Twin NASA probes orbiting the moon have generated the highest resolution gravity field map of any celestial body. The new map, created by the Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) mission, is allowing scientists to learn about the moon’s internal structure and composition in unprecedented detail. Data from the two washing machine-sized spacecraft also will…

The Federal Aviation Administration and NASA have signed a historic agreement to coordinate standards for commercial space travel of government and non-government astronauts to and from low-Earth orbit and the International Space Station. The two agencies will collaborate to expand efforts that provide a stable framework for the U.S. space industry, avoid conflicting requirements and…

NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope has detected light emanating from a “super-Earth” planet beyond our solar system for the first time. While the planet is not habitable, the detection is a historic step toward the eventual search for signs of life on other planets. “Spitzer has amazed us yet again,” said Bill Danchi, Spitzer program scientist…

While some galaxies are rotund and others are slender disks like our spiral Milky Way, new observations from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope show that the Sombrero galaxy is both. The galaxy, which is a round, elliptical with a thin disk embedded inside, is one of the first known to exhibit characteristics of the two different…

NASA Flight Engineer Joseph Acaba, Russian Soyuz Commander Gennady Padalka and Flight Engineer Sergei Revin blasted off for the International Space Station at 10:01 p.m., CDT, May 14 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Acaba, Padalka and Revin are scheduled to dock their Soyuz TMA-04M spacecraft to the Poisk module of the station at 11:39…

The U.S. has fine-tuned its methods to promote responsible use of space and strengthen international partnerships, Ambassador Gregory L. Schulte, the deputy assistant secretary of defense for space policy, said during the 2012 Women in Aerospace Conference in Washington, D.C., June 1. In his keynote address at the conference, Schulte outlined the plan to protect…

The nation’s space exploration program is taking a critical step forward with a successful major technical review of the core stage of the Space Launch System, the rocket that will take astronauts farther into space than ever before. The core stage is the heart of the heavy-lift launch vehicle. It will stand more than 200…

NASA partner Sierra Nevada Corporation has completed a successful test of the nose landing gear for its full-scale Dream Chaser engineering flight test vehicle. The completed test and an upcoming flight test are part of SNC’s Commercial Crew Development Round 2 (CCDev2) agreement with NASA’s Commercial Crew Program. The gear test is an important milestone…