It has been well over a decade since the SeaOrbiter was first dreamed up. Thirty years of research has gone into the project, and still it does not exist.
NASA and SpaceX met in late October to review the safety of the Dragon spacecraft and Falcon 9 rocket being developed to launch humans into low Earth orbit.
The assessment comes two decades after the Montreal Protocol, the treaty that banned chlorofluorocarbons and other compounds that deplete the ozone layer.
Dark streaks that hint at seasonally flowing water have been spotted near the equator of Mars. The potentially habitable oases are enticing targets for research.
With China successfully landing a rover on the Moon, there’s been speculation as to whether a new space race between China and the United States will start soon.
To keep its gaze focused on the stars, NASA has had to change up its game of late. Private corporations, rather than NASA itself, now resupply the International Space Station.
The XS-1 (short for eXperimental Spaceplane) will be capable of multiple return flights to space, deploying satellites and the like at least 10 times a year.
Putting landing legs on the Falcon 9 rocket, which is slated to blast off on March 16, marks another step in SpaceX's quest to develop a fully reusable launch system.
SpaceX’s Dragon CRS-3 mission to the International Space Station (ISS) has once again been scrubbed. NASA confirmed that the launch of the cargo ship has been delayed.
Consider a pair of brothers, identical twins. One gets a job as an astronaut and rockets into space. The other gets a job as an astronaut, too, but on this occasion he decides to stay home.
A U.S. Court judge issued an injunction prohibiting a joint venture between Lockheed and Boeing from proceeding with plans to buy Russian-made rocket engines.
Astronauts will soon be 3D printing parts they might need up on the International Space Station, after NASA cleared a custom-built machine as being fit for purpose.
With the launch date of the Orion next-generation spacecraft approaching fast, NASA scientists have set out what they hope to learn from its maiden launch.
A group of students want to greet the first Mars human colonists with a time capsule by collecting photos, videos, audio clips, and messages to send to the planet by 2017.
NASA is investigating using private satellites to provide communications into the 2020s between Earth and the fleet of exploration probes operating on and around Mars.
Solar panels are shaped with maximum surface area to catch as many rays as possible, but flat disks are not aerodynamic on the trip to space. A solution is to get clever with geometry.
The company that Elon Musk hopes will carry him to Mars has been making big strides in recent months, winning contracts to provide the rockets that ferry satellites into space.
Earth's atmosphere contains an unexpectedly large amount of an ozone-depleting compound from an unknown source decades after the compound was banned worldwide.
For all the otherworldly space vehicle concepts that NASA engineers dream up, only a small percentage of them ever make it off the drawing board and onto the production line.
Achieving a stable orbit around the Red Planet would be the culmination of a 10-month voyage, during which the robotic explorer traveled 442 million miles.
Another chapter in the history of spaceflight was written today as the EFT-1 mission ended with the splashdown of the Orion capsule off the coast of California.
Scientists working on NASA's Curiosity rover think they can now explain why there is a huge mountain at the robot's landing site in Mars's Gale Crater.
Curiosity rover has made definitive detection of organic molecules, but there’s not enough evidence to tell if it came from ancient Martian life or from a non-biological process.
Curiosity rover has measured a tenfold spike in methane, an organic chemical, in the atmosphere and detected other organic molecules in a rock sample collected by the robotic drill.
Mars is regarded as the most Earth-like of the planets in the Solar System, but its atmosphere is only 0.6 percent as dense as Earth's and is constantly leaking into space.
If you want to fly to the International Space Station, you're only option is to hitch a lift on Russia's 1970s-vintage Soyuz space capsules. That may not be the case for much longer.
Inflatable heat shields could help spacecraft reach the high-altitude southern plains of Mars and other areas that would otherwise be inaccessible under existing technology.
When Curiosity goes looking for organic molecules, it vaporises rock and sniffs the gas that comes out. The plan could be going awry due to a mineral called jarosite.
A huge primitive ocean once covered one-fifth of the red planet’s surface, making it warm, wet and ideal for alien life to gain a foothold, scientists say.
The Atlas V rocket carries with it four Magnetospheric Multiscale spacecraft that will spend two years studying the magnetic fields between the Earth and the Sun.
