Spacecraft

From an interstellar comet to breathtaking auroras and from brand-new rockets to iconic space telescopes, here are some of our favorite images from the cosmos in 2025

In the era of mega constellations, spacecraft typically have less than a week to avoid crashes

NASA’s MAVEN spacecraft didn’t phone home as expected on December 6

A partially successful test of China’s Zhuque-3 rocket shows that other countries are rapidly catching up with the U.S in the race for reusable rocketry

Mars is passing behind the sun, giving NASA's Perseverance rover a view of the star’s far side

The Shenzhou-22 spacecraft is set to launch November 25

NASA’s presumptive next leader wants to outsource more of the space agency’s interplanetary science. The newly launched ESCAPADE mission to Mars offers a sanity check for those plans

The Shenzhou 20 spacecraft was too damaged to bring its crew home from China’s Tiangong space station. Those astronauts have now returned via the Shenzhou 21 craft, leaving its crew without a return ride until the nation sends a new spacecraft to the station

There are six people living on the Chinese space station Tiangong at the moment, and the plan to bring three of them back is in progress

Three Chinese astronauts will likely return safely to Earth after a reported space-junk strike. But the incident highlights the growing risk of orbital debris

Observations show the disk of our galaxy is not flat but warped and waving. Astronomers are still working out the reasons why

Ahead of Jared Isaacman’s renomination for the position of NASA’s administrator, a dispute between him and its acting chief Sean Duffy spilled into the open, with potentially profound consequences for the U.S. space agency