Space is the final frontier for understanding how extreme environments affect human physiology. Following twin astronauts, one of which spent a year-long mission on the International Space Station, Garrett-Bakelman et al. examined molecular and physiological traits that may be affected by time in space (see the Perspective by Löbrich and Jeggo). Sequencing the components of whole blood revealed that the length of telomeres, which is important to maintain in dividing cells and may be related to human aging, changed substantially during space flight and again upon return to Earth.

The rover, which has been on the surface of the red planet since 2012, pictured Mars’ moon Phobos passing in front of the sun. Nasa fitted the vehicle with special solar lenses that allow it to stare up at the sun from the rocky Martian landscape. Phobos measures about 7 miles across and the eclipse was captured on March 26. Earlier in the month the rover had also captured Deimos, another Martian moon, passing in front of the sun.

A couple of "Astrobees" are set to join the crew at the International Space Station to help out with chores and special experiments by the end of April 2019. Bees are known as one of Earth's busiest and most hardworking animals, so it's not surprising that NASA is taking inspiration from them for their newest robotic helpers in space.

Robotic "power beaming" landers on the surface of Venus, micro-probes inspired by spiders, a self-healing spacesuit and mining the lunar poles are all projects NASA has recently greenlit for further development. Though many of the selected projects from the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program seem like they're ripped from the pages of the best science fiction novels (I'm looking at you, Heinlein and Asimov), there is a chance they will be made a reality in the next decade.

NASA's ambitious plan to return astronauts to the moon within five years has a target: the lunar South Pole. The Apollo missions of the '60s and '70s all landed around the moon's equator, but the pole has something very special those sites don't: ice, ice baby. "We know the South Pole region contains ice and may be rich in other resources based on our observations from orbit, but, otherwise, it's a completely unexplored world," NASA's Steven Clarke said in a statement Monday.

NASA has made it clear they want astronauts back on the Moon in 2024, and now, they are zeroing in on the Red Planet—the US space agency confirmed that it wants humans to reach Mars by 2033.

NASA has selected the ride for its Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission, awarding SpaceX the US$69 million launch contract. If all goes according to plan, DART will lift off atop a Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 4E at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California in June 2021 – the first step on a voyage intended to demonstrate how a spacecraft collision can alter the trajectory of an asteroid.

NASA has successfully tested the helicopter that's making its way to the red planet with the Mars 2020 rover.

A team of engineers has built and tested a radically new kind of airplane wing, assembled from hundreds of tiny identical pieces. The wing can change shape to control the plane's flight, and could provide a significant boost in aircraft production, flight, and maintenance efficiency, the researchers say. The new approach to wing construction could afford greater flexibility in the design and manufacturing of future aircraft.

NASA's 3D-Printed Habitat Challenge is edging towards its conclusion, which means another phase of the four-year competition has drawn to a close. This latest round tasked teams with creating detailed virtual models of shelters designed specifically for life on Mars, with the winners each claiming a share of US$100,000 ahead of the grand finale next month.

The fireball is the second most powerful in 30 years and the biggest since Chelyabinsk in 2013.

"We can confirm hard capture is complete." Those words at 6:02 a.m. ET Sunday confirmed that SpaceX's Crew Dragon capsule had successfully attached itself to the International Space Station, about 27 hours after lifting off from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Plans call for it to remain docked with the station for five days. On March 8, it will undock and re-enter the Earth's atmosphere, splashing down in the Atlantic Ocean around 8:45 a.m. ET.

Do you want to make money, but never leave your bed? NASA just may have your dream job. According to CBS-affiliate WKMG, researchers and NASA and the European Space Agency are willing to pay 24 participants nearly $19,000 to spend 60 days in bed and monitored around the clock. The 24 participants will be separated into two groups, but housed in a single room. Each person will be propped up at an incline with their feet above their head, reducing blood flow to the extremities, mimicking the effects of being in space. This could, however, lead to numbness and muscle deterioration.

The U.S. space program is developing gigabit-per-second deep-space comms. China is on the hunt too

Germany's space research program, the German Aerospace Center (known as the DLR), is looking for a woman with the right stuff to stay in bed for 60 days to study weightlessness. Commissioned by NASA and the European Space Agency, the study will simulate weightlessness with sleep. Using what's been deemed a "short-arm human centrifuge," scientists hope to test two-thirds of study participants in the best ways to counteract the negative effects of zero-gravity.

Following on the heels of its announcement to return to the moon this year, NASA announced Thursday the first batch of science projects and technology demonstrations they want to send skyward in 2019, assuming their commercial partners can launch on time. The selections highlight the science questions NASA wants answered as it ramps up robotic missions to the moon and shoots for placing humans back on the surface within the next decade, this time on a more permanent basis.

Researchers are working with Nasa to see if clowns help team cohesion on long space missions

Canada is joining a U.S.-led project that will see humans return to the moon and set the stage for further exploration to Mars, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced Thursday. Known as the Lunar Gateway, the project includes an outpost that will provide living space for astronauts orbiting the moon, a docking station for visiting spacecraft and laboratories for research.

