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There are several space stories we’re anticipating for 2016 but one story might appear — to some — to belong in the realm of science fiction: sometime in the coming year Elon Musk will likely reveal his plans for colonizing Mars. Early in 2015, Musk hinted that he would be publicly disclosing his strategies for the Mars Colonial Transport system sometime in late 2015, but then later said the announcement would come in 2016.

Space X's Elon Musk predicts that the reusable rocket will reduce the cost of accessing space by at least hundredfold. SpaceX and Blue Origin, both have succeeded in landing rocket back on earth, but in different zones. On December 21, SpaceX has returned its 15-storey booster rocket upright and in intact form to a landing pad at a Cape Canaveral. It was big feat and one of the factors was a $60 million worth machinery was recovered. Blue Origin, a privately owned company created by Jeff Bezos, has launched and landed its own booster rocket for a suborbital flight. Indeed,...

With the production of 50 grams of plutonium-238, researchers at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory have restored a U.S. capability dormant for nearly 30 years and set the course to provide power for NASA and other missions. ... Researchers will analyze the sample for chemical purity and plutonium-238 content, then verify production efficiency models and determine whether adjustments need to be made before scaling up the process. ... There are currently only 35 kilograms, or about 77 pounds, of plutonium-238 set aside for NASA missions, and only about half of this supply meets power specifications. This is...

Measure it any way you like, but this hasn't been that championship season of the "can do" spirit of America. Most of the presidential campaigners spend their allotted minutes criticizing what's wrong with the country, how others have made a mess of things and why voters should put them in charge of changing things. It's difficult to find the formula through the haze of confusion and fog of rhetoric. There's far more blowhard nastiness than creative eloquence. That's what politics is about, of course, but it gets tiresome in the holiday season when we're craving inspiration from our better angels,...

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket blasted off from Florida on Monday with a payload of communications satellites before the reusable main-stage booster turned around, soared back to Cape Canaveral and landed safely near its launch pad in a dramatic spaceflight first. The successful mission, capped by delivery of all 11 satellites to orbit for launch customer ORBCOMM Inc (ORBC.O), unfolded in just over 30 minutes and marked a pivotal reversal of fortunes for privately owned Space Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX, founded by high-tech entrepreneur Elon Musk.

The third attempt at a historic reusable-rocket milestone was the charm for SpaceX. The private spaceflight company brought the first stage of its Falcon 9 rocket back to Earth for a soft touchdown tonight (Dec. 21), pulling off history's first-ever rocket landing during an orbital launch. (Blue Origin, the company led by Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos, landed its New Shepard booster successfully last month, but that occurred during a suborbital test.) The Falcon 9 blasted off at 8:29 p.m. EST today (0129 GMT on Dec. 22) from Florida's Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, tasked with delivering to orbit 11 spacecraft...

The Falcon 9 Rocket cleared the tower at 8:29 EST and the rocket seem on point to deliver its payload into space as the first stage is on point to return for a landing tonight with the landing burn coming up

SpaceX is scheduled to launch its upgraded Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, carrying a payload of 11 ORBCOMM-2 satellites at 8:33 p.m. ... Watch the live video above starting at 8 p.m. or at www.spacex.com/webcast.

Artist's concept of a Falcon 9 booster stage descending to a landing site at Cape Canaveral. Credit: SpaceX Assuming SpaceX's plans come to fruition, a Falcon 9 flight from Cape Canaveral on Sunday will end with a vertical rocket-assisted landing at an abandoned Cold War-era launch facility a few miles away. SpaceX confirmed the rocket's first stage, a slender cylindrical kerosene-fed rocket body standing 156 feet tall, will aim for a controlled touchdown at a landing pad the company rented from the U.S. Air Force less than six miles south of the Falco 9's Complex 40 launch pad. Liftoff...

SpaceX says Sunday is the target launch date for the first launch of a remodeled version of its Falcon 9 rocket, and the launcher’s first mission since a June failure, after completing a practice countdown and engine ignition test Friday. The mission’s firsts, including a possible landing attempt for the Falcon 9’s first stage, make it a critical launch for SpaceX as the company simultaneously resumes flying its fully-booked manifest, debuts a new generation Falcon booster, and continues a lengthy research and development initiative into rocket reusability. Sunday’s launch attempt is timed for 8:29 p.m. EST (0129 GMT Monday) from...

