Last month, experts from NASA and other space agencies around the world faced a troubling hypothetical scenario: A mysterious asteroid had just been discovered 35 million miles away, and it was heading for Earth. The space rock was expected to hit in six months.

Low Earth orbit is reaching capacity as tech companies such as SpaceX, OneWeb and Amazon race to industrialize space with satellites, and in response, physicists are attempting to lay out safe and affordable options for expanding the market into medium Earth orbit, a much riskier arena.

NASA and Houston-based Axiom Space have signed a "mission order" setting the stage for four civilians to visit the International Space Station early next year, the first fully commercial flight to the orbiting lab complex, agency managers said Monday.

Bezos tried to hire Gwynne Shotwell to run Blue Origin in 2016. By as early as the fall of 2016, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos had already started to worry deeply about the progress—or lack thereof—being made by his rocket company, Blue Origin.

Less than six months after high-altitude flight testing began, SpaceX has successfully landed a full-size Starship prototype in one piece, giving the company its first real opportunity to inspect a flown vehicle with flaps, a nose, and three Raptor engines.

Space agencies are tracking the path of an out-of-control rocket as it hurtles towards Earth. Here's what we do – and don't – know about this piece of space junk.

Space agencies participated in a weeklong NASA exercise in which they tried — and failed — to stop a fictitious asteroid from hitting Europe.

The four astronauts of SpaceX's first full mission to the International Space Station (ISS) have splashed back down to Earth off the coast of Florida. It is the first US splashdown under the cover of darkness since NASA's Apollo 8 returned from the moon in 1968.

Elon Musk thinks SpaceX can help NASA meet its ambitious goal of landing astronauts on the moon by 2024. “I think that can be done,” Musk said Friday, speaking after SpaceX launched the Crew-2 mission to orbit for a trip to the International Space Station.

Roscosmos chief Dmitry Rogozin said work had begun on the fist module of a new station, after officials warned that Russia was considering pulling out of the ISS, one of the few successful examples of cooperation with the West.

The Ingenuity helicopter has successfully completed its historic flight on Mars and safely landed back on the surface, according to NASA. The first powered, controlled flight on another planet took place at 3:34 a.m. ET.

Two cosmonauts and an astronaut have landed safely from the International Space Station after spending 185 days aboard the orbiting laboratory. Sergey Ryzhikov and Sergey Kud-Sverchkov of Russia's state space corporation Roscosmos and Kate Rubins of NASA touched down on the steppe of Kazakhstan on Saturday (April 17), riding aboard Russia's Soyuz MS-17 spacecraft. The three crewmates landed southeast of the remote Kazakh town of Dzhezkazgan at 12:55 a.m. EDT (0455 GMT or 10:55 a.m. local Kazakh time).

NASA picked Elon Musk’s SpaceX to receive $2.9 billion to build a lunar lander as part of the Artemis mission to send humans to the Moon by 2024, the agency announced today. It’s a major vote of confidence in SpaceX from NASA — as no other company received money. The contract between NASA and SpaceX is expected to be signed on May 1.

NASA's experimental Mars helicopter Ingenuity nailed a crucial spin test after the first try ended abruptly, delaying the chopper's groundbreaking flight attempt.

After a technical hiccup, engineers are hoping the Ingenuity spacecraft will soon become the first vehicle to take flight on another world.

If the risks posed by equipment malfunction, micrometeorite impacts, and solar radiation were not enough for anyone planning a trip to Mars, here is another one to contend with. Long periods spent in space can cause a shrinking heart. Humankind ventured into space sixty years ago this month. Since April 1961, our astronauts and cosmonauts have been confined to low Earth orbit, together with eight missions to the Moon, six of which landed people there. At some stage, serious planning will begin regarding a trip to Mars.

I was born a mere four months after the final Apollo astronauts brushed gray dust from their spacesuits and lifted off from the Moon. As my interest in space grew over the years, and writing about this industry became my profession, I felt a deepening sense of regret for missing that glorious moment of triumph in our shared space history. I lived with that regret for decades—right up until April 8, 2016.

NASA's Ingenuity mini-helicopter has survived its first night alone on the frigid surface of Mars, the US space agency said, hailing it as "a major milestone" for the tiny craft as it prepares for its first flight.

NASA has plenty of experience operating wheeled rovers on Mars, but it's never tried to fly a helicopter on the red planet before. The Ingenuity rotorcraft will get a chance to make history this month by flying the Martian skies, but first the Perseverance rover had to drop it off on the ground.

Companies are rapidly designing private space stations that could one day dominate operations in orbit around Earth. Why it matters: NASA is hoping private industry will start to take over operations in low-Earth orbit once the International Space Station comes to an end, creating a robust commercial market in that part of space.