NASA’s third annual Summer of Innovation project is underway. The project is providing hands-on learning opportunities for middle school students and educators through NASA-unique science, technology, engineering and mathematics educational activities during the summer school break. SOI is a key component of the agency’s broader education program to increase student interest in STEM courses, particularly…

Boeing has successfully completed a new milestone in the development of software that will operate its Crew Space Transportation spacecraft. The company is one of NASA’s partners developing commercial crew transportation capabilities to ferry U.S. astronauts to and from low Earth orbit and the International Space Station. With the Preliminary Design Review of its software…

Engineers at NASA’s Langley Research Center are marking five years of collaboration with Sierra Nevada Corporation Space Systems in Louisville, Colo., as partners in the design and development of the Dream Chaser® Space System. NASA Langley and SNC joined forces to update Langley’s HL-20 lifting body vehicle design into the Dream Chaser orbital crew vehicle,…

ATK completed its Liberty software technical interface meeting, which was held to support further development of the Liberty space transportation system under the company’s Space Act Agreement with NASA for the Commercial Crew Development Program. The software TIM was conducted to evaluate Liberty’s software development plan with the NASA Liberty team. The plan governs the…

NASA’s most advanced Mars rover Curiosity has landed on the Red Planet. The one-ton rover, hanging by ropes from a rocket backpack, touched down onto Mars Aug. 5 to end a 36-week flight and begin a two-year investigation. The Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft that carried Curiosity succeeded in every step of the most complex landing…

Eating the right diet and exercising hard in space helps protect International Space Station astronauts’ bones, a finding that may help solve one of the key problems facing future explorers heading beyond low Earth orbit. A new study, published this month in the Journal of Bone and Mineral Research, evaluated the mineral density of specific…

Three members of the Expedition 32 crew undocked from the International Space Station and returned safely to Earth Sept. 16, wrapping up a mission lasting more than four months. Flight Engineer Joe Acaba of NASA, and Commander Gennady Padalka and Flight Engineer Sergei Revin of the Russian Federal Space Agency, undocked their Soyuz TMA-04M spacecraft…

NASA’s Commercial Crew Program partner Blue Origin has successfully fired the thrust chamber assembly for its new 100,000 pound thrust BE-3 liquid oxygen, liquid hydrogen rocket engine. As part of Blue’s Reusable Booster System, the engines are designed eventually to launch the biconic-shaped Space Vehicle the company is developing. The test was part of Blue…

NASA Television will provide live coverage as three of the crew members on the International Space Station come back to Earth Nov. 18. Expedition 33 Commander Sunita Williams of NASA, Flight Engineer Aki Hoshide of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency and Russian Soyuz Commander Yuri Malenchenko will undock their Soyuz TMA-05M spacecraft from the station,…