Space

The James Webb Space Telescope has crossed another milestone on the path to its long-awaited launch. NASA engineers have now completed a deployment test, unfurling the telescope’s gigantic mirror into the configuration it will take in space.

NASA has given the green light to a new CubeSat mission to study the giant space weather storms produced by the Sun. Slated to launch after July 1, 2023, SunRISE will use six spacecraft as a single radio telescope to monitor solar particle storms.

Using resources harvested on location for habitat construction is a vital step in overcoming the prohibitive cost of transporting materials from Earth. Urine, it seems, could be part of the solution.

NASA has selected SpaceX to carry cargo to the space agency's deep-space Gateway outpost. Under the first Gateway Logistics Services contract, SpaceX will deliver pressurized and unpressurized supplies to the Gateway station for the Artemis program.

The US Space Force has delivered its first national security payload into orbit, with a satellite successfully lifting off atop a United Launch Alliance rocket today to complete a network of protected communications satellites for US armed forces.

With OSIRIS-REx in close orbit around Bennu, we’ve already seen some pretty amazing up-close shots of the asteroid. And now, NASA has released a full global map of this rocky little world in unprecedented resolution.

The coronavirus situation in Europe has forced ESA to temporarily suspend a number of its deep-space missions. To reduce risk to personnel, ESOC is reducing on-site crews and shutting down instruments on eight spacecraft.

NASA is continuing to prepare its freshly named Mars 2020 rover for launch later this year, with the team successfully attaching the sampling components that Perseverance will use to collect Martian rock and dust after touchdown.

NASA is building a Moon-mining robot and is asking for public help to improve it. The RASSOR bucket challenge is accepting new designs to tweak the technologies needed to mine ice and other materials to make a manned lunar outpost sustainable.

The Hubble Space Telescope has captured a view of a stellar laboratory that is being used to understand how truly gargantuan stars come to form. The image features a colorful starfield and a substructure of the famous Tarantula Nebula.

Apollo astronaut Colonel Alfred Merrill "Al" Worden has died at the age of 88. Worden was the Command Module Pilot for the 1971 Apollo 15 lunar landing mission, where he remained in orbit while his crewmates descended to the lunar surface.

Despite being the closest planet to the Sun, Mercury is home to a surprising amount of ice. Now, researchers at Georgia Tech have put forward an explanation for how at least some of it got there – and it turns out, the heat plays an important role.