Earlier today, a Soyuz MS-08 rocket blasted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, carrying with it two NASA astronauts and one Russian cosmonaut bound for the International Space Station. Here’s what they’ll be up to for the next five months.
It’s been known for some time that the White House has been considering cutting off funding to the International Space Station by 2025 to free up resources for NASA, an agency President Donald Trump wants to send astronauts back to the moon but has also proposed should make do with a shoestring budget. Per the …
Donald Trump’s administration has touted big plans for NASA in the past few months, but it hasn’t been willing to put up much cash. So the White House has come up with a way to stretch the space agency’s budget further: Forwarding the bills for the International Space Station to, like, anyone else.
Mars likely held flowing water during its ancient past, possibly even vast oceans of it. Most of this precious liquid escaped into space, but some of it stayed behind, transforming into ice and settling beneath the rocky surface. New research shows that a sizable portion of this water ice is surprisingly near the…
On Sunday night, Elon Musk’s SpaceX will launch “Zuma,” a mysterious government spacecraft of unknown purpose, on one of its partially-reusable Falcon 9 two-stage rockets from Launch Complex 40 at Florida’s Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. The exact time of the launch has yet to be set, though SpaceX has set a…
NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft is currently en route to Bennu, a carbon-rich asteroid that could contain the basic building blocks of life. Late last year it collected some images to remind us how small and insignificant we really are.
It’s time to gaze into our crystal ball and see what the coming year has in store for science. From powerful new rockets and asteroid-sampling spacecraft to groundbreaking particle physics, there’s plenty to look forward to in 2018.
After several delays (and let’s face it, a horrible yesterday), it’s probably about time that NASA/SpaceX get a move-on and show us that incredible reused rocket launch. You can watch it below, starting at 10AM Eastern today.
NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft is currently hurtling towards MU69, a Kuiper Belt object located a billion miles past Pluto. Details of this distant object just keep getting more intriguing. In addition to having a reddish hue and potentially consisting of two self-orbiting objects, MU69 may have a small moon, the…
President Donald Trump has signed a directive that authorizes NASA to return American astronauts to the Moon—a mission that would lay the foundation for a possible mission to Mars. The renewed emphasis on space exploration, said Trump, is to ensure America’s primacy in space, to protect its citizens, and to create…
In preparation for NASA’s next robotic mission to Mars, the space station has performed a successful test of a special parachute that’s designed to withstand the intense speeds involved during an atmospheric descent.
NASA engineers are currently hard at work developing Space Launch System 1—what will be the biggest, most powerful rocket ever built. The inaugural launch of this behemoth won’t happen any earlier than 2019, but NASA has released a spectacular simulation of the launch to whet our appetites.
Should all go according to plan, NASA will launch its next Martian rover in July 2020. The robotic probe is still under construction, but early signs are that the next-gen rover will be equipped with an impressive assortment of high-tech gadgets.
Veteran astronaut Paul J. Weitz has died at the age of 85. Among his many accomplishments, Weitz served as a pilot aboard the Skylab space station, commanded the first flight of the Space Shuttle Challenger, and logged nearly 800 total hours in space.
In an effort to stimulate job growth and innovation, the federal government of Australia has announced that it will establish the country’s very first space agency.
Over the past few days, NASA’s Curiosity rover has been making a steady climb towards a strange Martian ridge that’s captivated scientists since before the mission even started. Known as Vera Ridge after the pioneering astrophysicist Vera Rubin, the durable outcrop could shed new light on the environment and potential…
On New Year’s Day 2019, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft will zoom past MU69—a mysterious Kuiper Belt object located four billion miles from Earth. In anticipation of the upcoming flyby, NASA has just revealed the probe’s flight plan, and there’s some exciting news: New Horizons is expected to come three times closer to…
See that faint, blue dot in the middle of this NASA image? That’s the Curiosity rover making its way up the rocky slopes of Mount Sharp. The robotic lander, now approaching its fifth year of operation, has never looked so lonely.
Another day, another study showing how awful microgravity is to the human body. In the latest research, scientists have found that long term exposure to space inhibits the movement of oxygen through the body, reducing an astronaut’s ability to perform strenuous tasks.
When NASA’s Opportunity rover landed on Mars in 2004, it settled at the bottom of a crater in an interplanetary hole-in-one shot that would make even a golf champion jealous. When the rover trundled out of its unexpected hole, it left behind its landing platform. Now, 13 years later, we’ve caught our best glimpse yet…
