NASA

US, China and Russia race to secure reliable lunar power as scientists warn of risks from rushing nuclear technology into space

Four astronauts pulled up at the International Space Station on Thursday after launching on an eight-hour express that set a US speed record. The fresh arrivals include a Canadian whose wife will give birth while he's away. SpaceX launched commander Jessica Watkins and her crew for NASA after a three-week delay to fix their Dragon capsule's leaking fuel system. Thick clouds threatened all morning to halt the countdown but in the end, the skies cleared enough to allow for a safe liftoff. Although their stay at the International Space Station will last a long six months, the flight there was the quickest yet not only for Elon Musk's company, but any American entity, including NASA. The space station's convenient location when the astronauts launched enabled the fast transit. With the late morning liftoff from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Watkins became the first Black woman to lead a crew to orbit. A geologist who worked with NASA's Mars rover Curiosity a decade ago, Watkins i

Isro is expanding private-sector participation while retaining core responsibilities. Is its emerging model similar to Nasa's approach?

Perched on top of SpaceX's powerful Falcon Heavy rocket, Nasa's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is slated to lift off at 7:26 a.m. local time from Cape Canaveral, Florida

US President Donald Trump announced the formation of a new military Space Academy and interacted with astronauts onboard the International Space Station, including Anil Menon, during a visit to NASA's Mission Control at Houston. "This is a great honour, to be with you is a great honour and I just want to thank Jessica, Anil, Jack - great Americans, great patriots, brave people," Trump said, making a call to the orbital laboratory from the Mission Control at Johnson Space Centre on Friday. NASA astronauts Jack Hathaway, Anil Menon, and Jessica Meir are part of Expedition 75 to the International Space Station. Trump called the crew a group of "pioneers" for their efforts in space exploration. After his brief remarks, Trump had NASA astronaut Anna Menon, Anil Menon's wife, and Duke Brady, Jessica Meir's husband, briefly interact with the ISS crew. "Hi, it's Anna. Great to see you guys up there. We love you guys. You're doing a great job," she said. The President also offered to welc

Gaganyaan is teaching India to send people into space; the space station will teach it to keep them there. A lunar base could be the next logical step

A NASA spacecraft circling the moon is providing the sharpest views yet of the crater carved by a crashing SpaceX rocket. The space agency released before-and-after photos of the impact area on Tuesday. The Falcon rocket's upper stage plowed into the moon at 5,400 mph (8,700 kph) on Aug. 5 after drifting through space for more than a year. It launched a pair of private moon landers with experiments and even a tiny rover in 2025 as part of NASA's push to commercialize lunar exploration. Based on these new photos by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, the fresh crater appears to be 60 feet (18 meters) across and less than 10 feet (3 meters) deep, according to scientists. Dark and bright streaks are clearly visible emanating like butterfly wings from the crater. The darker lines represent excavated material that was close to the surface and shaped by eons of solar wind, cosmic rays and micrometeorite strikes. The brighter rays indicate fresh rocks and dirt that were hurled from farth

Nasa has invited the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) to join its Moon Base programme, aimed at establishing a sustained human presence near the lunar South Pole.

According to Nasa, the Moon Base will help unlock new scientific discoveries and prepare for future deep space exploration, including missions to Mars.

NASA astronauts Anil Menon and Jessica Meir on Friday concluded their spacewalk outside the International Space Station to assemble the modification kit for its power channel that would allow addition of solar arrays. The spacewalk 281st in support of the space station sixth for Meir and first for Menon began at 8:33 am EDT (6:03 pm IST) on Thursday and concluded at 3:00 pm EDT (12:30 am IST Friday). Menon and Meir exited the Quest airlock and carried out structural upgrades on the exterior of the orbital laboratory during the six-hour, 27-minute spacewalk. Their primary objective centred on installing mounting hardware on the station's 3B power channel, located on the Starboard 6 truss segment. "This work will enable the future installation of roll-out solar arrays, called IROSA, to provide additional power for the orbiting laboratory, supporting critical systems and the safe, controlled deorbit of the space station," NASA said in a statement. Since 2021, astronauts on prior ..

A US-Russian space crew landed safely in the steppes of Kazakhstan on Sunday after an eight-month stint on the International Space Station. NASA astronaut Chris Williams and Russian crewmates Sergei Kud-Sverchkov and Sergei Mikaev touched down in their Soyuz MS-28 that landed smoothly by parachute in a designated area southeast of Dzhezkazgan. Their 241-day stint on the orbiting outpost was the first space mission for Williams and Mikaev and the second for Kud-Sverchkov.

