Mission Reports

Kelly urges funding for commercial crew program

Astronaut Scott Kelly, 143 days into a planned 341-day stay aboard the International Space Station, urged lawmakers Monday to restore full funding to NASA’s commercial crew program to avoid expected launch delays and continued sole reliance on Russia for transportation to and from the International Space Station.

News

The heart of Pluto in high-resolution

The icy plains of Pluto resolved by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft stretch as wide as Texas, enveloping mountain ranges and bizarre hilly outcrops in a mosaic revealing one lobe of the distant world’s heart-shaped reservoir of exotic frozen carbon monoxide, nitrogen and methane.

News

Kepler telescope spots Earth-like ‘cousin’

Analysis of data from NASA’s planet-hunting Kepler space telescope has revealed a near Earth-size world orbiting in the habitable zone of a sun-like star, scientists announced Thursday, the closest match yet in the ongoing hunt for planets similar in size to Earth where life, as humans understand it, might have a chance to evolve.

Mission Reports

Live coverage: Three-man crew arrives at space station

Three new space station residents blasted off Wednesday on a fast-track six-hour pursuit of the orbiting research complex, kicking off five months in space. The U.S.-Russian-Japanese space crew lifted off at 2102 GMT (5:02 p.m. EDT) from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, and docking occurred 0245 GMT (10:45 p.m. EDT).