Spacecraft

NASA’s Juno spacecraft will take a Cassini-like approach to exploring the Jovian system when it begins its latest mission extension in August this year at which point it will make passes of Jupiter’s rings and moons, and explore key surface features.

Blue Origin's New Shepard rocket has successfully completed its 14th flight. On January 14, 2021, at 11:20 am, mission NS-14 lifted off on a suborbital trajectory with an improved crew capsule containing a dummy astronaut named Anakin Skywalker.

Virgin Galactic has hit a small speed bump as it continues testing of its spaceplane at its Spaceport America base in New Mexico, with the latest outing for SpaceShipTwo Unity brought to a premature end due to rocket failure.

Scientists have condensed decades of footage taken of our Sun’s atmosphere into a 47-minute video showcasing solar activity on a grand scale. The video was released to mark the 25th anniversary of the NASA/ESA Solar and Heliospheric observatory.

It has been revealed today that planetary scientist Alan Stern will be among the first humans to be carried into space by Virgin Galactic's spaceplane, where he’ll take a hands-on approach to a pair of high-altitude experiments.

NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has passed a major milestone, completing its prelaunch environmental testing after being subjected to weeks of acoustic and sine-vibration tests to determine whether it can withstand the rigors of a rocket launch.

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.

Virgin Galactic has revealed the cabin interior design for the first of its SpaceshipTwo vehicles – the VSS Unity, which will allow would be astronauts and space enthusiasts explore the edge of space in style and comfort.

Virgin Galactic today completed the second successful glide test of its VSS Unity spaceplane since relocating there earlier in the year. It saw the spacecraft hit new speeds as the company presses ahead with its testing program at Spaceport America.

ESA’s Solar Orbiter is set to have a chance encounter with the tails of a disintegrating comet. The probe is currently en route to the inner solar system and has had instruments rushed through commissioning to be ready for the unexpected rendezvous.

This week Earth will be visited by a spacecraft that has traveled 1.4 billion km to get here. But no, it’s not aliens – it’s BepiColombo, just slingshotting around our planet for a gravitational speed boost on its roundabout journey to Mercury.

The radio antenna that acts as Earth’s sole transmitter to Voyager 2 will soon undergo important upgrades, so for the next 11 months we won’t be able to send commands to The Little Spacecraft That Could.