SpaceX's mega Starship rocket came within a few seconds of blasting off on a test flight, but some of the engines failed to start triggering a launch abort. Elon Musk's company said on Thursday that it will have to figure out what went wrong before making another attempt to send Starship on a space-skimming flight halfway around the world. It was supposed to be the 13th flight for Starship, which at 407 feet (124 metres) tall with 33 main engines is the world's biggest and most powerful rocket. Twenty of SpaceX's newest and most advanced Starlinks were on board Starship for release during the planned hourlong flight. The internet satellites were going to try communicating with Starlinks already in orbit while taking photos of Starship's heat shield. Neither the first-stage booster nor spacecraft were meant to be recovered, with both ending up in the sea. NASA is counting on Starship to land its astronauts on the moon in the next few years.

NASA astronaut Anil Menon and two Russian cosmonauts reached the International Space Station to hugs and handshakes in the early hours of Wednesday (India time) onboard Soyuz MS-29 spacecraft after a little over three-hour journey. The Roscosmos spacecraft carrying Menon and Russian cosmonauts Pyotr Dubrov and Anna Kikina lifted off from Baikonur at 8:17 pm IST on Tuesday just as the orbital laboratory flew over the cosmodrome. After an eight-minute climb to the preliminary orbit, the Soyuz MS-29 spacecraft began a nearly three-hour chase to the International Space Station to dock at the Prichal module at 11:52 pm (IST). The astronaut then began a series of checks in the spacecraft and the space station before the opening hatch at about 2:00 am (IST). This marks Menon's first spaceflight and the second flight for the Russian cosmonauts, according to NASA. Incidentally, the live video feed from the space station was cut off at the time the hatch of the spacecraft was about to open

Nasa astronaut Anil Menon and two Russian cosmonauts lifted off onboard a Soyuz MS-29 spacecraft from Kazakhstan on an eight-month mission to the International Space Station on Tuesday. The spacecraft carrying Menon and Russian cosmonauts Pyotr Dubrov and Anna Kikina lifted off from the Baikonur cosmodrome at 8:17 p.m. IST. After a two-orbit, three-hour trip to the station, the spacecraft will automatically dock at 11:56 p.m. IST to the Prichal module. Once aboard, the trio will join NASA astronauts Jessica Meir, Jack Hathaway, and Chris Williams, European Space Agency astronaut Sophie Adenot, and Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Kud-Sverchkov, Sergei Mikaev, and Andrey Fedyaev.

Anil Menon, a NASA astronaut of Indian descent, is set to embark on an eight-month mission to the International Space Station on July 14 from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Born in Minneapolis to Ukrainian and Indian immigrants, Menon is an emergency medicine physician and a US Space Force colonel. During his stint with the US Air Force, he served on the frontlines in Afghanistan during Operation Enduring Freedom and also worked for the Himalayan Rescue Association, caring for climbers on Mount Everest. Menon, 49, has also spent a year in India as a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar to study and support Polio vaccination initiatives. He is scheduled to travel to space aboard the Roscosmos Soyuz MS-29 spacecraft along with cosmonauts Pyotr Dubrov and Anna Kikina. Menon began his career at NASA as a flight surgeon in 2014 and worked with astronauts living and working on the International Space Station. Menonn joined SpaceX in 2018, where he started the company's medical programm

A commercial spacecraft is set to capture Nasa's Swift Observatory and raise its orbit, extending the telescope's life after solar storms accelerated its descent towards Earth

Nasa announced two awards to Astrobotic Technology Inc. totaling about $298 million, one for about $144 million to Firefly Aerospace Inc. and another for about $148 million to Intuitive Machines Inc

US-based staffing and technology solutions provider Tryfacta has won two contracts under NASA's Solutions for Enterprise-Wide Procurement (SEWP) programme, giving it greater access to federal IT business opportunities through 2036. The company, which recently filed draft papers for a proposed USD 100-150 million IPO at GIFT City, Gujarat, said it won contracts under Category B (Enterprise-Wide IT Service Solutions) and Category C (IT Mission-Based Services), enabling it to compete for federal IT task orders across US government agencies through a pre-competed procurement channel. The multiple-award, have a 10-year ordering period from November 1, 2026, to October 31, 2036. Each contract carries a maximum value of USD 20 billion. With the awards, Tryfacta will be eligible to bid for task orders covering enterprise IT services, cybersecurity, cloud transformation, application development, AI-driven automation, data analytics and programme management support. Earlier this month, Tryfa

The Artemis III crew announcement grabbed headlines, but the bigger story is Nasa's shift from building spacecraft to buying services from private companies

As SpaceX prepares for a landmark IPO, president Gwynne Shotwell emerges as the executive who transformed Elon Musk's vision into a global space powerhouse