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Small BodiesStories, updates, insights, and original analysis from The Planetary Society.
SpaceX's Falcon 9 aborts liftoff due to abnormal engine reading
The launch of SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon capsule was aborted last night a half-second before liftoff, due to abnormally high pressure readings in engine number five.
SpaceX set to launch COTS 2 flight this Saturday
This Saturday, SpaceX will attempt to make history by launching the first commercial spacecraft to berth with the International Space Station.
SpaceX Dragon flight to ISS draws near
SpaceX and NASA have completed a successful flight readiness review (FRR) for the Dragon's upcoming visit to the International Space Station.
NASA collects round three of CCDev proposals
NASA is soliciting a third round of proposals from private spaceflight companies looking to send astronauts to the International Space Station.
Nearly the last view of Endeavour with its life-blood flowing
After 12 years of photographing the space shuttle, and even getting to work for NASA as a photographer for the final three years of the program, I never had the privilege of going inside the cockpit until the program was over.
Where is space?
Obviously the Earth ends and space begins somewhere, but today, as it has been for the entirety of humanity's manned and unmanned exploration of
Solar flares from Skylab
Before automated space observatories like SDO could send pictures and videos of solar phenomenon in real-time, humans had to do it manually, as in the case of the groundbreaking Skylab space station missions, which featured the Apollo Telescope Mount.
Lovely Lovejoy pictures
Just a few of the amazing photos of Comet Lovejoy that have been taken from the southern hemisphere over the last few days. Comet Lovejoy is the first Kreutz sungrazer to have been discovered from the ground in 40 years, and after its surprising survival of its passage close to the Sun, it has been putting on a spectacular show in southern skies.
Expedition 30, SpaceX and Stratolaunch
An update on upcoming missions to the International Space Station (ISS).
One-astronaut game of baseball in the International Space Station
A fun video of Japanese astronaut Satoshi Furukawa playing baseball aboard the ISS.
SLS updates: tower crawl, engine burn and flight test
A few updates on the Space Launch System, NASA's next-generation deep exploration vehicle.
How to move a shuttle across Los Angeles
Ever since the space shuttle Endeavour was awarded to the California Science Center I've been curious about the question of how they will ever get a shuttle from Los Angeles International Airport across more than 10 miles of densely developed city land in the United States to Endeavour's eventual home in Exposition Park.
Checking in with NASA's Commercial Partners
Checking in with SpaceX's launch abort system progress, Boeing's CST-100 drop tests, and a recent Space, Science and Technology Committee meeting on Capitol Hill.
Have two spacecraft ever docked to two separate space stations on the same day?
The Chinese spacecraft Shenzhou 8 docks with space station Tiangong 1, on the same day a Progress resupply capsule arrives at the International Space Station.
Decoding SpaceX's re-usable spacecraft concept
Breaking down the futuristic technologies for SpaceX's reusable Grasshopper spacecraft, as shown in a recent promotional video.
China's first space station takes flight
A Long March rocket carried China's first space station, Tiangong-1, into orbit September 29.
Video: Soaring over Earth
This amazing video has already been posted by basically every other space blogger but I can't resist featuring it too, especially because I just realized that it was not made by NASA but instead by a member of the public digging into public NASA archives of image data -- yay for amateurs!
Students Design Human Asteroid Mission in Caltech Space Challenge
I spent much of the past week attending the Caltech Space Challenge, a student-organized international competition to design a human mission to a Near-Earth asteroid. It was a great week, and one of the most positive, upbeat and hopeful programs I have participated in concerning the future of space exploration.
NASA unveils Space Launch System
After months of political wrangling, NASA has finally unveiled the design of the Space Launch System, America's next deep space transportation system.
New Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter photos show Apollo sites in sharpest detail yet
On September 6, NASA released new high-resolution photos from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) showing the Apollo 12, 14 and 17 landing sites from vantage points as close as 21 kilometers.