Psyche swings past Mars successfully & Starship Flight 13 aborts late - Space News (Jul 18, 2026)

Welcome to The Automated Daily, space news edition. The podcast created by generative AI. Today, a spacecraft skimmed past Mars on its way to a metal asteroid, the world's most powerful rocket stopped itself seconds before launch, a comet is putting on a show for skywatchers, and India's private space sector just scored a major orbital win. Let's get into the stories shaping space on July 18, 2026.

Psyche swings past Mars successfully

First up, NASA's Psyche mission has pulled off a beautifully timed gravity assist at Mars. On July 17, the spacecraft passed roughly 2,800 miles above the Martian surface, using the planet's gravity to reshape its path toward the asteroid Psyche. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory also released a time-lapse of the flyby, showing Mars grow in the frame, sweep past, and fall away again. It's a vivid reminder that deep-space navigation is both precision engineering and public-facing storytelling.

Starship Flight 13 aborts late

Meanwhile in Texas, SpaceX's Starship Flight 13 did not leave the pad. During the launch attempt, the Super Heavy booster reached ignition, but four engines failed to light as expected, triggering an automatic abort just before liftoff. That means a delay for a mission that was supposed to test booster recovery, upper-stage reentry, and the first suborbital deployment of Starlink Version 3 satellites. The key takeaway is that Starship's safety systems caught the problem before flight, which is exactly what they are designed to do, even if it adds another setback to this high-profile test campaign.

Comet Tempel 2 lights skies

For skywatchers, Comet Tempel 2 is one of the most inviting targets of the week. Astronomy coverage for July 17 through 24 says the comet is favorably placed, rising late and staying visible overnight, with brightness around ninth magnitude, making it reachable for binoculars and small telescopes under dark skies. NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day for July 17 added another layer by featuring the comet's dust trail, highlighting the debris it leaves along its orbit. So this is one of those rare stories that works both as science news and as a direct invitation to step outside and look up.

Skyroot Vikram-1 reaches orbit

Another major development comes from India, where Skyroot Aerospace says its Vikram-1 rocket successfully reached orbit on its maiden mission, Aagaman. If confirmed in full through broader reporting, that would mark a landmark achievement for India's private launch sector and show that commercial orbital capability is spreading well beyond the industry's traditional centers. The significance here goes beyond one rocket: it suggests India's startup ecosystem is becoming a real force in launch services, with the potential to serve small satellites and technology missions in a competitive global market.

APOD highlights sky and light

And finally, NASA's daily astronomy imagery offered a nice contrast to the hardware-heavy headlines. After spotlighting Tempel 2's dust trail on July 17, APOD followed with 'Shadow and Rainbow' on July 18, shifting attention to atmospheric optics here on Earth. It's a useful reminder that space science isn't only about rockets, probes, and distant objects. Sometimes the same big questions about light, matter, and motion begin with phenomena visible in our own sky.

That's all for today's space roundup. From Mars flybys to launch pad aborts, backyard comet hunting, and new launch players reaching orbit, the pace of space news isn't slowing down. Join us next time for more from The Automated Daily.

Psyche swings past Mars successfully & Starship Flight 13 aborts late - Space News (Jul 18, 2026)

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