On Saturday morning SpaceX will attempt to launch its Crew Dragon spacecraft for the first time, marking the latest step in a relationship between NASA and the California rocket company that has now spanned 13 years. It has been a fruitful relationship for both.

A day after its launch atop a Falcon 9 rocket, SpaceX’s uncrewed Crew Dragon spacecraft has successfully docked with the International Space Station, CNN reported on Sunday.

NASA is always keeping an eye on space rocks that get anywhere near Earth, and 2019 has been a relatively calm year in terms of close passes. A recently discovered asteroid is going to make a not-super-close pass of Earth later this week, and while it doesn’t pose much of a threat to our planet it’s worth mentioning simply because of its size.

NASA's Mars InSight mission is stuck between a rock and a hard place — quite literally. The space administration's lander probe, which is designed to dig as far as five metres below the surface and measure heat coming from inside the planet, hit a snag after encountering what scientists suspect is a "rock or some gravel". The drilling instrument, dubbed 'the mole', first encountered trouble last week when it struck what appeared to be a couple of stones, prompting developer Astronika to lament that "the Mars environment is not very favourable to us".

President Donald Trump's NASA budget request for the 2020 fiscal year includes funding for a Mars sample return mission that could launch as soon as 2026, the space agency's chief Jim Bridenstine said today (March 11). The mission would fetch rock samples packed up by the agency's Mars 2020 rover and bring them back to Earth for study in terrestrial labs. Such a mission has frequently been discussed, but not typically included on a budget request for the agency; NASA's concrete timeline for Mars science missions to Mars has always fizzled out after the Mars 2020 rover mission.

After President Donald Trump revealed his budget proposal Monday, NASA had a forward-looking event of its own. The agency plans to build a space station orbiting the moon, send humans back to the moon by 2028, and eventually send them all the way to Mars.

President Donald Trump has submitted his proposed 2020 NASA budget and one message is very clear: The American space priority is a human presence on the Moon and one that is established fast. Speaking from the Kennedy Space Center on Monday, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine introduced the “Moon to Mars” budget proposal — the first step in an annual process that specifies the agency’s funding.

NASA has issued a warning about space herpes after a study found the virus was reactivating in crew aboard Space Shuttle and International Space Station missions. According to the agency, while only a small proportion of the astronauts develop symptoms as a result of the dormant virus awakening, it could spell danger for longer spaceflight missions - for instance to Mars.

When the Mars 2020 rover lands on the Red Planet in early 2021, it will carry with it a small helicopter, the first human craft to fly on another planet. Until now, Mars has hosted orbiters, landers, and rovers, but no flying machines. The Mars helicopter is meant only as a technology demonstration. If it doesn’t work, the Mars 2020 mission will still succeed. If it does, it will have opened up entirely new avenues for exploring other worlds.

Vice President Mike Pence stunned the space industry Tuesday when he announced the administration’s accelerated plans to return humans to the moon by 2024 — four years sooner than initially planned. Speaking before the National Space Council in Huntsville, Alabama, Tuesday afternoon, Pence did not mince words when laying out NASA’s new, quicker timeline for returning to the lunar surface “by any means necessary.”

A comprehensive catalogue of the bacteria and fungi found on surfaces inside the International Space Station (ISS) is being presented in a study published in the open access journal Microbiome. Knowledge of the composition of the microbial and fungal communities on the ISS can be used to develop safety measures for NASA for long-term space travel or living in space.

Scientists want to return to Saturn's moon Titan to investigate its complex chemistry — this time buoyed by Earth's fascination with drone technology.

This week, thousands of civil servants and contractors are back at work at NASA’s various centers throughout the country following a record 35-day government shutdown — but it will be a while before it’s work as usual again at the agency. These first few days back on the job will be consumed with practical matters, such as figuring out employee backpay and how to dive back into projects.

Mired in dust on the afternoon of June 10, 2018, NASA’s Opportunity rover received a final command from Earth. Take a photo of the sun, the Deep Space Network sang in code. Send telemetry. The rover’s cameras could barely see through all the swirling dust, which had been blown aloft by a planet-spanning storm. The sky was darkening, and Opportunity’s batteries, powered by sunlight, were draining. The reply was grim. The last transmitted image showed solar radiation was one fortieth its pre-storm level.

Astronauts—they’re just like us. Last week, the International Space Station was plagued by a leaky toilet. The crew onboard had to put their plumbers’ hats on and get to work repairing the system as gallons of water spilled weightlessly out into the spacecraft, 250 miles above the surface of the earth. Yeeeesh, that’s rough.

Hard on the heels of discovering what could be a massive impact crater deep under the Greenland ice sheet, scientists think they may have discovered a second, unrelated such structure nearby. The new suspected impact crater is about 22 miles (36 kilometers) wide and, like the first structure, has not yet been definitively identified as an impact crater. There are many more crater-shaped features on Earth than there are actual craters formed by meteorites slamming into the planet.

Late Tuesday night, scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory sent their final data uplink to the Opportunity rover on Mars. Over this connection, via the Deep Space Network, the American jazz singer Billie Holiday crooned "I'll Be Seeing You," a song which closes with the lines: