International Space Station (ISS) Program managers at space agencies around the world are currently in the process of ironing out an extremely complex and busy integrated schedule of comings and goings at the station, in light of recent delays to Soyuz launches and the inaugural station visit by SpaceX’s Dragon capsule.

On February 1, 2003, NASA suffered a blow which is still felt today, both from a workforce and directional standpoint. The disaster – which not only claimed the lives of seven astronauts but also that of NASA’s flagship Shuttle – ultimately led to the current transitional status of having no domestic launch capability until the [...]

Eight years ago today (January 25, 2004), the Mars Exploration Rover -B (MER -B) slammed into the Martian atmosphere and executed a successful Entry, Descent, and Landing on the Red Planet – beginning what was supposed to be 90 days of science operations on the surface of Mars. Eight years and 2,922 Earth-days later, Opportunity [...]

As NASA managers continue to work through the evaluations into an exploration roadmap for the agency, the end goal of sending humans to Mars is starting to show a level of consistency. Per documentation, the key Design Reference Mission (DRM) evaluations are pointing to the “Flexible Path” approach of visiting a Martian moon, prior to [...]

NASA’s Space Technology Program announced on Monday they are looking for what they describe as “far-out” concepts and ideas, as part of the Agency’s NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program. Otherwise tagged as “game-changing”, such concepts range from advanced space suits to new propulsion methods for exploration spacecraft.

All good things must come to an end. And thus was the grand finale of the Space Shuttle Program in 2011. It was year of exceptional highs and emotional scenes as Discovery, Endeavour, and Atlantis closed out their remarkable careers with same style, grace, mission success, and safety that all had come to know from [...]

In a year that saw the station finally completed after nearly 13 years of construction, a number of new discoveries relating to the effects of long-term microgravity environments on the human body brought scientific activities aboard the International Space Station (ISS) to a record high in 2011.

Following on the planetary accomplishments of NASA’s fleet of unmanned solar system explorers in 2011, the U.S. space agency was also extremely busy in the field of extra-solar studies via observations of other solar systems with the impressive Kepler Space Telescope.

It was an interesting year for NASA as the 2011 calendar brought about the retirement of the iconic Space Shuttle fleet, the completion of the USOS segment of the International Space Station, the launch of three new planetary missions, and the ongoing scientific endeavors of NASA’s fleet of planetary probes. In all, 2011 proved a [...]

For the past several months, a plan to restart shuttle operations – funded by billions of dollars of secured non-government investment – was under evaluation with NASA and shuttle contractors prior to the secret effort ending last week. However, the group behind the effort have now switched their focus to a “Next Generation, Shuttle Capable” vehicle [...]

An agreement has been signed between Raytheon Technical Services and Petrofac Training Services to allow oil workers to train at the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory’s giant pool. While training scenes for fictional oil workers were seen during the movie Armageddon, Petrofac’s team won’t be preparing to save the planet, instead using the facility to fine tune [...]

Russia’s space agency Roscosmos has successfully returned the venerable Soyuz booster to flight via the launch of the Soyuz-U booster carrying the uncrewed Progress M-13M/45P resupply spacecraft to the International Space Station (ISS). The launch is the first successful Soyuz booster flight to the ISS since the 24th August failure of the Soyuz-U booster carrying [...]

India’s Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle has made its twentieth launch Wednesday morning, carrying the Megha-Tropiques atmospheric research satellite and three other spacecraft into orbit. Liftoff from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre was on schedule at 05:31 UTC (11:01 local time).

After over 50 years of operation, NASA is about to permanently enter the world of instant (or near instant) information exchange with the general public in a new way that largely symbolizes one of the changing ways the premiere US space agency will interact with the public and disseminate information about science operations and real-time [...]

Russia has successfully launched the Kosmos (Glonass-M) satellite into orbit, following lift-off of their Soyuz 2-1B launch vehicle from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in northern Russia, marking the first Soyuz launch since the August failure, which resulted in the loss of Progress M-12M. Launch occurred at 20:15 UTC on Sunday, with spacecraft separation over three hours [...]

Japan has launched a new Information Gathering Satellite (IGS) known as Optical-4, via their H-2A (H-IIA) launch vehicle. Given the military nature of the payload, only amateur footage of the launch was available, although it did show the vehicle successfully lifted off from the Yoshinobu Launch Complex at the Tanegashima Space Center (TNSC) at 04:36 [...]

As NASA’s defunct Upper Atmospheric Research Satellite (UARS) continues to head towards its death – which will result in re-entry around September 23 – NASA managers have discussed ways of improving their fragmentation models for future returning spacecraft, with the aim of reducing the the debris footprint for hardware which may threaten to survive entry.

NASA’s Mission Operations Directorate (MOD) are continuing to expand their involvement in exploration training and simulation by working with the international Pavilion Lake Research Project (PLRP) team on multi-hour missions – a precursor to deep space exploration missions, which will one day involve humans searching for signs of life on Mars.

As NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) produced the sharpest images ever taken from space of the Apollo 12, 14 and 17 landing sites, NASA managers are working on internal plans to protect the “heritage sites” from potential damage from future visiting spacecraft – such as the Google Lunar X PRIZE (GLXP) vehicles – listing a [...]