Historic Vulcan Launch, Artemis Moon Hardware & Perseid Meteor Spectacle – Space News Roundup (Aug 11–12, 2025)
Artemis II Moon Mission Hardware Unveiled: NASA gave a sneak peek at the last major piece of its Artemis II Moon mission rocket. Media were invited to see the Orion Stage Adapter – a ring connecting the SLS rocket’s upper stage to the Orion spacecraft – at Marshall Space Flight Center on Aug. 14 before it ships to Kennedy Space Center nasa.gov. With this adapter complete, all components of the SLS for Artemis II are now built and nearly stacked, as the mission gears up for a 10-day crewed trip around the Moon by April 2026 nasa.gov. This marks NASA’s first crewed lunar mission of the Artemis era, intended to lay the groundwork for future Moon landings and eventually Mars missions nasa.gov nasa.gov. Pushing Space Sustainability: NASA also launched the second phase of its “LunaRecycle” challenge – a competition to develop ways of recycling trash for long-term Moon missions nasa.gov. Phase 2 invites U.S. innovators to prototype systems that can repurpose common waste generated by astronauts living on a lunar base nasa.gov. “NASA is eager to see how reimagining these materials can be helpful to future planetary surface missions,” said Jennifer Edmunson, acting program manager for NASA’s Centennial Challenges, adding
