Budget squeeze adds to mounting pressure on commercial crew tests

It is a golden instrument, in more ways than one. NIRcam, the Near-Infrared Camera for the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), is wrapped in a gold insulating foil, the better to maintain its operating temperature of 35K (-397F). But it also will play a golden role for the three other instruments on the $8 billion mission, which is to put astronomy's largest orbiting observatory into service in 2018.

Reauthorization offers chance to set space goals

President Barack Obama's Brandenburg Gate call to eliminate up to a third of the U.S. nuclear arsenal has few ardent champions. And the remaining discontent may matter, since the cuts aren't likely to materialize while Obama is still in office. Republicans denounce the plan to reduce beyond the New Start treaty's limit of 1,550 deployed strategic warheads, and promise to set up procedural roadblocks in the Senate.

Chandra, Hubble expanding human knowledge

NASA issues a 'grand challenge' to boost asteroid-capture idea

The search is on as ULA is probed for allegedly blocking RD-180 sales

In late April, the FAA trumped the National Transportation Safety Board by approving a redesign and return-to-flight plan for the Boeing 787's troubled lithium-ion batteries. It came the same week NTSB held an investigative hearing in which participants made it clear that the root cause for the smoking batteries had not been found. The usually loquacious NTSB Chairman Deborah Hersman played it cool at the time, but public comments she provided in the FAA's airworthiness directive (AD) docket for the 787 fix earlier this month reveal she might yet have the last word.