It takes a unique combination of political ambition and technical knowhow to allow mankind to wander around the atmosphere. Relive 50 years of humans walking in space with this superb NASA video. Read More >
Those gooey speckles of black and red bug splat might be gross to you, but to aerospace engineers, they’re a riddle that’s plagued the industry for decades.
Preparations for NASA’s next mission to Mars are kicking into high gear. And the technology the space agency is building for the Martian lander slated to launch in 2016 is enough to make science fiction fans foam at the mouth. Read More >>
There’s gold in them thar’ space rocks, say the miners of the future. There’s also platinum, rare earth elements, and even water.
How do you test the parachutes that will save spacecraft as they tumble towards the surface of a planet from the reaches of space? In the world’s largest wind tunnel, of course.
Yesterday, the International Space Station’s Permanent Multipurpose Module known as Leonardo was detached from the spacecraft. But don’t worry: it was part of a planned move, in order to make it easier for more visiting spacecraft to dock with the orbiting laboratory. Read more >>
In photographs taken in the spectrum of visible light, the Sun’s magnetic field is invisible. But this image wasn’t taken in our familiar, visible wavelengths, which is why the Sun’s magnetic field is both apparent and beautiful. Read more >>
It's all about CubeSats, which are small 10x10cm satellites, and a plan to make them more powerful.
While this star was discovered decades ago, it’s the first time researchers have seen it up close. And it has brought with it some surprises. This is the star that NASA chooses to call the 'Nasty One'. Read more >>
Earlier this month we discovered that Ceres’ pair of mysterious bright spots were, in fact, not two—they were many, many more. Now, we’ve got the closest look yet of the spots thanks to NASA’s Dawn mission. Read More >>
The space administration has released tonnes of its software for people to have a tinker with.
If you walked by a wall decorated with this design, you probably wouldn’t immediately recognise the patterns as stars and nebulae. That’s because the imagery, which is dug out of NASA’s massive image archive, has been inverted — hence its name Inverted Spaces. See more >>
Huge vacuum chambers on Earth are crucial for building and testing spacecraft, so we explore further into space. The photo above is Vacuum Chamber 5, which is very special because it has the highest pumping speed of any electric propulsion test facility in the world. Read more >>
Answers on a postcard, please.
While it looks like it could be a car engine, in this image Scott Kelly and Terry Virts performs maintenance on the Carbon Dioxide Removal Assembly that sits in the Japanese Experiment Module. It’s a pretty important piece of kit: it scrubs the air aboard the station to remove the carbon dioxide, allowing those aboard to breathe in safety. No pressure, boys. [NASA]
For the first time, they’re actually telling us what the space plane will be doing—well, some of it anyway.
