Engineers have lowered NASA's monster SLS core stage into the B-2 Test Stand at the agency's Stennis Space Center. NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine was keen to share the good news with rocket fans as the massive booster took another tentative shuffle toward launch. The team has successfully lowered the @NASA_SLS core stage …

NASA has announced the finalists for its Mars 2020 Rover naming and the options are as worthy as one might expect. Around 28,000 essays were apparently submitted, from which bigwigs whittled down these nine: Promise, Fortitude, Courage, Vision, Tenacity, Clarity, Endurance, Ingenuity and Perseverance. Because we are El Reg, …

RoundupWelcome back to The Register's weekly roundup of stories from the world of rockets and orbital shenanigans. Rocket Lab to add another Mission Control and names the next launch date Rocket Lab is to launch a second dedicated mission for the US National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) with a launch window opening on 31 January. The …

SpaceX looks set to shove a pair of astronauts into its Crew Dragon capsule following a successful demonstration of abort systems over the weekend. After a postponement due to weather, the sacrificial Falcon 9 finally left the Kennedy Space Center's Launch Complex 39A at 15:30 UTC on Sunday 19 January. Approximately a minute …

A relatively small rock was spotted orbiting asteroid Eurybates this month by scientists using the Hubble Space Telescope. Luckily enough, that's the same asteroid NASA's Lucy probe is aiming to fly past and inspect in 2027, so boffins will be able to get a closer look at both. Eurybates is one of the Trojan asteroids, a cloud …

VidNASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) has stumbled across its first Earth-sized planet that lies within the habitable zone of a star. That means that the otherworldly object known as TOI 700 d ticks two boxes. The first being that its size is similar to Earth, which suggests that it has a solid, rocky surface. …

Astronomers have discovered the most-distant cluster of galaxies yet seen – and, separately, what could be the largest galaxy in the observable universe yet. Meanwhile, British astronaut Helen Sharman has openly wondered if alien life not only exists but may be with us here on Earth "right now and we simply can’t see them." It …

NASA is making preparations to ship the first core stage of its monstrous Space Launch System (SLS) rocket to a Stennis test stand ahead of firing it up. It has been a long time coming, but engineers have deemed the core stage complete enough to be to rolled over to Building 110 at the agency's Michoud Assembly Facility in New …

Boeing’s first attempt to get its Starliner capsule to dock with the International Space Station has failed due to a software blunder. The unit was carrying cargo to the orbiting science lab though Boeing hopes to use it to send people into the obsidian void at some point. This particular Starliner mission took off on Friday …

RoundupA fair bit happened in the world of space this week, with NASA showing off its mighty booster as Boeing looked set to end 2019 with a jaunt to the International Space Station. The American space agency gifted card-makers with something new to flog this time next year, as it declared 9 December as "Artemis Day" by showing off …

There’s water ice buried below the surface of Mars, and all you’ll need is a shovel to dig some up, according to research published in Geophysical Research Letters this week. “Our results are consistent with widespread water ice at latitudes as low as 35°N/45°S buried sometimes a few cm below sand‐like material, with high …

Round UpSpaceX landed another Falcon 9, Rocket Lab took a first step toward reuse, and it was handbags at dawn for lunar boffins in this week's curation of all things space. SpaceX sends a malting kit to the ISS, sadly not for thirsty 'nauts After a delay caused by pesky upper-altitude winds, SpaceX successfully launched the CRS-19 …

NASA’s science team has a new female recruit and she's probing the watery depths of the Antarctic in a quest to help climate eggheads understand our climate. Armed with no prior research or any academic qualifications, just a metallic antenna strapped to its head, a southern elephant seal has been quietly helping scientists …

RoundupThe Arianespace launch may have been delayed, but there remained plenty to bring delight to the hearts of rocket fans last week as Starliner neared launch and Boeing bit back at NASA. Boeing's Starliner has been mated to an Atlas V The Boeing CST-100 Starliner capsule took another step toward space last week as the spacecraft …

A total of 14 companies have now entered the race to develop landers to deliver goodies to the Moon as NASA plans to send the first woman and the next man to our nearest rocky companion by 2024. Five vendors joined the growing list on Monday, according to a media teleconference broadcast on NASA Live. Some of the most …

RoundupLast week SpaceX proved its Crew Dragon abort engines can work, ISS 'nauts embarked on an EVA to fix their particle physics detector, and Searching for Skylab got a director's cut of sorts. SpaceX fires up Crew Dragon's abort engines, nothing explodes SpaceX successfully completed a full-duration static fire test of the …

Auditors minced no words in their assessment (PDF) of NASA's Commercial Crew providers: overdue, overbudget and overpaid. This was not supposed to have happened. SpaceX and Boeing should have been flying crew to the International Space Station by now thanks to fixed-price contracts. Or not so fixed, as the inspectors observed …

NASA's Office of the Inspector General has emitted a report (PDF) yesterday that made for difficult reading for agency bigwigs, as the bean counters made clear the challenges presented by the agency's headlong rush to the Moon. As NASA has lurched from one presidential goal to another over the last decade (the latest being the …