"These finding have implications for planetary protection policies for future landed spacecraft," according to the Nature Geoscience report. "Cl-bearing brines are very corrosive and this may have implications on spacecraft design and surface operations."

The flight of Apollo 13 in April 1970 was one of the most dramatic events in the history of human spaceflight –- and ultimately one of NASA’s finest hours. For three days, the lives of three astronauts who had been bound for the third lunar landing mission hung in the balance.

This new rocket is the company’s path to substantially reduce its cost to launch — a critical factor as the company’s monopoly over national security launches is eroding — and compete against SpaceX.

Our roundup of the top stories in aerospace and defense from the last two weeks.

The space shuttle was a magnificent machine, the most capable spaceship ever built. It was also a fragile monster that required an expensive standing army to fly, and punished the slightest inattention to detail in its preparation and operation with fatal results.

Blue Origin has completed acceptance flight tests of its cryogenic BE-3 deep-throttle engine, and plans to begin autonomous flight tests with the reusable New Shepard suborbital human spacecraft it will power later this year.

NASA’s Human Exploration and Operations Directorate has agreed to address a dozen corrective recommendations raised by the agency’s Inspector General with regard to upgrade needs and increased security for the Deep Space Network, a 52-year-old global assembly of transmitters and receivers for communications with and navigation of distant planetary spacecraft.

"He will do great," predicted NASA astronaut Barry "Butch" Wilmore, who returned to Earth after 5 1/2 months on the ISS earlier this month. Wilmore watched Scott Kelly's lift off from NASA's Mission Control in Houston.