'Artificial Gravity' Bed-Rest Study to Track Space Travel's Effects on Human Body By Mike Wall Some brave people will soon lie down for science — and they won't get up for a long, long time.
2020 Mars Helicopter Could Open Alien Skies to Exploration By Mike Wall A few brief hops in the Martian air two years from now could open alien worlds to an entirely new kind of exploration.
NASA May Send a Smallsat Mission to the Giant Asteroid Pallas By Meghan Bartels NASA is considering funding a mission that would send a satellite the size of a mini-fridge to the asteroid belt to examine an unexplored world: a massive asteroid scientists call Pallas.
How a Viral Comet Crash Into Jupiter Helped Popularize the Internet By Meghan Bartels A quarter century ago and thousands of miles away, a dramatic weeklong cosmic collision unfolded and helped the internet gain a foothold in people's lives.
Japan Taps Toyota to Build Futuristic Moon Rover By Tariq Malik Japan wants to build the ultimate moon rover for astronauts and has tapped Toyota to help develop a futuristic, off-road, lunar vehicle that could potentially launch in 2029.
Rovers Learn New Gait to Avoid Getting Stuck in the Sand on Other Worlds By Meghan Bartels Rovers, whatever world they're designed to explore, tend to work like little cars, but that can leave them vulnerable to getting stuck, as Spirit infamously did on Mars.
Moon Mining Could Actually Work, with the Right Approach By Leonard David Space mining could help open up the inner solar system to exploration.
Radiation Detector Used on Space Station Can Help Sniff Out Forged Paintings By Meghan Bartels Technology developed at CERN and flown on the International Space Station is now at work helping art experts analyze paintings.
EELV Is No More. It Is Now 'National Security Space Launch' By Sandra Erwin Col. Bongiovi, director of SMC's Launch Enterprise Directorate, says the NSSL program will seek to leverage the U.S. commercial launch industry.
Chinese State-Owned Firms Preparing to Launch New Commercial Rockets By Andrew Jones Chinese defense contractor CASIC is preparing to launch a new solid propellant launch vehicle in the first half of the year as part of a multiplatform commercial space strategy.
Canada Joins NASA's Lunar Gateway Station Project with 'Canadarm3' Robotic Arm By Elizabeth Howell NASA's Lunar Gateway space station project has secured its first international partnership. Canada pledged to contribute a "Canadarm3" smart robotic arm to repair and maintain the Gateway.
NASA Unlikely to Return Mars Samples in the 2020s By Jeff Foust Despite a new emphasis on a streamlined, "lean' sample return architecture, it's unlikely that suite of missions will be able to return Martian samples to the Earth before the end of the 2020s.
Robot 'Mole' on Mars Begins Digging Into Red Planet This Week By Meghan Bartels The first-ever interplanetary "mole" is about to start burrowing into the Martian surface — but this mole is purely mechanical, and it would flounder on any other world.
Companies Skeptical Commercial Lunar Landers Can Fly NASA Payloads This Year By Jeff Foust As NASA selects payloads it plans to fly on commercial lunar landers, companies developing those spacecraft are skeptical any landers will be ready to fly this year, as the agency desires.
Physicists Just Solved a 35-Year-Old Mystery Hidden Inside Atomic Cores By Rafi Letzter The quarks inside atoms move slower than the quarks inside free-floating protons and neutrons. But why?
Truck Stops in Space: Excerpt from 'Space 2.0' by Rod Pyle By Rod Pyle In the new book "Space 2.0," Rod Pyle gives an inside look at what's coming next for space exploration, resource extraction and settlement.
ESA Seeks New Spacesuit Material for Lunar Astronauts. But It Has to Be the Right Stuff. By Jasmin Malik Chua The European Space Agency (ESA) is searching for potential spacesuit materials that would best protect future lunar astronauts from the inhospitable conditions of the moon.
Robots Invade the Mars-Like Moroccan Desert in the Name of Research By Scott Snowden Robotics technologies needed for future planetary exploration tested much closer to home, in the Moroccan desert.
British Rocketmaker Orbex Unveils Prototype of Small-Satellite Launcher By Tereza Pultarova UK startup Orbex has unveiled a prototype of its small-satellite launcher, a device that the company hopes will be lofting spacecraft at a rate of once per month by the mid-2020s.
Star Wars Lightsaber Academy Is Jedi Boot Camp By Sherri L. Smith Launching in Fall 2019 (priced at $49.99), Star Wars Lightsaber Academy will let you train with up to five Masters in the force -- either Sith or Jedi via an app-connected lightsaber.
