If China’s just-launched Chang’e 3 lunar probe (quaintly known as the Jade Rabbit) drops its robotic rover down on the Moon’s surface in mid-December as scheduled, it will be the first soft landing on our nearest celestial neighbor in 37…
For decades, the space race was seen as being mostly about national pride. Getting there first mattered most, whereas pushing the frontiers of science and technology took a close second. The first man in space, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, was…
Pieces of launcher from moon rover takeoff fall through roofs in Hunan province, sparking calls for compensation Two houses in China were damaged by falling pieces of a rocket launched on Monday, prompting calls for an insurance scheme to cover…
BEND, Ore. — It might be the weirdest part of the atmosphere, 15 miles above the polar regions, where vast stratospheric clouds of nitric acid and water vapor shimmer in iridescent pink while human-made chemicals play havoc with the ozone…
Mike Melvill’s journey into space Alone in the sleek, composite shell of an experimental spacecraft he helped build, suspended beneath the broad wings of the White Knight carrier airplane, test pilot Mike Melvill is glad to finally get busy. The…
With a thunderous roar, a 224-foot rocket carrying a massive satellite launched from Cape Canaveral and blasted into outer space, hurtling over the Atlantic Ocean as it cut across the night sky. On Tuesday, Hawthorne rocket maker SpaceX lifted the…
BEIJING— In hopes of ensuring that the next man on the moon is Chinese, Beijing launched a rocket carrying a buggy-like vehicle that is expected to roam and explore the moon’s surface for three months. The Long March rocket lifted…
Russia has presented a new humanlike robot, which may be delivered to the International Space Station to perform 90 percent of risky operations in open space instead of cosmonauts. The SAR- 401 prototype was revealed to journalists at the Yury…
A NASA rocket being sent up to study the atmosphere of Venus is slated for launch on Monday; just seven days after the space agency launched a probe to study the Martian atmosphere. While the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution…
Concerned a rocket launch might add more congestion to the skies during Thanksgiving week, federal regulators blocked SpaceX’s bid to launch a commercial broadcasting satellite Tuesday and Wednesday, two of the busiest travel days of the year SpaceX scrubbed a…