The new space plan provides 1.4 trillion rubles ($20.5 billion) through 2025—but largely guts earlier proposals to send humans to the Moon in the next decade and leaves in doubt timing of a joint mission to Mars with the European Space Agency.
Portions of the information technology and physical infrastructure of NASA’s Near Earth Network, part of the agency’s far-reaching Space Communications and Navigation Program, face security risks, says an audit by Paul K. Martin, the agency’s inspector general.
Russia has approved a 10-year, 1.4 trillion ruble ($20.51 billion) budget for space programs, according to a March 17 announcement posted on the government’s website.
For delivering on a 15-year promise to complete the initial reconnaissance of the known Solar System, the 2016 Space Laureate goes to the scientists and engineers who created and flew the New Horizons probe to Pluto, and beyond.
JPL head Charles Elachi was awarded an Aviation Week Lifetime Achievement Laureate for “a lifetime dedicated to gaining a better understanding of the Solar System.
Gradatim Ferociter—By degrees, ferociously—aptly states Amazon and Blue Horizon founder Jeff Bezos’s approach to fulfilling his visions for humans in space, and NASA’s.
Dubbed ExoMars, the two-pronged mission will send a methane-sniffing satellite, landing demonstrator and rover equipped with a drill to dig further into the mystery of trace-gas sources on Mars.
“The number is going to be in the billions; there’s no doubt about that,” Gen. John Hyten told the House Armed Services strategic forces subcommittee March 15. “But exactly where it comes out I don’t know."
India will launch 25 foreign satellites this year and next year using its indigenous launch vehicle as it strives to increase its presence in the global space launch market.
Amazon and Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos has a long-term vision of humankind moving heavy manufacturing into space, coupled with a short-term plan to develop reusable rocketry.
Finding evidence of extraterrestrial life could be the bonus of NASA’s robotic mission to Europa to map the Jovian moon’s icy surface and might engender more government support.
The mission is designed to give scientists and engineers the human data to develop life-support hardware and operational protocols for crews making the 2-3-year round trip to Mars.
The Orion crew capsule European Service Module is a rare example of the kind of international cooperation best exemplified by the International Space Station.
NASA is funding Lockheed Martin to complete preliminary design of an X-plane demonstrator to show whether the shock-wave signature of a 100-120-seat low-boom supersonic airliner would be acceptable to the public, clearing the way for supersonic flight over land.
The Last Man on the Moon, a moving film documentary that explores the life of former U.S. astronaut Gene Cernan, opened in select theaters across the U.S. last weekend.
Able to fit on a fingertip, a microchip developed by Singapore’s NTU could revolutionize all-weather radar imaging for small unmanned aircraft and satellites.
