NASA’s New Plan: Do More Science With Small Satellites
A new NASA program aims to turn the gaze of small, traditionally Earth-monitoring satellites outward toward the cosmos.
Space Really Does Need Traffic Cops
Trump’s new space directive spreads out the responsibility for Earth’s congested orbital thoroughfares.
Puerto Rico’s Observatory Is Still Recovering From Hurricane Maria
Arecibo Observatory's 1,000-foot telescope was damaged in last year's storm, and the recovery money is only just beginning to flow in.
How a Uranium Hunter Sniffs Out Nuclear Weapons
Every bit of uranium ore has a chemical fingerprint specific to its source on Earth. Track the metal, and you can track the ne’er-do-well who took it.
Cosmic Ray Showers Crash Supercomputers. Here’s What to Do About It
What happens when a national laboratory’s supercomputers start glitching?
Why Darpa Wants Everyone to Launch Tiny Satellites
A flock of little guys is less vulnerable to attack than one big bird. Also, you could maybe send them up with space balloons.
The Japanese Space Bots That Could Build ‘Moon Valley’
The Lunar X Prize may be dead, but this startup still wants to go to the moon.
The Tricky Logistics of Delivering a Spacecraft on the Interstate
McCollister's hauls a lot of oversized things, from astronaut capsules to weather-monitoring satellites to military aircraft. And it goes fine—usually.
What Happens When Science Just Disappears?
When one of the first online science journals went under, its papers all disappeared. Enter: Portico, the Wayback Machine for scholarly publications.
Astronomers Suggest Some Exoplanet Signals Are False Alarms
What if some of the Earth-like planets discovered by Kepler aren’t there at all?