Space

Startup Rocket Lab is pressing ahead with its ambitions to turn its Electron booster into a reusable orbital launch vehicle for small satellites, with plans this weekend to recover the rocket's first stage that will have an upgraded heat shield.

NASA's Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security, Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) robotic deep-space probe is returning from the near-Earth asteroid Bennu, beginning its 2.5-year journey to Earth laden with samples.

More than 40 years after launch, Voyager 1 is still making new discoveries. The latest achievement by the craft is the detection of a faint, plasma “hum,” indicating that there may be more activity in interstellar gas than previously thought.

NASA's Ingenuity Mars helicopter has successfully flown for the fifth time. The autonomous rotorcraft lifted off from Wright Brothers Field in Jezero Crater for a 108-second flight that took it on a one-way trip to a new airfield 423 ft to the south.

Mars orbiters have spotted a large volcanic deposit that appears to be relatively fresh, only about 53,000 years old. The find may lend weight to the idea that the Red Planet was recently, or still is, habitable for subsurface microbes.

Following a series of impressive yet explosive attempts to bring down its giant spaceship built for interplanetary travel, SpaceX has today successfully landed its Starship prototype without exploding for the first time.

Blue Origin has opened the first round of bidding for the first passenger seat on its suborbital New Shepard reusable space vehicle, which is scheduled to fly on July 20, 2021.

A wine that spent 14 months on the International Space Station (ISS) is being offered up for sale by auction house Christie's. One of a dozen bottles of vintage Pétrus 2000 sent to the station, it could bring an estimated US$1 million.

On May 5, 1961, about 45 million US television viewers watched as a single-stage Redstone rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral. Mercury Redstone 3 carried Alan Shepard on a 15-minute flight to become America's first man in space.

NASA’s Mars helicopter Ingenuity has been given a new mission after acing its historic test flights. The drone will soon embark on some one-way flights to demonstrate its ability to act as a scout for the Perseverance rover.

SpaceX and NASA have rounded out their first commercial mission together with a successful splashdown of the Crew Dragon spacecraft with four astronauts onboard, setting a new record as the longest-duration mission for a crewed American spacecraft.

A high-speed magnetic valve developed, though never used, for ESA to help steer the Philae lander on its encounter with the comet 67P has found a job on Earth delivering precision doses of flavor to soft drinks.