NASA Archives | Page 14 of 15

Artemis I vs. Artemis II: Here’s how these missions will prep astronauts’ lunar return

The success of Artemis I is establishing, the foundation for NASA’s newest push to the Moon. Its early success will pave the way to the next mission, Artemis II. The first flight of the Artemis Program ended with a successful splashdown in the Pacific Ocean on December 11. And now, NASA will review the data […]

Dust collected by NASA’s Perseverance rover could reveal Martian climate secrets

The Mars Sample Return (MSR) part of Perseverance’s mission is picking up — literally. For the past few months, the rover has concentrated on picking up samples that will eventually be returned to Earth as part of the future Mars Sample Return mission. Back on Earth, plenty of advanced technologies can poke and prod the […]

Russian Soyuz capsule sprung a coolant leak in space last night — here’s how serious that could be

A leak sprung from a Russian crew capsule in space on Wednesday at 7:45 p.m. Eastern, spraying coolant into low-Earth orbit. This happened less than two hours before a scheduled spacewalk. As of Thursday afternoon, an ongoing investigation by NASA and Russia has “indefinitely postponed” the next spacewalk. This is a developing story. First and […]

NASA’s Artemis: Mission goals and next steps for the ambitious lunar program

In a few years, astronauts could plant boots on the Moon for the first time in half a century. By 2024, NASA plans to send the first woman and person of color to the Moon as part of the agency’s Artemis mission. But getting to the Moon is no easy feat. To make the journey […]

A small but crucial space project could take Mars exploration to the next level

When it comes to “on the ground” exploration of Mars, rovers make pretty good advance scouts. From Pathfinder to Perseverance, we’ve watched as these semi-autonomous robots do what human explorers want to do in the future. Now, engineers are studying ways to expand rover exploration on Mars. One thing they’re thinking about is communication satellite […]

Artemis I: 7 stunning images from Orion’s final trip around the Moon

On December 5, the Artemis I mission slingshotted around the Moon one final time. Here are 7 incredible images of the journey. View this story on Inverse

Artemis I is on its way home from the Moon after flying just 80 miles over the lunar surface

The Artemis I mission is coming back to planet Earth, NASA officials confirmed on Monday, December 5. The space agency announced the news as its Orion capsule emerged from the dark side of the Moon. In this case, “dark” means loss of signal. During the special maneuver to come home, Orion flew behind the Moon, […]

Astronomers spot an incoming small asteroid — and make a big breakthrough

Humanity is getting better a planetary defense — at least from external threats from outer space, as long as they’re just dumb rocks that follow the laws of physics. And a group of extraordinary humans proved it last week when the planetary defense community jumped into action to accurately track and predict exactly where a […]

Look! New Hubble image displays a dazzling disco ball of stars

Thousands of stars, clumped together in a dazzling ball of light, sparkle brightly in this Hubble Space Telescope image. Hubble recently pointed its instruments at Prismis 26, a globular cluster 23,000 light years away, near the bright bulge of stars around the center of our galaxy. A globular cluster is exactly what it sounds like: […]

A cutting-edge radar system could be a front-line tool to fight dangerous space junk

Space debris is becoming more and more of a real problem. We’re not quite at Kessler syndrome levels yet, but with the increased interest in getting things into space, there is a real possibility that might happen in the not-too-distant future. Plenty of potential solutions have been put forward to deal with the problem, but […]