A fatty acid might be among the molecules discovered on Mars by Curiosity. However, it's not possible yet to determine if the compound has a biological or non-biological origin.
The results show that dark matter interacts with itself even less than previously thought, and narrows down the options for what this mysterious substance might be.
NASA announced it will partner with companies to create more advanced space technology, including a new engine that could get humans to Mars in less than 40 days.
Putin said his country is planning to create its own orbital space station by 2023, just as the operational life of the current International Space Station is due to wind down.
As the Hubble Telescope celebrates 25 years in space this week, NASA is building an even more powerful tool to look deeper into the universe than ever before.
Legislation that a congressman plans to introduce in the future would make space settlement a national goal and require NASA to take action to support it.
SpaceX has put its Dragon astronaut capsule through a practice abort. The demonstration simulated what would happen to the crewship in the event of a rocket failure.
NASA has launched the 'Journey to Mars Challenge' asking the public for their ideas for maintaining a crew on Mars. Three winners will be awarded $5,000.
NASA's Dawn spacecraft has glimpsed mysterious, highly reflective bright spots dotting the surface of Ceres. No one yet knows what exactly they are or how they got there.
SpaceX has been certified by NASA for Falcon 9 rockets to carryout Category 2 space missions. These are 'medium risk' launches such as satellites and less expensive space probes.
NASA is bringing human spaceflight back to the US. The agency has ordered its first crew mission from Boeing, which will involve ferrying astronauts to the Space Station.
Getting astronauts to Mars will take all the expertise the US can muster, including advanced propulsion technologies such as solar electric engines and perhaps even nuclear rockets.
This will be the first time CubeSats have flown in deep space.They will provide NASA the ability to quickly transmit information about the main spacecraft after it lands on Mars.
Viewed before sunrise, part of the Moon's horizon seems to glow. But because the moon has barely any atmosphere, there's seemingly nothing that could be doing the glowing.
While NASA and private corporations such as SpaceX get much of the attention in the US, China is showing off its plans to become the leading space power.
Astronomers have long been searching for water on Mars, and now new research suggests that watery debris flowed in one of its craters as recently as a million years ago.
With its various rover missions, NASA has been actively exploring the surface of Mars, but now the space agency wants to investigate the Martian skies.
Scientists have recently discovered that the Moon is engulfed in a permanent, lopsided dust cloud that could affect future space travel, a new study says.
Pluto is a geologically active world with ice mountains and frozen plains of methane and nitrogen, we’ve just learned that Pluto’s atmosphere is pouring away into space.
Pluto is not only a little larger than previously thought, but also home to some remarkable geological features. Many are saying it's time to restore Pluto to its previous station.
A failed steel strut holding down a canister of helium probably caused SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket to explode shortly after liftoff last month, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said.
Kepler-452b orbits at a similar distance from its star, though its radius is 60% larger. Mission scientists said they believed it was the most Earth-like planet yet.
NASA's Space Launch System (SLS) has completed its critical design review; a major stepping stone on the way to becoming certified for manned spaceflight.
Mars 2020, NASA’s next and yet-to-be-named Mars rover, will be the first mission to collect and prepare samples of the martian surface for return to Earth.
The InSight Mars lander mission may be more than a year away, but NASA is already moving its Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) to provide communications during the landing.
In 2014, the International Space Station had to move three times to avoid lethal chunks of space debris. The problem also threatens crucial and costly satellites in orbit.
The return of imagery is now pretty much constant.
This means the team will in future be releasing views, and their interpretation of them, on a regular basis.
A global ocean lies beneath the icy crust of Saturn's geologically active moon Enceladus, according to new research using data from NASA's Cassini mission.
The Space Launch System (SLS) is more powerful than the Apollo program's Saturn V, and is due to make its debut with the Orion vehicle in an uncrewed configuration, in late 2018.
Findings from NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) provide the strongest evidence yet that liquid water flows intermittently on present-day Mars, NASA announced today.
The contest sought concepts for how 3D printing might be used to create shelters on Mars. The winner, Ice House, would be built using Mars' predicted abundant water supply.
NASA released its plan for establishing permanent settlements on Mars, setting out how it aims to create 'deep-space habitation facilities' as stepping stones to Mars.
