NASA is soliciting ideas from U.S. industry for designs of a Mars orbiter for potential launch in the 2020s. The satellite would provide advanced communications and imaging, as well as robotic science exploration, in support of NASA's Journey to Mars. The orbiter would substantially increase bandwidth communications and maintain high-resolution imaging capability.

NASA has selected Aerojet Rocketdyne of Redmond, Washington, to design and develop an advanced electric propulsion system that will significantly advance the nation's commercial space capabilities and enable deep space exploration missions, including the robotic portion of NASA’s Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM) and its Journey to Mars.

  NASA has selected 13 proposals, including four from agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, through NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC), a program that invests in transformative architectures through the development of pioneering technologies.

Based out of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, the Near Earth Network (NEN) serves as a conduit for information from spacecraft in low-Earth orbits, geosynchronous orbits, and even lunar orbits to the scientists who will study and use it on the ground. An orbiting observatory such as the Hubble Space Telescope collects huge amounts of data continuously, including both science observations and spacecraft health information...

Every bit of weight on an aircraft increases the fuel, emissions and money required to put it in the air. NASA and Boeing have been working together to design a longer, thinner and lighter wing – so different from typical commercial transport aircraft wings that it requires a brace, or truss, to provide the wing extra support.

As part of a project to improve safety in the energy pipeline industry, researchers have successfully flight-tested a miniature methane gas sensor developed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, on a Vertical Take-off and Landing small unmanned aerial system (sUAS). The sensor, similar to one developed by JPL for use on Mars, enables detection of methane with much higher sensitivity than previously available for the industry ...

NASA has selected two proposals for new Earth science investigations that will put new instruments in low-Earth orbit to track harmful particulate air pollutants and study the development of tropical cyclones. Observations of small atmospheric aerosols from the MAIA will be combined with health information to determine the toxicity of different particulate matter types in airborne pollutants over the world's major cities. David Diner of NASA's JP...

The return of supersonic passenger air travel is one step closer to reality with NASA's award of a contract for the preliminary design of a 'low boom' flight demonstration aircraft. This is the first in a series of ‘X-planes’ in NASA's New Aviation Horizons initiative, introduced in the agency’s Fiscal Year 2017 budget.

America stands on the cusp of a new era in aviation that’s dramatically cleaner, quieter, and even faster. The details of NASA’s plan to get from here to there are spelled out in President Obama’s recently released federal budget request for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1, 2016. If approved, next year will be the first in a bold 10-year plan by NASA Aeronautics to achieve huge goals in reducing fuel use, emissions, and noise b...

Black hole enthusiasts, galaxy cluster aficionados, and X-ray astronomers have much to be excited about. Last week, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) launched their sixth satellite dedicated to X-ray astronomy, ASTRO-H, from the Tanegashima Space Center in Kagoshima, Japan. The observatory carried a state-of-the-art instrument and two telescope mirrors built at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

Progress continues on the journey to Mars as NASA plans to send astronauts deeper into space than ever before, including to an asteroid and ultimately to the surface of Mars. Before humans embark on the journey, the agency will survey an asteroid to learn about the risks and challenges asteroids may pose to future human explorers. Therefore, NASA will perform a reconnaissance flyby of an asteroid with Near-Earth Asteroid Scout, or NEA Scout.

A NASA team has been tapped to build a new type of communications modem that will employ an emerging, and potentially revolutionary, technology that could transform everything from telecomms, medical imaging and advanced manufacturing to national defence. The space agency’s first-ever integrated-photonics modem will be tested aboard the ISS from 2020 as part of NASA’s multi-year Laser Communications Relay Demonstration (LCRD).

Whether you're tracking your steps, monitoring your health or sending photos from a smart watch, you want the battery life of your wearable device to last as long as possible. If the power necessary to transmit and receive information from a wearable to a computer, cellular or WiFi network were reduced, you could get a lot more mileage out of the technology you're wearing before having to recharge it.

Space enthusiasts have an opportunity to contribute to NASA’s exploration goals through the next round of the agency’s CubeSat Launch Initiative. The Initiative provides access to space for CubeSats developed by NASA centres, accredited educational institutions and non-profit organisations, giving CubeSat developers access to a low-cost pathway to conduct research in the areas of science, exploration, technology development, educ...

“The diversity of the phenomena of nature is so great, and the treasures hidden in the heavens so rich, precisely in order that the human mind shall never be lacking in fresh nourishment,” said 17th-century mathematician, astronomer, and astrologer Johannes Kepler. Inspired by his work, NASA's Kepler mission has just ‘unearthed’ (sorry) what could easily be seen as one of the greatest results of human endeavour yet - ...

On 19th August, National Aviation Day, pilots, engineers and passengers alike will reflect on how far aviation has come in the last century. Could this be the future - an aircraft with 10 electric motors that can hover like a helicopter and fly like a plane? Forget future - this is a concept currently being developed by NASA researchers, under the name Greased Lightning, or GL-10.

  NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has detected a stratosphere, one of the primary layers of Earth’s atmosphere, on a blazing-hot exoplanet known as WASP-33b.

  Twenty robotics teams, ranging from university students to small businesses, are currently taking part in NASA Sample Return Robot Challenge for a cash prize of $1.5m.

After extraordinary findings and technological innovations, a NASA spacecraft launched in 2004 to study Mercury will impact the planet’s surface, most likely on 30th April 2015, after it runs out of propellant. NASA’s MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging (MESSENGER) spacecraft will impact the planet at more than 8,750mph on the side of the planet facing away from Earth, out of view of engin...

NASA's groundbreaking science mission to retrieve a sample from an ancient space rock has moved closer to fruition. The Origins Spectral Interpretation Resource Identification Security Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) mission has passed a critical milestone in its path towards launch, and is officially authorised to transition into its next phase.