Space

The Japanese space agency is investigating what caused the Astro-H X-ray telescope to break into pieces in March.

Chief technology officers from Airbus, Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Raytheon discuss what lies ahead for the industry from multirobotic additive manufacturing, behavioral analytics and distributed propulsion to widespread commercial supersonic flight and fusion power.

The Chinese manned space program proposes to land people on the Moon by 2031-36 as a follow-up to the space station that it will begin launching around 2018.

As part of Aviation Week & Space Technology's special centennial issue, we asked Scaled Composites founder Burt Rutan to share his thoughts on the next 100 years of aerospace, and the ingredients required for technological breakthroughs.

New technique for producing printed circuit boards may help overcome the physical limitations that conventional manufacturing is running into as more components are crammed onto a small space.

Bill sets up showdown with the Senate; hope for change; a wartime wish list

SpaceX and NASA wrapped up 16 months of behind-the-scenes negotiations Tuesday with an unfunded Space Act agreement to cooperate on sending an unmanned Dragon crew capsule to the surface of Mars as early as 2018.

There’s a renaissance in spaceflight innovation, but a leap is needed for it to reach the financial tipping point and close the business case for the off-planet economy.

To get to Mars, astronauts will need tasty nutritious food that can withstand the demands of space travel.

Thales Alenia Space is leading development of Stratobus, a high-altitude platform that could perform many of the same functions of telecommunications and remote-sensing satellites, but closer to Earth.

California Polytechnic—and a Florida high school—are working together to test a cubesat specifically designed as part of an experiment to wirelessly transmit payload data from launch to deployment.

NASA is beginning UAS testing that deliberately plans close encounters with “intruder” aircraft.

Cash-strapped South and Central American nations gain valuable insight into establishing space opportunities on their home turf.

NASA is encouraging commercial ventures to take control of low Earth orbit research and even profitmaking, sparking a space commercialization boomlet.

The seven-year mission to asteroid Bennu promises to deliver the first pristine samples from the formation of the Solar System’s inner planets.

Russia’s Europeanized Soyuz will lift a bevy of low-orbiting satellites on its first launch of 2016 from the Guiana Space Center in Kourou, French Guiana.

Startup spacecraft manufacturer OneWeb Satellites has selected an industrial park near NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida as home to a clean-sheet production facility that will crank out dozens of small broadband satellites each month.

Up to 24 UAVs are planned to fly simultaneously at six FAA-designated test sites across the U.S. on April 19, in the biggest test yet of NASA’s UAV traffic management (UTM) system.

Airlander airship approved to fly; NASA to validate RTCA’s UAS standards; Darpa tests drop-in sense-and-avoid; Armadillo’s Stig returns as Sarge; Rocket Lab moves closer to launch.

Astronauts aboard the station plan to extend and pressurize the prototype for a fabric human habitation module to its full 13 ft. length and 10 1/2 ft. diameter in late May.

Will risk-averse legacy providers or emerging players focused on a lower cost, more flexible business model prevail in the changing launch industry?

In the summer of 2015, Gen. John Hyten, commander of U.S. Air Force Space Command, says the military created a threat-focused space enterprise vision while working on an ongoing analysis of alternatives on the future of protected satellite communications.

Breakthrough Starshot project aims to propel wafer-thin “nanocraft,” using powerful laser beams, toward Alpha Centauri.

Legislation would allow Pentagon to focus on threats; an FAA official prepared to take on the role; and an Air Force general supports the concept.

Astronauts can assemble observatories with apertures as large as 20 meters from large components delivered by the Space Launch System (SLS), according to Hubble servicing veteran John Grunsfeld.