Space

The release of NASA's latest budget reveals the Orion spacecraft and Lunar Gateway space station are getting the chop. The US$18.8-billion total figure decreases spending by $6 billion, or 24%, as the space agency increases funding for crewed Moon and Mars missions.

The Space Age past may come knocking on the world's door next week as the defunct Soviet Union's Kosmos 482 Venus lander from 1972 makes an unwelcome return home and is predicted to crash into the Earth's atmosphere around May 10.

It seems too good to be true, but UK-based Pulsar Fusion has revealed its new Sunbird self-contained nuclear rocket tug that uses a fusion propulsion engine that could reduce a trip to Mars to under four months and Pluto to under four years.

Northrop Grumman has written a new line in the history books, the company's Mission Extension Vehicle 1 (MEV-1) executing the first undocking of two commercial satellites in geosynchronous earth orbit (GEO) – heralding a new age of commercial space operations.

We've deployed so many satellites into space over the last few decades that we now have a massive orbital junk problem. The European Space Agency says there's now roughly as much debris as there are active satellites floating about in Low Earth Orbit.

If you've ever looked into the living conditions of astronauts in space, you probably know they make do with spartan arrangements, including mostly rehydratable meals. Fermentation could help with making a wider variety of flavorful foods available.

If you've been wondering how long the day on Uranus is, you probably need to get out more. But if you have, you'll be interested to know that observations by the Hubble Space Telescope have shown that it's 28 seconds longer than previously thought.

Looking for life on Saturn's largest moon Titan may be trickier than first thought. New computer simulations suggest that if life exists, there may not be a lot of it about. In fact, the mass probably wouldn't amount to much of anything at all.

Amazon is launching 27 satellites into Low Earth Orbit next week, kicking off its years-in-the-making plan to set up a massive constellation and deliver internet access anywhere on the globe – similar to SpaceX's Starlink service.

NASA has successfully tested an electric force field on the Moon that protects spacecraft from destructive lunar dust. The Electrodynamic Dust Shield (EDS) was carried aboard Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost Mission 1, whose mission ended on March 16.

One of the most studied space rocks of all time has surprised us again, with the "mudball meteorite" Aguas Zarcas having cruised around the solar system for two million years without as much as a scratch. It defies the "fragile" class it belongs to.

The latest private space mission has launched four astronauts into a sideways orbit that has never been attempted before with a crewed spacecraft. At 9:46 pm EDT, the Fram2 mission lifted off atop a Falcon 9 from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Continental Europe's first attempt at an orbital space launch ended shorter than expected after Isar Aerospace's Spectrum rocket returned to Earth with a bang 30 seconds after lifting off only to crash and explode in the Norwegian Sea next to the pad.

Finding alien life won’t be a flying saucer landing at the White House – NASA scientists will hold a press conference to excitedly show off a chart that’s incomprehensible to most people. Now we’re a step closer to that boring but groundbreaking day.

Astronomers have detected mysterious X-ray signals coming from a nearby white dwarf star for more than 40 years. We may now know where they’re coming from – the death throes of a planet being torn to shreds and raining down on the star.