Stories by Leonard David

China and the U.S. are in a high-stakes race to build permanent lunar outposts. Can both nations coexist on the moon?

After billions of dollars in spending and decades of planning, NASA may be forced to abandon precious samples of air, rock and soil on the Martian surface. Experts are furious

Have you seen something inexplicable in the sky? Jon Kosloski, director of the U.S. Department of Defense’s All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office, wants to hear from you

China’s Chang’e 6 mission has successfully returned samples from the moon’s far side, opening a new phase of the nation’s lunar space race with the U.S.

Three years ago astronauts threw out the largest piece of trash ever tossed from the International Space Station. Now some of it has punched a hole through a house in Naples, Fla.

NASA’s partnership with private industry to accelerate the U.S.’s return to the moon is delivering lunar payloads—and mixed results

A first look at materials from asteroid Bennu sparks speculation that the space rock was once part of an ancient, watery protoplanet

NASA’s Mars Sample Return program is the agency’s highest priority in planetary science, but projected multibillion-dollar overruns have some calling the plan a “dumpster fire”

Amid uncertainty over space agencies’ plans for future Venus exploration, enthusiasm for a private-sector mission grows

Defunct satellites and other pieces of orbital debris are pumping metals into Earth’s fragile upper atmosphere, with effects unknown

OSIRIS-REx—the first U.S. mission to attempt a sample return from a space rock—has successfully sent materials from asteroid Bennu back to Earth

Scientists are gearing up for a high-stakes finale to OSIRIS-REx, the first U.S. mission to snare a sample from an asteroid

More and better data are required to solve the mystery of strange apparitions in the air, the sea and space, according to NASA’s Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Independent Study team

How realistic is it to expect to find enough ice on the moon to support human habitation?

Surging numbers of small research balloons increase the odds of airborne mistaken identity—and harsher regulations

New dedicated observatories and crowdsourced smartphone apps will study strange sightings in the sky. But questionable data quality and a lack of shared research standards remain key challenges

Around the world, researchers are betting that beamed power from space could be the next big thing for clean energy on Earth

Long considered trivial, the effects of rocket launches and reentering space debris on global warming and ozone loss could soon become too large to ignore

Planetary scientists are eager to bring Red Planet rocks, soil and even air to Earth, but critics fear the risk of contaminating our world’s biosphere 

Russia will move forward with lunar exploration without its European partners

Interplanetary voyages are among several space science collaborations delayed or doomed by the ongoing conflict

The concepts include souped-up Mars helicopters and inexpensive orbiters and landers

China’s meteoric rise in space science and exploration—along with its new partnership with Russia—is spurring U.S. experts to reconsider a long-standing prohibition on bilateral collaborations

The vast majority of examined incidents were not caused by U.S. advanced technology programs, the forthcoming report concludes. So what’s going on?