Three citizen teams in the United States will get to fire deep-space satellites from NASA's newest rocket, Space Launch System, as part of the agency's Cube Quest Challenge. The teams' shoebox-sized "CubeSats" will then compete in a space-themed, robotic version of Survivor to win $5m, NASA's largest-ever prize pot. Heart- …

The United States Government Accountability Office has found that NASA's return to crewed space exploration will likely not commence in 2018, as planned, and will probably slip into 2019. And familiar technology integration challenges are partly to blame. The Office on Thursday published a Report to Congressional Committees ( …

VideoA tornado has totalled some priceless NASA artefacts. The tornado swept through the space agency's Michoud Assembly Facility near New Orleans at 11:25am on February 8. Beyond NASA's facility, the tornado has damaged warehouses and the walls of a US Department of Agriculture office. The Facility is home to projects like the …

Poor NASA: it's got a president who doesn't like its climate research and wants it to pay more attention to putting humans on the Moon and Mars – but its launch vehicle for that kind of mission is costing too much. That vehicle is the Space Launch System, a rocket hoped to be capable of one day hauling loads up to 130,000kg …

NASA has announced three more CubeSats which will travel on the first mission of the Space Launch System (SLS), slated for lift-off in 2018. A total of 13 CubeSat berths are available aboard Exploration Mission-1 (EM-1), which is primarily intended to dispatch an Orion capsule "to a stable orbit beyond the moon to …

NASA has been putting its Orion capsule "crew display and control system" through its paces - a lean three-screen set-up designed as a user-friendly alternative to the "nearly 2,000 switches and controls" packed into the space shuttle. An engineer evaluates Orion’s display and control system. Pic NASA An engineer eyes Orion' …

VIDNASA has released a video of last week's test burn of an RS-25 motor, which will ultimately power the core stage of the Space Launch System (SLS). The 535-second blast – equivalent to "the amount of time the engines will fire during an actual launch" – took place last Thursday on the A-1 test stand at the Stennis Space …

NASA will tomorrow broadcast live a test firing of its RS-25 powerplant, "one of four engines that will power the core stage of NASA’s new Space Launch System (SLS), and carry the agency’s Orion crew capsule as part of the journey to Mars and other deep-space destinations". The motor is expected to roar into life at 17:00 EDT …

NASA and Boeing have inked a key contract that should see agency's Space Launch System take to the skies in 2017. Under the $US2.8 billion contract, the aerospace giant will be building the core stage of the space giant: the Space Launch System will stand 212 feet (more than 64 metres) tall, and will be powered by a …

Weapons enthusiasts have been experimenting with 3D-printed guns for months, with mixed results. But NASA has set its sights much higher – quite literally – having successfully tested 3D-printed parts under the torturous conditions of rocket engines. The most recent such test took place on August 22, the space agency revealed …

Immediate past president of the Planetary Society, Lou Friedman, is worried that the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is putting NASA’s planetary exploration at risk. Writing at The Space Review, Friedman – who founded the Planetary Society in 1980 with Carl Sagan and Caltech professor and Mars exploration luminary Bruce …