Trump's defunding of NASA would be catastrophic

"This is probably the most uncertain future NASA has faced, maybe since the end of Apollo," Casey Dreier tells me over the phone. Dreier is the chief of space policy at The Planetary Society [...]

Boeing Starliner astronauts finally head home, nine months later

Eight days. That’s how long Boeing Starliner’s mission — its first flight test with crew aboard — was supposed to last. But this mission has been singular in almost every way, and astronauts B [...]

Why on Earth would NASA build a nuclear reactor on the Moon?

"Duffy to announce nuclear reactor on the moon" is not a headline I imagined reading before last week. Sure, as a sci-fi loving nerd, I could see a future where nuclear power played a role i [...]

NASA picked Eric Schmidt’s Relativity Space to fly to Mars. It has never reached orbit.

NASA is partnering with Relativity Space, the rocket company run by former Google chief Eric Schmidt, to fly a science mission to Mars. Announced on June 17, the mission is called Aeolus, the first fl [...]

Solar Orbiter captures images of the sun's pole for the first time

The Solar Orbiter has been observing the sun since 2021, but it recently went on a side trip to Venus which significantly tilted its orbit and gave it a good view of the sun's polar region. That [...]

NASA’s Mars orbiter snapped this image of Curiosity trucking along down at the surface

The Curiosity Mars rover covers a lot of ground for a robot that only moves at a max speed of .1 mph. A photo snapped recently by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter provides a pretty cool visualizat [...]

Senate passes minibus bill funding NASA, rejecting Trump's proposed cuts

After a tumultuous 2025 that saw it lose around 4,000 employees, NASA finally has an operating budget for 2026, and one that largely preserves its scientific capabilities. On Thursday, the Senate pass [...]

NASA will decide how to bring soil samples back from Mars in 2026

NASA will analyze and explore two different landing options for its Mars Sample Return program, though it will take almost two years to do so and is expected to announce its decision in late 2026. The [...]

NASA used Claude to plot a route for its Perseverance rover on Mars

Since 2021, NASA's Perseverance rover has achieved a number of historic milestones, including sending back the first audio recordings from Mars. Now, nearly five years after landing on the Red Pl [...]