If something catastrophic happens one day, like a nearby star exploding, we may all get vaporized. Musk says we can't afford to wait around and find out.
Pluto isn't alone in having water ice on its surface, measurements indicate that Nix and Hydra, two of Pluto's five moons, are also covered with water ice.
There should already be 1 billion Earth-sized worlds in the Milky Way galaxy. That estimate skyrockets when you include the other 100 billion galaxies in the observable universe.
The final review paves the way for full-scale fabrication of the first exploration-class rocket since the Saturn V and the most powerful rocket ever built.
Unfortunately, the ISS' future is up in the air. Its funding will run out one year before it turns 25 in 2024, and it's unclear if a second-gen station will take its place.
NASA reported that a cloud of dust was surrounding Mars high above its atmosphere. They ruled out Mars itself and its moons Phobos and Deimos as the sources of the dust.
NASA's newly tested Chemical Laptop is the first device built to detect amino acids and fatty acids (the telltale signs of life as we know it) on other worlds.
The upgraded capsule, due to arrive on Wednesday, is loaded with more than 3,500 kg of food, clothing, computer gear, spacewalk equipment and science experiments.
In its ongoing effort to bring America back into crewed spaceflight, NASA has announced that Boeing has received a second commercial crew order to ferry astronauts to the ISS.
The report raises safety concerns over the rocket and spacecraft that will send astronauts to Mars. The report also says that NASA's overall plan to get to Mars is too vague.
13 CubeSats will be loaded onto the most powerful rocket ever, some of which will be deployed to inspect asteroids, while others will gather data on the Moon.
Toward the end of 2015, Russia’s space program announced plans to begin a series of lunar missions that would culminate in the creation of a manned moon base by 2030.
Over 18,300 hopefuls submitted their resumes, almost thrice as many compared to the agency's last hiring round in 2012. This round has shattered the previous record.
NASA’s Mars 2020 mission may well have company along the way, with teams in China working urgently to ready their first independent mission to the Red Planet.
The ongoing work is expected to help plot out other deep-space trips, such as the journey to a near-Earth asteroid and the larger leap to distant Mars.
ISRO has already proved that it has the ability to get to the Red Planetary efficiently; the space agency spent only US $74 million (less than the budget of the film Gravity).
Made In Space is partnering with Northrop Grumman and Oceaneering Space Systems to build a combination 3D printer and robotic arm that will operate in orbit.
The features place Pluto, once considered just a lonely ice-ball in the dark, on par with Mars (and second only to Earth) in terms of geological complexity.
A Russian Soyuz capsule carrying a NASA astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts arrived at the International Space Station on Friday, ending a nearly six-hour flight.
Ice volcanos, floating hills, deep canyons, hazy skies, and maybe even methane snow. Now, research suggests there's liquid water hiding beneath Pluto’s frozen surface.
A new map of Mars' gravity made with three NASA spacecraft is the most detailed to date, providing a revealing glimpse into the hidden interior of the Red Planet.
A likely explanation for this shift, which the researchers suggest took place over several billion years, is volcanic activity in a region called the Procellarum.
Researchers have identified the tallest peak on Saturn's moon Titan, a mountain that stands 10,948 ft tall. For comparison, Everest stands over 29,000 ft above sea level.
Several key changes have taken place over the past decade. These include the development of the space launch business, leading to an overall reduction in the cost of launches.
The United States, China, the United Arab Emirates, Europe and Russia all have planned Mars missions that are scheduled to launch, or likely to launch, in that year.
Acknowledging similar Moon base proposals by the Chinese, Russians and ESA, the writers argued that the project would maintain NASA’s position as a leader in space research.
Tim Peake has successfully berthed the latest cargo ship to visit the ISS. Using the robotic arm, he grabbed the Dragon freighter on Sunday, pulling it into the Harmony module.
The ISS received an exciting renovation today as the experimental Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM) was successfully attached to the Tranquility module.
European scientists are meeting to consider options for exploring Europa, a moon of Jupiter. They have ideas that could fit as add-ons to US missions that are to be launched in the 2020s.
New Horizons has turned on an instrument that would allow it to observe solar particles, and provide nearly three years worth of continuous information.
