Author: MARCIA DUNN AP aerospace writer

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — One of NASA’s two stuck astronauts got a much welcomed change of scenery Thursday, stepping out on her first spacewalk since arriving at the International Space Station more than seven months ago. Suni Williams, the station’s commander, had to tackle some overdue outdoor repair work alongside NASA’s Nick Hague. Plans called […]

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — Blue Origin launched its massive new rocket on its first test flight Thursday, sending up a prototype satellite to orbit thousands of miles above Earth. Named after the first American to orbit Earth, the New Glenn rocket blasted off from Florida, soaring from the same pad […]

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — In a two-for-one moonshot, SpaceX launched a pair of lunar landers Wednesday for U.S. and Japanese companies looking to jumpstart business on Earth’s dusty sidekick. The two landers rocketed away in the middle of the night from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, the latest in a stream of private spacecraft aiming for […]

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — Blue Origin called off the debut launch of its massive new rocket early Monday because of technical trouble. The 320-foot (98-meter) New Glenn rocket was supposed to blast off before dawn with a prototype satellite from Florida’s Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. But launch controllers had […]

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — A spacecraft has beamed back some of the best close-up photos yet of Mercury’s north pole. The European and Japanese robotic explorer swooped as close as 183 miles (295 kilometers) above Mercury’s night side before passing directly over the planet’s north pole. The European Space Agency released the stunning snapshots Thursday, […]

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — The new year will bring a pair of lunar eclipses, but don’t expect any sun-disappearing acts like the one that mesmerized North America last spring. While the world will have to wait until 2026 for the next total solar eclipse, the cosmos promises plenty of other wow moments in 2025. It’s […]

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — NASA’s two stuck astronauts just got their space mission extended again. That means they won’t be back on Earth until spring, 10 months after rocketing into orbit on Boeing’s Starliner capsule. NASA announced the latest delay in Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams’ homecoming on Tuesday. The two test pilots planned on […]

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — New research suggests that Saturn’s rings may be older than they look — possibly as old as the planet. Instead of being a youthful 400 million years old as commonly thought, the icy, shimmering rings could be around 4.5 billion years old just like Saturn, a Japanese-led team reported Monday. The […]

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — NASA announced more delays Thursday in sending astronauts back to the moon more than 50 years after Apollo. Administrator Bill Nelson said the next mission in the Artemis program — sending four astronauts around the moon and back – is now targeted for April 2026. It had been on the books […]

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Known across the globe as the stuck astronauts, Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams hit the six-month mark in space Thursday with two more to go. The pair rocketed into orbit on June 5, the first to ride Boeing’s new Starliner crew capsule on what was supposed to be a weeklong test […]