space travel

NASA delays Artemis II human moon mission once again as it wraps up heat shield investigation

4:32pm December 05, 2024

The mission to take four astronauts on a trip around the moon and back, previously targeting a launch at the end of 2025, has been delayed until at least April, 2026.

The SpaceX Starship is seen as it stands on the launch pad ahead of its third flight test from Starbase in Boca Chica, Texas on March 12, 2024.

Elon Musk's giant Starship rocket is launching again. Here's what to expect

8:34pm March 13, 2024

by Geoff Brumfiel

The rocket is the largest ever built. It has yet to complete a full test flight, but the third time might be the charm.

Frank Rubio is helped out of the Soyuz MS-23 spacecraft just minutes after he and cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin landed in a remote area of Kazakhstan on Sept. 27, 2023.

His spacecraft sprung a leak. Then this NASA astronaut accidentally broke a record

5:01am January 25, 2024

NASA astronaut Frank Rubio holds the record for the longest U.S. space flight, but he wasn't trying to earn that title.

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SpaceX's mega rocket Starship launches for a test flight from Starbase in Boca Chica, Texas, on Saturday.

Science

A 'successful failure': SpaceX's Starship achieves liftoff, loses contact mid-flight

11:25am November 18, 2023

by Geoff Brumfiel

The rocket cleared the launchpad and separated from its booster, surpassing the first attempt. But minutes later, controllers lost contact with the vehicle.

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Canadian astronaut David Saint-Jacques has his blood sampled on board the International Space Station for an experiment that examines the space-related changes that occur in blood and bone marrow.

Why do some people get rashes in space? There's a clue in astronaut blood

5:00am June 26, 2023

by Ari Daniel

A new study of astronaut blood finds that space travel reduces the expression of 100 genes related to the immune system.

The NASA Artemis 1 rocket with the Orion spacecraft aboard moves slowly on an 11 hour journey to a launch pad at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., on Thursday, March 17, 2022.

Science

NASA's Artemis 1 moon rocket reaches the launch pad

7:28am March 18, 2022

by Brendan Byrne

NASA's Artemis 1 rocket, the Space Launch System, reached the Kennedy Space Center's Launch Complex 39B on Friday. The successor to the Apollo program could one day send humans back to the moon.

The SpaceX Dragon cargo spacecraft that ferried musclebound mice to the International Space Station and back can be seen at the top of this picture taken from the station on Dec. 20, 2019.

Scientists Sent Mighty Mice To Space To Improve Treatments Back On Earth

7:57am January 16, 2020

by Jon Hamilton

Forty mice spent more than a month in orbit to test two approaches to strengthening muscle and bone in microgravity conditions. The results could help people with muscle and bone diseases.

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A prototype of SpaceX's Starship stands at the company's Texas launch facility on Saturday. The Starship spacecraft is a massive vehicle designed to eventually be able to take people to the moon, Mars and beyond.

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Elon Musk Unveils SpaceX's New Starship, Designed To Fly To The Moon, Mars And Beyond

5:27pm September 29, 2019

by Carmel Wroth

Calling it "the most inspiring thing" he's ever seen, SpaceX's CEO talked up his company's big innovation and plans to fast-track production of the spacecraft. He hopes to fly passengers by next year.

Five privately funded groups won't be able to claim the Google Lunar X Prize, organizers say. Here, the site of NASA's Apollo 17 landing on the moon is seen in a 2011 image.

Google's Space Race To The Moon Ends, And Nobody Wins Lunar X Prize

9:12am January 24, 2018

by Bill Chappell

When it was announced in 2007, the prize's organizers said they expected it to be claimed before the original deadline of Dec. 31, 2014. One team raised more than $90 million.

Wally Funk is one of the Mercury 13, a group of women who trained to be astronauts in the early 1960s.

This Pilot Is Headed To Space With Or Without NASA

5:07am August 04, 2017

In 1961, Wally Funk trained to be an astronaut. But, she never got to go to space. Fifty years on, she still dreams of flying among the stars.