space

Leaping over the Golden Gate Bridge was no great shakes. And even zipping to the International Space Station and back was pretty much a piece of cake. But navigating the streets of Los Angeles is something else altogether, the Space Shuttle Endeavour is discovering.

The historic craft left Los Angeles International Airport on the back of a remote-controlled 160-wheel carrier before dawn Friday to begin a 12-mile mission along the L.A. streets to the California Science Center near downtown, where it will spend its retirement. It's due to reach the center late today, according to a report from … Read more

After getting off to a rocky start with an engine failure during launch Sunday, a commercial cargo capsule loaded with a half-ton of equipment and supplies -- including ice cream -- carried out a flawless final approach to the International Space Station early Wednesday, pulling up to within 60 feet so Japanese astronaut Akihiko Hoshide, operating the lab's robot arm, could pluck it out of open space for berthing.

Making the first of at least 12 cargo deliveries under a $1.6 billion contract with NASA, the SpaceX Dragon capsule, after a successful test flight last May, is the … Read more

Soprano Sarah Brightman, believed to be one of the world's wealthiest classical crossover performers, has booked a seat on a Russian Soyuz spacecraft for a 10-day visit to the International Space Station.

The launch schedule has not been announced, but the first available flight is believed to be in mid- to late-2015.

"As I'm sure you may know, I'm planning to become a spaceflight participant and have been recently approved to begin my spaceflight training by the Russian space federation, having passed the necessary medical and physical tests," she said today, reading prepared remarks at … Read more

"When humanity disappears, a ring of dead spacecraft will remain as evidence of our existence."

That comforting thought is how nonprofit arts group Creative Time introduces a project by multimedia artist Trevor Paglen to put a photo time capsule in space, where it will orbit our planet for thousands of years, perhaps long after we've blown each other up or otherwise expired. … Read more

SpaceX engineers are reviewing telemetry to figure out what caused a dramatic first stage engine failure Sunday night during launch of a commercially developed cargo ship on the company's first operational flight to the International Space Station, officials said today.

The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket's flight computer fired the remaining eight first-stage engines longer than planned to compensate for the failure of engine No. 1 and the Dragon cargo capsule was successfully boosted into the required orbit, setting up a rendezvous with the space station Wednesday morning as planned.

The SpaceX launch generated widespread interest because it was … Read more

An unmanned cargo ship loaded with spare parts, science equipment, and crew supplies -- including ice cream treats -- rocketed into orbit Sunday and set off after the International Space Station, kicking off a new era of commercial resupply flights intended to restore a U.S. supply chain that was crippled by the shuttle's retirement.

The Dragon capsule and its Falcon 9 rocket, both built by Space Exploration Technologies, took off with a rush of fiery exhaust at 8:35:07 p.m. EDT (GMT-4), quickly climbing away from launch complex 40 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.… Read more

There's a hierarchy of "Star Trek" inventions we would like to see become reality. We already have voice-controlled computers and communicators in the form of smartphones. A working Holodeck is under development. Now, how about we get some impulse engines for our starships?

The University of Alabama in Huntsville's Aerophysics Research Center, NASA, Boeing, and Oak Ridge National Laboratory are collaborating on a project to produce nuclear fusion impulse rocket engines. It's no warp drive, but it would get us around the galaxy a lot quicker than current technologies.… Read more

While the Mars rover explores the Red Planet, a group of engineers submitted plans for a new out-of-this-world space mission: landing a boat on the Saturn moon Titan, which NASA, the European Space Agency, and Italian space agency ASI explored in depth over the last decade as part of the Cassini-Huygens mission.

Building on the successful 2005 landing of the Huygens probe on Titan, the new mission would aim to explore and collect data from the weird liquid methane makeup of the lakes found on the Saturn moon's surface. To explore these uncharted methane flows, engineers at the aerospace company Sener -- working in collaboration with Spain's Centro de Astrobiologia -- submitted a proposal last week to the European Planetary Science Congress for a Talise (Titan Lake In-situ Sampling Propelled Explorer) boat probe. … Read more