The ULA Delta IV Medium is heading into retirement this week, offering an opportune moment to reflect on the career of a vehicle which has delivered a smorgasbord of military, civilian and scientific payloads into Earth orbit and beyond over the course of a spectacular 17-year career. Photo Credit: Mike Killian / AmericaSpace.com As United Launch Alliance (ULA) counts down ...

Heroes of the Space Age: Incredible Stories of the Famous and Forgotten Men and Women Who Took Humanity to the Stars by Rod Pyle Prometheus, 2019 paperback, 315 pp., illus. ISBN 978-1-63388-524-0 US$18.00 One of the reasons that the Apollo 11 50th anniversary got so much attention last month was often unstated yet quietly understood: it was a goodbye of ...

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Virgin Galactic’s WhiteKnightTwo flies over Spaceport America and its Gateway to Space

French President Macron, speaking in July, announced plans to establish a space force as part of

Concepts for Mars sample return missions, like this, have been around for decades, but there is now

Artist’s concept of Triton and its thin atmosphere, with Neptune and the distant Sun in the background. Image Credit: European Southern Observatory (ESO) Thirty years ago, this month, humans and technology steeled themselves for the last, first-time, close-up glimpse of a new planet in the 20th century. NASA’s Voyager 2 spacecraft, launched in August 1977, had already conducted a breathtaking ...

Neptune and its large moon, Triton, as seen by Voyager 2 in August 1989, three days after closest approach. Photo Credit: NASA Thirty years ago, this month, all eyes were on the outermost reaches of the Solar System, as humanity braced itself for its last, first-time, close-up glimpse of a new planet in the 20th century. NASA’s Voyager 2 spacecraft, ...

Artist’s conception of the Parker Solar Probe making a close flyby of the Sun. Image Credit: Steve Gribben/NASA/JH-APL Today, August 12, is the first-year anniversary of the launch of NASA’s Parker Solar Probe (PSP), which is already revolutionizing our understanding of the nearest star, our Sun. PSP is conducting multiple close flybys, coming closer to the Sun’s surface than any ...

Columbia roars to orbit on 8 August 1989, beginning the first flight of her post-Challenger career. Photo Credit: NASA Thirty years ago, this month, Space Shuttle Columbia returned to flight, following a three-year down time in the aftermath of the Challenger disaster. Aboard STS-28 for a five-day flight were Commander Brewster Shaw, Pilot Dick Richards and Mission Specialists Jim Adamson, ...