SpaceX just announced it's hoping to land an uncrewed Dragon capsule on Mars in 2018, which would make it the first private company to land on another planet. But it's not going alone.
The Humanoid called Valkyrie is one of the most advanced robots by NASA, created for a trip to Mars. It is also said to be the most advanced in the world.
A self-assembling space habitat, a deep sleep chamber for shuttle astronauts, and a protective magnetic force field are the latest projects NASA is embarking on.
NASA believes that the crew’s mental well-being will be substantially improved by effectively eliminating the 400 days spent in transit to and from Mars.
LM plans to unveil a vision for a spacecraft to make it happen. The "Mars Base Camp," would set up a laboratory, staffed by 6 astronauts, in Mars orbit in 2028.
There's a long-standing joke that NASA is always 20 years from putting astronauts on Mars. A to-do list from 2015 looks remarkably similar to one compiled in 1990.
The electrostatic qualities of the storms could interfere with vital equipment, while the sheer density of the dust particles works to dramatically lower visibility.
It was the first in a series of three planned fire experiments, which seek to better understand the dynamics of fire in microgravity so that astronauts will be well-prepared.
The capsule landed on its side, a frequent occurrence, after parachuting for 14 minutes. A search and recovery team quickly extracted the trio from the capsule.
New Horizons it revealed that the dwarf planet might have a liquid ocean sloshing around under its icy crust. According to a new analysis such an ocean likely still exists today.
It will still be on the job when its successor, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) launches in 2018, giving astronomers a dual view of the universe.
NASA and other researchers use what are known as zero pressure balloons to probe the mysteries of the atmosphere, and by extension our world and the universe as a whole.
On July 2, the nuclear-powered rover experienced some sort of a glitch and stopped most of its tasks as it went through a sequence to make sure it was still operating.
A laboratory that orbits Mars, giving astronauts the ability to drive rovers and UAVs on the Martian surface in real-time, and perhaps paving the way for a landing.
NASA has been signalling intentions to welcome more commercial partners aboard for a little while, and is now canvassing the private sector for ideas to increase business.
SpaceX's "Red Dragon" concept envisions using a Dragon spacecraft with only minor modification to land on the surface of Mars as a precursor to later human missions.
NASA said it will adjust the flow of work to prepare for the launch of Exploration Mission 1, the first Space Launch System flight, to keep it on schedule for the fall of 2018.
NASA says that the new contract will put the United States back into the manned spaceflight game and free US crews to spend more time on scientific research.
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory announced that it will outfit the next Mars rover with microphone cameras that'll record descent, landing, and surface operations.
NASA has outlined six new missions to be launched over the next few months that are equipped with new methods of studying the Earth's atmosphere, climate and weather.
The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) is a planned space telescope for NASA's Explorers program, designed to search for exoplanets using the transit method.
If the Chinese space authorities, as Popular Science reports, are already seeing successful Emdrive test results in space, NASA might want to fast-track its own research.
The vast distances between us and other points of particular interest in space are vast, and the speed limitations of our technology are a significant barrier to exploration.
During his appearance, Pence came out strong with some big promises for the U.S. space program, reiterating what we’ve heard before from the Trump administration.
The discovery of evidence for ancient sea-floor hydrothermal deposits on Mars identifies an area on the planet that may offer clues about the origin of life on Earth.
In many places, water access depends partly upon atmospheric “rivers,” bands of water vapour propelled along jets of air that trace swirling routes above the Earth.
The nuclear-powered rover will carry 23 cameras that will have higher resolution, more 3D capability, and larger bandwidth than any previous Mars explorer.
CEO of Boeing Dennis Muilenburg has thrown down the gauntlet again, challenging Elon Musk's plans of getting to Mars first. Musk welcomes the competition.
Kepler space telescope, which has discovered 70 percent of the 3,750 exoplanets known to date, is running so low on fuel it has been put it into a hibernation-like state.
The NASA auditor has just produced a report which indicates the first test flight of the first version of the SLS will likely slip badly from June 2020.
Falcon 9 Block 5, the rocket's newest iteration recently earned LSP's Category 3 certification, which enables the company to launch the agency's highest-priority payloads.