Orion Spacecraft

​Japan could send astronauts to the Moon by about 2030, according to the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). To do so, the agency plans to chip in towards a Moon mission led by NASA, which is being using as a testbed for an eventual manned trip to Mars.

The First manned Orion mission took another step closer to reality this week as Orbital ATK, in partnership with NASA and Lockheed Martin, completed a successful static ground test of the abort rocket motor for the Orion capsule's Launch Abort System (LAS).

In February, NASA Acting Administrator Robert Lightfoot asked for a feasibility study on the possibility of making the next Orion flight a manned mission. After weighing the project's technical factors and risks, a decision has now been made.

Lockheed Martin has weighed in on this generation’s great space race with a plan to get humans to Mars in just 11 years. Not to the surface, mind you; the Mars Base Camp plan aims to put six people tantalizingly close, in a space station orbiting around the Red Planet.

At the direction of NASA Acting Administrator Robert Lightfoot, a study is being conducted into feasibility of placing a crew of two on the first integrated flight of the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and the Orion​ spacecraft, Exploration Mission-1 (EM-1), in 2019.

We can't think about going to Mars until we know how to contain human waste on deep space missions, a problem that has stumped many of the best minds. Can the winning entries from NASA's Space Poop Challenge take astronauts beyond the adult diaper?​​

​NASA engineers are getting a bit of a buffeting this month as they conduct manned vibration tests on various Orion capsule systems to simulate launch conditions.

​​NASA is turning to a 56-year-old wind tunnel to put its next generation Space Launch System (SLS) rocket through its aerodynamic paces.

To save space and weight aboard the Orion space capsule, NASA is developing a next-generation breakfast bar that provides enough calories and nutrition to keep a busy astronaut going, yet remains appetizing enough to eat for weeks on end.​

To practice for the next Orion space mission, the US Navy in conjunction with NASA has completed a successful rehearsal in the Pacific Ocean of splashdown recovery operations of the crew module.

NASA’s Journey to Mars mission got a step closer with the successful ground test of the launch booster on the Space Launch System (SLS), the world’s most powerful rocket. It’s the second and final ground test on the booster before a crewless test flight in late 2018 with the Orion spacecraft.

Engineers at NASA's Langley Research Center, Virginia, are putting a team of advanced crash-test dummies through astronaut hell as they test the potential injuries that could be inflicted on future crews splashing down in the Orion spacecraft.