Summaries | Headlines

Cassini Returns Never-before-seen Views Of The Ringed Planet (March 2, 2007) -- NASA's Cassini spacecraft has captured never-before-seen views of Saturn from perspectives high above and below the planet's rings. Over the last several months, the spacecraft has climbed to higher ... > full story

Walking Tall: Student Working On Space Suit Redesign For NASA (February 23, 2007) -- Space suits for astronauts may get a new and better design following a University of Houston doctoral student's locomotion stability research. Melissa Scott-Pandorf is a fellow of the Texas Space ... > full story

NASA's THEMIS Mission Launched To Study Geomagnetic Substorms (February 18, 2007) -- Taking multitasking to new heights, NASA launched the five THEMIS satellites aboard a single Delta II rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida Saturday (Feb. 17) at 6:01 p.m. EST. ... > full story

Students Set To Fly Fire Balls In Space (February 13, 2007) -- Fires don't break out very often on board orbiting spacecraft, but when they do, standard fire extinguishers aren't necessarily the best way to put them out. Oddly enough -- after decades of ... > full story

NASA's Largest Space Telescope Mirror Will See Deeper Into Space (February 10, 2007) -- When scientists are looking into space, the more they can see, the easier it is to piece together the puzzle of the cosmos. The James Webb Space Telescope's mirror blanks have now been constructed. ... > full story

NASA To Fly Historic Jamestown Artifact, Mementos On Space Shuttle (February 1, 2007) -- To honor early American explorers, NASA will fly into space four coins and a nearly 400-year-old artifact from historic Jamestown. The items will be aboard space shuttle Atlantis during mission ... > full story

Space Station To Grow Faster, Mark Firsts Throughout Year (February 1, 2007) -- Already spanning an acre in orbit, the International Space Station this year will grow faster in size, power, volume and mass than ever before, significantly expanding its capabilities and setting ... > full story

Personal Digital Assistants In Space (January 30, 2007) -- Can tiny and ubiquitous devices like Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) be of use for space applications? The answer is a definite yes. Recent tests have demonstrated current and future uses for PDAs ... > full story

NASA Helps Space Telescope Camera 'Squint' For A Better View Of Galaxies (January 26, 2007) -- NASA engineers and scientists have created something that will give better information about far away galaxies. This new creation, which will be in a future space telescope, is so tiny that it's the ... > full story

James Webb Space Telescope Looks Out Of This World (January 17, 2007) -- The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), the orbiting infrared observatory designed to succeed the Hubble Space Telescope, is set to enable fundamental breakthroughs in our understanding of the ... > full story

Ulysses Starts New Journey Around The Sun's Poles (November 21, 2006) -- Sixteen years after its launch on Oct. 6, 1990, the Ulysses spacecraft has begun its third "solar polar orbit" -- a journey around the poles of the sun. The mission, a joint NASA-European Space ... > full story

Researchers Explore Medicine In Space, The Final Frontier (November 5, 2006) -- Preliminary findings from a University of Florida study show there is little difference in the dose of general anesthesia needed to anesthetize patients in weightless or normal gravity environments. ... > full story

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International Space Station -- The International Space Station (ISS) is a joint project of five space agencies. The ISS has seen the first space tourist, Dennis Tito, who spent 20 million USD to fly aboard a Russian supply mission ... > full article

Space debris -- Space debris or orbital debris, also called space junk and space waste, are the objects in orbit around Earth created by man that no longer serve any useful purpose. They consist of everything from ... > full article

Space Shuttle Columbia -- Space Shuttle Columbia (NASA Orbiter Vehicle Designation: OV-102) was the first space shuttle in NASA's orbital fleet. Its first mission, STS-1, lasted from April 12 to April 14, 1981. On February 1, ... > full article

Mir -- Mir was a highly successful Soviet (and later Russian) orbital station. It was humanity's first consistently inhabited long-term research station in space. Through a number of collaborations, it was ... > full article

Space exploration -- Space exploration is the physical exploration of outer space by both manned and unmanned spacecraft. The development of large liquid-fueled rocket engines during the early 20th century allowed space ... > full article

Space suit -- A space suit is a complex system of garments and equipment and environmental systems designed to keep a person alive and comfortable in the harsh environment of outer ... > full article

Solid-fuel rocket -- A solid rocket or a solid fuel rocket is a rocket with a motor that uses solid propellants (fuel/oxidizer). The earliest rockets were solid fuelled, powered by gunpowder, used by the Chinese in ... > full article

Multistage rocket -- A multistage (or multi-stage) rocket is, like any rocket, propelled by the recoil pressure of the burning gases it emits as it burns fuel. What characterizes it as "multi-stage" is that it ... > full article

NASA -- The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), which was established in 1958, is the agency responsible for the public space program of the United States of America. NASA's vision is "to ... > full article

Outer space -- Outer space, also simply called space, refers to the relatively empty regions of the universe outside the atmospheres of celestial bodies. Outer space is used to distinguish it from airspace (and ... > full article

Space Shuttle program -- NASA's Space Shuttle, officially called Space Transportation System (STS), is the United States government's only manned launch vehicle currently in service. It is the first winged manned spacecraft ... > full article

Geosynchronous orbit -- A geosynchronous orbit is a geocentric orbit that has the same orbital period as the sidereal rotation period of the Earth. It has a semi-major axis of 42,164 km (26,200 miles). In the special case ... > full article

Spitzer space telescope -- Spitzer Space Telescope (formerly the Space Infrared Telescope Facility [SIRTF]) is an infrared space observatory, the fourth and final of NASA's Great Observatories. The first images taken by SST ... > full article

European Space Agency -- The European Space Agency (ESA), established in 1975, is an inter-governmental organisation dedicated to exploration of space with currently 17 member states. ESA has ambitious space plans that may ... > full article

Space observatory -- A space observatory is any instrument in outer space which is used for observation of distant planets, galaxies, and other outer space objects. A large number of observatories have been launched into ... > full article

Compton Gamma Ray Observatory -- The Compton Gamma Ray Observatory (CGRO) was the second of the NASA "Great Observatories" to be launched to space, following the Hubble Space Telescope. The observatory was launched on the Space ... > full article

Chandra X-ray Observatory -- Chandra X-ray Observatory is a satellite launched on STS-93 by NASA on July 23, 1999. It was named in honor of Indian-American physicist Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar who is known for determining the ... > full article

Ion thruster propulsion system -- An ion thruster (or ion drive), one of several types of spacecraft propulsion, uses beams of ions - electrically charged atoms or molecules - for propulsion. The precise method for accelerating the ... > full article

Scaled Composites SpaceShipOne -- The Scaled Composites Model 316 SpaceShipOne is an experimental air-launched suborbital spaceplane that uses a hybrid rocket motor. The design features a unique "shuttlecock" reentry system whose ... > full article

Geomagnetic storm -- A geomagnetic storm is a temporary disturbance of the Earth's magnetosphere. Associated with solar coronal mass ejections, coronal holes, or solar flares, a geomagnetic storm is caused by a solar ... > full article