Space

The UAE has outlined a vision to become just the fourth nation to land on the Moon by announcing plans to launch an Emirati-built rover by 2024, with mission planners hoping to gain a number of unique scientific insights about the natural satellite.

DARPA has awarded a US$14-million contract to the Gryphon Technologies engineering firm to develop and demonstrate a nuclear rocket engine for the agency's Demonstration Rocket for Agile Cislunar Operations (DRACO) program.

A new study of the orbit of comets suggests that the plane of the ecliptic, where the Earth's orbit rests, may not be the only major alignment in the solar system. There may be a second caused by the effect of the Milky Way on comet orbits.

Britain has sent two satellites smaller than a microwave into space that are the smartest produced by the UK. Four Glasgow-built Spire nanosatellites lifted off atop a Soyuz launcher, two of which are equipped with supercomputers for tracking shipping.

Venus may owe its extreme atmosphere to an ancient run-in with the gas giant Jupiter, which could have fundamentally altered the planet’s orbit, and led to the loss of massive amounts of its water reserves.

Flight controllers and station crew have isolated an air leak to the Russian-built Zvezda Service Module of the ISS, but have yet to pinpoint the breach ahead of the arrival of an uncrewed cargo spacecraft later this week.

When NASA’s newest rover touches down on Mars, it will carry with it a set of mirrors that will serve as targets for future laser-wielding spacecraft. The laser-bouncing tech is similar to that used in the Apollo era, to characterize the Moon.

ESA's Mars Express has found evidence of more liquid water beneath the ice cap in the south polar region of Mars. Based on data from the MARSIS radar instrument, researchers found three subsurface ponds with the largest measuring 20 x 30 km (12 x 19 mi).

The Cheops exoplanet mission has revealed one of the hottest, most extreme planets orbiting another star. Located 322 light years away in the constellation of Libra, WASP-189 b is an ultra-hot Jupiter with a temperature so high that iron turns to gas.

Radiation is a major danger of space travel, and with human crews heading back to the Moon it’s important to understand the risks. Now we have the clearest data on that to date, thanks to an instrument onboard the Chinese lunar lander Chang’e-4.

Debris orbiting in high Earth orbit is not being tracked closely enough, according to the results of a new survey, and could pose an unexpected threat to important satellites that provide communication, weather observation and navigation services.

The ISS was forced to make an emergency course correction to avoid an unidentified piece of space debris earlier this week, an incident that highlights the dangers posed by the thousands of tonnes of disused satellites and rockets orbiting the Earth.