Space News & Blog Articles

Space station commander Oleg Kononenko, flanked on his left by Starliner commander Butch Wilmore and on his right by co-pilot Sunita Williams, anchors a group photo of the lab’s seven long-duration crew members and their two visitors. Back row, left to right: cosmonaut Nikolai Chub, Jeanette Epps and Matthew Dominick; middle row, left to right: cosmonaut Alexander Grebenkin, Tracy Dyson and Michael Barratt. Image: NASA

Working around multiple helium leaks and thruster problems, the crew of Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft wrapped up a challenging rendezvous and a delayed-but-successful docking with the International Space Station Thursday in a major milestone for the new ship’s first piloted test flight.

A stack of SpaceX Starlink satellites, which included the first six featuring Direct to Cell capabilities. The batch launched on the Starlink 7-9 mission, which lifted off from Vandenberg Space Force Base on Jan. 2, 2024. Image: SpaceX

SpaceX is preparing to kick off the weekend with the launch of another batch of its Starlink satellites. The mission, dubbed Starlink 8-8, will add 20 more satellites to the low Earth orbit constellation, including 13 that have Direct to Cell capabilities.

NASA's Mars Sample Return mission has faced quite a few hurdles, and the agency has selected ten studies to try and find more affordable and quicker means of going about the project.

Virgin Galactic aims to launch its seventh commercial spaceflight mission on June 8 during the final flight of its VSS Unity suborbital spaceplane.

A Falcon 9 rocket lifts off from pad 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on June 7, 2024. The mission, Starlink 10-1, was the first to send Starlink satellites to this shell of the mega constellation. Image: Spaceflight Now

Update 8:57 p.m. EDT: SpaceX adjusted the T-0 liftoff time.

SpaceX plans to launch yet another batch of its Starlink internet satellites from Florida's Space Coast tonight (June 7).

Jupiter and Earth's oceans have more in common than you might think.

An exotic molecule stabilized by intense pressure found in the icy depths of Neptune and Uranus could help explain a long-standing mystery.

The United States Air Force and U.S. Space Force conducted two routine test launches of unarmed intercontinental ballistic missiles this week from Vandenberg Space Force Base.

In the fifth episode of "Doctor Who," called"'Dot and Bubble," a city has been invaded by giant, human-eating space slugs, and they seem to have a plan.

NASA engineers are working to extend operations for the venerable space telescope. Observations are expected to continue by mid-June.

Video: 00:01:51

SENER is testing the docking capabilities of the SIROM system by launching the MANTIS floating platform into an equally free-floating REACSA at ESA's Orbital Robotics Laboratory. This free-floating tests simulate the dynamics of rigid body contact and present an opportunity to gather valuable insights into the performance of SIROM in approximately 200 docking scenarios.

South Korea has announced the creation of a new space agency and is aiming to land its own spacecraft on the moon and Mars in the coming decades.

Taking almost a full hour to rotate rather than fractions of a second, ASKAP J1935+2148 is the slowest spinning radio-blasting neutron star ever seen.

Week in images: 03-06 June 2024

Crew members selected for a planned flight around the moon funded by Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa shared public feelings of disappointment after the mission's cancellation.

El Gordo is a massive collection of colliding galaxies 7 billion light-years away. Its odd behavior could suggest dark matter interacts with itself.

The waxing Moon reenters the sky as an evening crescent. Pollux and Castor keep it company. The Big Dipper hangs straight down. And can you still catch wintry Capella? The colder your latitude the better your chance.