stations reach orbit
Vast's Haven-1 (delayed from 2026 to Q1 2027) and Axiom's first module aim to begin flying — the opening moves in replacing the ISS.
Suborbital tourism resets
Virgin Galactic pushed its Delta-class return to service from late 2026 to February 2027, citing extra time needed for avionics work; flight testing (captive-carry, then glides) starts in October 2026.
Artemis III becomes a rehearsal, not a landing
NASA restructured Artemis III into an Earth-orbit rendezvous and docking test between Orion and commercial landers — pushing the first crewed Moon landing to Artemis IV or V in 2028.
The ISS retires
NASA has finalized plans to deorbit the station by the end of 2030, with the reentry burn possibly slipping into early 2031, over a remote stretch of the Pacific — handing the baton to commercial outposts.
The Mars question
Crewed Mars missions remain a stated goal, but timelines are genuinely uncertain — a far harder problem than anything attempted so far.