For millennia, our species looked at the Moon as a place that would forever be beyond our reach, but 20th-century technologies finally made our natural satellite accessible to probes, landers, and even human explorers. Despite these achievements, however, the Moon has furiously resisted our overtures, whether it be…
NASA is scaling back on its ambitious Mars Sample Return (MSR) program, fearing federal budget cuts to the space agency’s plan to bring back rock and dust from the Red Planet, which has come under heavy scrutiny for having unrealistic costs and timelines.
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is contributing to the lunar outpost that will be built around the Moon, building the Gateway’s airlock module in a sign that the gulf country will be more involved in NASA’s Artemis program.
NASA, in its relentless pursuit of space innovation, announced on Thursday the selection of 13 new projects for its 2024 Phase I awards under the Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program. These awards, totaling up to $175,000 each, are granted to teams proposing advanced and unconventional space technologies.
Our top science stories this week include a physics experiment to turn light into matter, an update from NASA’s Juno mission (it’s about to make a close encounter with Jupiter’s moon Io), and a roundup of the best archaeological discoveries of 2023.
Experimental rockets, Moon landers, planetary flybys, breathtaking spacewalks, and vintage boosters—these are just a few of the many stories that contributed to the most striking and memorable images of 2023.
China’s Shenlong robotic spaceplane, on its third mission, has added a new layer of intrigue to its space activities by deploying six unidentified objects into Earth’s orbit.
Among the over 100 satellites that launched on board SpaceX’s Transporter-9 mission, three failed to deploy and their current whereabouts are unknown.
For the first time, a SpaceX Falcon Heavy will attempt to deliver the Pentagon’s spaceplane to low Earth orbit. The mission marks the seventh for the mysterious spacecraft, aiming to expand the Space Force’s knowledge of the space environment and test new technologies.
The final mission of the European Space Agency’s Vega rocket has encountered a bizarre setback. Key propellant tanks required for its last flight were found damaged in a landfill, jeopardizing the scheduled 2024 launch.
