Japan is scheduled to launch Hayabusa-2 on a six-year mission to return samples from the asteroid 1999 JU3. Four landers are designed to explore the C-type asteroid’s surface before the main spacecraft itself touches down for two or three grab-and-go sample harvests.

Cats lidar scanner, to be sent to the ISS by SpaceX, will enable new weather forecasting and environmental observation capabilities

"I know I have done nothing special to be the first Italian woman to fly to space," said European Space Agency astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti.

NASA’s go-as-you-can-pay approach to exploration-system development means the heavy-lift Space Launch System in development to carry Orion beyond low Earth orbit and eventually on to Mars is very much a work in progress, starting with the engines.

Ahead of merger, ATK assessed “political risks” of Orbital's new engine choice.

The inevitable has happened in the U.S. attempt to move the economy off the planet. That it happened twice in a week is driving a needed element of reality into the endeavor.

As the probe's last science data was relayed to Earth Nov. 15, its power rapidly depleted.

One is powered, the other is a glider, otherwise French and U.S. concepts for affordably air-launching small satellites look pretty similar.