NASA

50 years ago, John Glenn became America's biggest hero

As far as the United States was concerned, John Glenn's Feb. 20, 1962, flight aboard Friendship 7 could not have been more important.

Less than a year earlier, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin had become the first human in space, and by the time of Glenn's launch, Americans Alan Shepard and Gus Grissom had already made their way into the heavens, if only briefly.

But with his 4 hour, 56 minute flight, Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth, doing so three times at an altitude of up to 162 statute miles and speeds of up to … Read more

NASA budget boosts manned space, cuts Mars exploration

The Obama administration is requesting $17.7 billion for NASA in its fiscal 2013 budget--down slightly from 2012 levels--doubling the amount spent on development of new commercial manned spacecraft to ferry astronauts to and from the International Space Station and giving a substantial boost to the delayed and over-budget successor to the Hubble Space Telescope.

Funding for the space station and ongoing development of new rockets and capsules for deep space exploration remains roughly constant, but the agency's hugely successful Mars exploration program will be sharply scaled back, in large part to offset gains in other areas.

Putting an … Read more

Testing pushes SpaceX cargo flight to at least late March

Launch of a SpaceX commercial cargo ship on an initial test flight to the International Space Station, originally planned for February 7, is expected to slip to at least the end of March, officials said Friday, to give engineers time to complete additional hardware and software testing in the wake of a recent simulation, software analysis, and work in Florida to close out the craft for flight.

The company has not set an official target launch date for its unmanned Dragon cargo carrier, but the long-awaited mission is not expected to fly before March 20 and it could slip to … Read more

NASA's Kepler finds Earth-size worlds orbiting another star

NASA's Kepler space telescope has found the first confirmed Earth-size planets orbiting another star, astronomers announced Tuesday, a major milestone in an ongoing project aimed at finding out how commonplace--or rare--Earth-like worlds may be across the cosmos.

In a solar system 1,000 light years away with at least five planets, the newly confirmed Earth-size worlds orbit too close to their star to support life. But proving the Kepler observatory can, in fact, spot worlds as small as Earth across the vast reaches of interstellar space gives astronomers confidence many more such planets are awaiting discovery among the 2,… Read more

Earth-like planet found in distant sun's habitable zone

For the first time, astronomers using NASA's Kepler space telescope have confirmed a roughly Earth-size planet orbiting a sun-like star in the so-called "Goldilocks" zone where water can exist in liquid form on the surface and conditions may be favorable for life as it is known on Earth.

Along with the confirmed extra-solar planet, one of 28 discovered so far by Kepler, researchers today also announced the discovery of 1,094 new exoplanet candidates, pushing the spacecraft's total so far to 2,326, including 10 candidate Earth-size worlds orbiting in the habitable zones of their parent … Read more

$2.5 billion Mars rover departs Earth, heads for Red Planet

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla.--A towering Atlas 5 rocket flashed to life and vaulted into space Saturday, putting on a spectacular weekend sky show as it boosted NASA's $2.5 billion Mars Science Laboratory rover on an eight-and-a-half-month, 352-million-mile voyage to the Red Planet.

Equipped with a nuclear power pack, a robot arm, and a suite of sophisticated instruments, the mobile laboratory, dubbed Curiosity in a student naming contest, is expected to spend at least two years looking for organic compounds and signs of past or present habitability in the layered terrain at the heart of a 100-mile-wide crater.… Read more

Ambitious Mars Science Lab rover set for Saturday launch

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla.--NASA's $2.5 billion Mars Science Laboratory rover, the most complex and scientifically powerful robotic spacecraft ever built to explore the surface of another world, is poised for launch Saturday on a high-stakes mission to look for organic compounds and signs of past or present habitability.

If all goes well, the nuclear-powered rover will reach the red planet next August, slamming into the thin martian atmosphere at some 13,200 mph for a nail-biting descent to the floor of a 100-mile-wide crater dominated by a towering 3-mile-high central peak stacked with rocky layers of martian … Read more

Russian Soyuz rockets into space on delayed station flight

After exhaustive work to recover from a dramatic August launch failure, a Russian Soyuz spacecraft carrying two cosmonauts and a NASA astronaut blasted off in blizzard-like conditions late Sunday on a delayed flight to the International Space Station, the program's first manned launching since the U.S. shuttle was retired.

Amid steady snow, the Soyuz TMA-22 spacecraft roared to life at 11:14:03 p.m. EST (10:14:03 a.m. Monday local time) and quickly climbed away from its frigid launch pad at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Trailing a brilliant jet of flame from its core … Read more

Russians prep Soyuz for launch to International Space Station

After exhaustive work to recover from a dramatic August launch failure, a Russian Soyuz spacecraft carrying two cosmonauts and a NASA astronaut was poised for blastoff late Sunday on a delayed flight to the International Space Station, the program's first manned launching since the U.S. shuttle was retired.

Soyuz TMA-22 commander Anton Shkaplerov, board engineer Anatoly Ivanishin, and shuttle veteran Daniel Burbank were scheduled to blast off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 11:14:04 p.m. EST (10:14:04 a.m. Nov. 14 local time), roughly the moment Earth's rotation carries the pad … Read more

Russian Progress cargo ship docks with space station

An unmanned Russian Progress cargo ship loaded with 2.9 tons of supplies and equipment completed a smooth automated docking with the International Space Station today, three days after launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

It was the first Progress arrival since an August launch failure and the first successful linkup of a Russian cargo craft since June.

The Progress M-13M spacecraft, the 45th launched to the space station since assembly began in 1998, docked at the station's Pirs module at 7:41 a.m. EDT as the two spacecraft sailed 245 miles above northern China. The docking … Read more