Elizabeth Howell

Sierra Space's latest deliberate explosion saw a futuristic space module prototype blow to pieces. The burst test is meant to assure safety for a space station that may fly in 2030.

SpaceX's Starship launch site in South Texas may get bigger soon. The company has offered a land swap with the state to expand launch activities.

A satellite testing solar power in space faced a strange deployment issue in 2023. The lessons learned will make future designs even better, its team says.

As the Mars Ingenuity helicopter continues to soar, an early-stage Red Planet craft is in the works. The first fixed-wing plane on Mars would seek water — and perhaps life.

An RS-25 engine rated for future human moon missions fired up on Jan. 17 for about eight minutes in a key test for NASA's Artemis program.

The tiny Icelandic town of Grindavík lies under threat from a lava flow, imaged from space by a satellite.

A new moon water challenge from the United Kingdom and Canada asks participants to purify the liquid for safe drinking, in time for astronaut lunar landings later in the 2020s.

The ailing Peregrine moon lander is expected to crash into Earth's atmosphere on Jan. 18, a demise that its maker, Astrobotic, pledged to make as safe as possible.

NASA's Curiosity rover found a Mars rock shaped like a Star Trek badge this month. The mission continues to beam up images from the Red Planet after 12 years of work.

The leak that stopped the Peregrine moon lander's attempt is nearly finished, but the Astrobotic mission is still on track to burn up above Earth instead of reaching its lunar destination.

The United Arab Emirates' Hope spacecraft spotted a lot of dust moving around on Mars after a regional storm in January 2022.

The International Space Station will continue to see launching crews mixed with American and Russian astronauts, according to media reports based on a Roscosmos press release.

Canadian Space Agency Artemis 2 astronaut Jeremy Hansen has never been in space before. But he is getting ready for his 1st launch on NASA's Space Launch System in 2024.

The Resilience lander for ispace's 2nd moon mission is under construction, as it aims to send a mini-rover to the lunar surface after a winter 2024 launch.

NASA's Artemis 2 moon mission took some important strides toward launch this year, but it's unclear if the ambitious effort will get off the ground as planned in late 2024.

"This is an amazing time to be a part of this program."

Apollo 8 flew three astronauts around the moon in 1968. Artemis 2 plans to run a similar mission in 2024 or so, and the mission commander said the astronauts do see parallels in the two missions.

A Northrop Grumman Cygnus cargo spacecraft departed the International Space Station on Dec. 22, and will make a re-entry into Earth's atmosphere in January.

Intuitive Machines will wait an extra month, until mid-February 2024, to send a private moon lander into space atop a SpaceX rocket.

SpaceX's robotic Dragon cargo ship left the International Space Station on Thursday (Dec. 21) and splashed down a day later.

Virgin Galactic plans to launch its sixth operational spaceflight on Jan. 26, 2024 with four passengers, who are yet to be named.