Spacecraft

Science stands still for no one, and with a new year comes a new calendar of exciting events in spaceflight and exploration. New Atlas rounds up some of the most important milestones to look forward to in 2020.

ESA's Mars Express spacecraft has captured a rare movie of the Martian moon Phobos. The moon is set to be the target of an international mission to survey the Red Planet’s two natural satellites, and return a surface sample to Earth.

Boeing's CST-100 Starliner spacecraft has been stacked atop its United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V launcher in preparation for its December 17, 2019 liftoff. It will undergo final tests before transport to the Space Launch Complex-41 launch pad.

ESA is delving into how astronaut hibernation would affect space missions. The study suggests that using hibernation on a Mars mission would reduce the mass of the spacecraft by a third and cut the amount of consumables by about the same amount.

In this week's edition of "Into the great unknown," the spacecraft built to study Saturn and its surroundings in one of our most ambitious space missions to date.

NASA has released a symphony of sounds captured by InSight on Mars including quakes, howling winds, metallic “dinks and donks” and other eerie sounds.

Elon Musk has given an update on SpaceX’s Starship spacecraft & booster, stating that a crewed launch could occur next year.

ESA has released a breathtaking mosaic of the Red Planet, stitched together from images taken by the Mars Express spacecraft.

Virgin Galactic's second commercial spacecraft has passed an important milestone. The fuselage, cabin, and wing assembly of the next SpaceShipTwo have been joined together, and the two tail booms have been mated to the rear feather flap assembly.

NASA has confirmed that a miniaturized, ultra-precise mercury-ion atomic clock currently in low-Earth orbit has been switched on.

India's ambitious Chandrayaan-2 mission, which is comprised of an orbiter, a lander, and a rover, has successfully made orbit around the Moon.

ESA has given the green light to launch a mission designed to make the first flyby of a comet visiting the inner solar system for the first time. The "Comet Interceptor" mission will be set in a standby orbit, where it will wait for the discovery of an incoming comet to intercept.