Astronauts | featured news

NASA's rover carries a sophisticated weather station offering data on the Red Planet's environment that astronauts might one day encounter.

A Russian Soyuz craft launched into the morning skies over Kazakhstan on Sunday, carrying three astronauts on their way to the International Space Station, where they will quickly start preparing for a frenzy of incoming traffic....

A Chinese space capsule with three astronauts aboard returned to Earth on Friday from a 13-day mission to an orbiting module that is a prototype for a future permanent station. The crew of the Shenzhou 9 parachuted to a landing on the grasslands of the country's sprawling Inner Mongolia region at about 10 a.m. (0200 GMT). China declared the mission to the Tiangong 1 module a major stride ahead for the country's ambitious space program.

Astronauts aboard the International Space Station released Space Exploration Technologies' unmanned Dragon cargo ship on Thursday, one of the final milestones in a pioneering mission for commercial firms seeking a major role in space travel.

Space station astronauts floated into the Dragon on Saturday, a day after its heralded arrival as the world's first commercial supply ship.

A discarded chunk of a Russian rocket is forcing six space station astronauts to seek shelter in escape capsules early Saturday....

An unused pad at the nation's West Coast launch complex is being retrofitted to send up the world's most powerful rocket. Private rocket maker Space Exploration Technologies is spending between $20 million and $30 million to renovate the site that will be home to its Falcon Heavy, the largest rocket since the retired Saturn V that hurled astronauts to the moon.

Astronauts unlikely to match amount of work or danger involved for generations to come.

Though thunderstorms threatened, Atlantis was launched for NASA’s 135th and final shuttle flight, bound for the International Space Station with four astronauts.

Two astronauts made history Friday as the final spacewalkers of NASA's 30-year shuttle program.