Ranked by years of continuous operation. Voyager 2 leads at 48+ years and counting. Here's the full top 10 — including the rovers, orbiters, and probes that wildly outlived their warranty.
Ranked by inflation-adjusted total program cost in 2025 USD. Apollo leads at ~$280B, Space Shuttle is second, ISS third. Here's the full top 10 — and what's program vs. mission cost.
Russia once led the space race. Today it launches fewer rockets than SpaceX alone. Inside Roscosmos's post-Soviet decline, Luna-25's crash, GLONASS, and the Amur reusable rocket gamble.
Inside Axiom Space: private astronaut missions, the AxEMU Artemis EVA suit, the AxH1 ISS module, and the staged plan for a standalone commercial station.
36,500+ tracked objects and 130 million smaller fragments orbit Earth at 7 km/s. Kessler Syndrome, ClearSpace, Astroscale, and the plans to clean up low Earth orbit.
A full day aboard the ISS: 6 AM wake-up, velcroed sleeping bags, 2 hours of mandatory exercise, freeze-dried meals, and 16 sunrises every 24 hours at 250
How 3D printing is slashing launch costs on the ISS, how Relativity Space prints entire rockets, and how ICON plans to build Moon bases from lunar
Mir's 15-year run: 104 visitors from 12 nations, the 1997 fire and collision, Shannon Lucid's marathon stay, and how the Soviet station proved humans could live in space.
The ISS has hosted continuous human presence since November 2000 — a $150B Cold War handshake in orbit, retiring around 2030 after reshaping science and
How Axiom Space plans to build the world's first commercial space station by docking modules to the ISS first, then detaching to form a private orbital outpost.