Clearing the heavens of space junk Clearing the heavens of space junk 06:17 NASA confirmed Monday that a mystery object that crashed through the roof of a Florida home last month was a chunk of space junk from equipment discarded at the International Space Station. The cylindrical object that tore through the home in Naples…
Along with funding the commercial development of new rockets, Artemis moon landers and new spacesuits, NASA is pressing ahead with plans to buy an unpressurized moon rover that can carry astronauts, science payloads — or both — across the rugged terrain of the lunar south pole, officials said Wednesday. The agency announced contract awards to…
What is a total solar eclipse? The science explained What is a total solar eclipse? The science explained 03:27 The next total solar eclipse takes shape Monday, April 8, when an overlap between the sun and the moon is expected to darken daylight skies over parts of North America and ask awestruck Earthlings to briefly…
Ending an era in U.S. rocketry, United Launch Alliance fired off its 16th and final triple-core Delta 4 Heavy Tuesday, launching a classified spy satellite in the last hurrah of a storied family of rockets dating back to the dawn of the space age. The Heavy’s three hydrogen-fueled RS-68A first stage engines ignited with a…
On April 8, a rare total solar eclipse drew a “path of totality” over North America, throwing swaths of the United States, Canada and Mexico into darkness in the middle of the day. A solar eclipse occurs when the moon passes between the Earth and the sun, blocking our view of the sun as it passes….
Blue Origin, the rocket company owned by Amazon-founder Jeff Bezos, successfully launched an unpiloted New Shepard capsule to the edge of space and back Tuesday, the first flight of the sub-orbital spacecraft since a booster failure last year triggered a dramatic abort. No passengers were on board for the 2022 flight and while the booster…
NASA’s first crewed Artemis mission, a flight to send four astronauts on a voyage around the moon and back, is being delayed nearly a year, from late 2024 to at least September 2025, NASA announced Tuesday. Likewise, the first astronaut moon landing is slipping from late 2025 to September 2026. “As we remind everybody at…
U.S. lunar lander in jeopardy U.S. lunar lander Peregrine in jeopardy hours after launch 06:35 The Peregrin lunar lander, crippled by a propellant leak shortly after launch early Monday, is now expected to run out of fuel Thursday and will not be able to carry out its planned landing on the lunar surface, officials said…
Update: Astrobotic said its moon lander ran into problems staying properly oriented; read the latest here. Our earlier story is below. For the first time in more than 50 years, a commercially built American lander was fired off to the moon early Monday, a small robotic probe called Peregrine that’s packed with 20 experiments and…
The Ursids meteor shower is set to peak Thursday night into Friday morning, according to the American Meteor Society. The cosmic show, which will be the last meteor shower to peak in 2023, radiates from the constellation Ursa Minor, also known as the Little Dipper, according to NASA. The space agency has described the Ursids…