We're eagerly awaiting SpaceX's next launch of a Falcon 9 rocket, and CEO Elon Musk tweeted tonight that it "will aim to launch Sunday." This is also the company's first attempt since a rocket exploded shortly after takeoff in June, and another failed to land on an ocean barge in April. A static fire test that took place earlier today "looks good," so if all the data checks out then this could be SpaceX's time to take the reusable rocket crown back from Blue Origin with a ground landing (or at least launch eleven OG2 satellites).

Restoring America’s ability to once again launch US astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) from US soil on US rockets took another significant step forward when NASA ordered the first the agency’s first commercial crew rotation mission from the Hawthorne, California based-company SpaceX. NASA and SpaceX hope that the blastoff with a crew of up to four astronauts will take place by late 2017. The new Nov. 20 award from NASA’s Commercial Crew Program (CCP) office to launch the SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule follows up on an earlier commercial crew rotation mission award this past May to the Boeing...

The ideal Red Planet crewed site should be of high scientific value — allowing pioneers to search for signs of Mars life and investigate other intriguing questions — and also possess enough resources to help sustain expeditionary crews, scientists and engineers said. They came to these and other conclusions at the First Landing Site/Exploration Zone Workshop for Human Missions to the Surface of Mars, which was held here Oct. 27 though Oct. 30 at the Lunar and Planetary Institute. ... Nearly 50 locations on Mars were proposed as future locales for human landings. Those sites were all within 50 degrees...

United Launch Alliance said Monday it did not submit a proposal in a competition to launch a U.S. Air Force GPS navigation satellite, apparently relinquishing the contract to rival SpaceX, the only other company certified to launch the mission. The Air Force wanted both companies to bid on the launch, setting up the first competition for the launch of a national security mission since Boeing and Lockheed Martin merged their rocket programs in 2006 to form ULA. ULA cited requirements in the request for proposals, which the Air Force released Sept. 30, and a congressionally mandated ban on RD-180 engines...

Defence giant BAE Systems to buy a stake in Britain's Reaction Engines, which is developing revolutionary SABRE engines for ultra-fast aircraft How an aircraft fitted with the SABRE engines might look ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hypersonic air travel and cut-price satellite launches will move a step closer when BAE Systems buys a stake in a UK company developing engines able to power aircraft at 2,500mph and into space. The FTSE 100 group is set to purchase 20pc of Oxfordshire-based Reaction Engines for £20.6m, in a deal that will see the defence giant’s expertise applied to research on the privately-held company’s engine, which combines...

Airplane maker Boeing has unveiled what it calls the "The Lightest Metal Ever"—called microlattice, the material is a construct that is 99.99 per cent air. It has been developed by Boeing's HRL Laboratories along with colleagues at the University of California and the California Institute of Technology. The material has been developed as a way to reduce weight on airplanes or even rockets—a paper describing the development of the material was written by the team and published in the journal Science back in 2011—though the researchers have not yet revealed what sort of changes have been made since that time....

Making spaceships and electric supercars isn’t enough for Elon Musk. Meghan Daum meets the entrepreneur who wants to save the world. The name sounds like a men’s cologne. Or a type of ox. It sounds possibly made up. But then, so much about Elon Musk seems the creation of a fiction writer—and not necessarily one committed to realism. At 44, Musk is both superstar entrepreneur and mad scientist. Sixteen years after cofounding a company called X.com that would, following a merger, go on to become PayPal, he’s launched the electric carmaker Tesla Motors and the aerospace manufacturer SpaceX, which are...

Budget plan would send a SpaceX capsule in 2020 to get samples. Would pick up samples left by Nasa's 2020 Rover. Comes as Amazon's Jeff Bezos unveiled 'megarocket' to take on SpaceX It could bring samples from Mars to Earth for the first time. Nasa employees have revealed details of a 'budget' plan to send a SpaceX capsule to the red planet in 2020 to return samples. Elon Musk has backed the idea - and even tweeted images of what the mission would look like. A Dragon on Mars: The mission would grab samples collected by Nasa's 2020 rover and...

China plans to send an unmanned lunar lander similar to previous probes but with a much heavier payload to the far side of the moon. Due to communications issues with the Moon itself blocking transmissions, China will undoubtedly launch a relay satellite in geo-synchronous lunar orbit to transmit data back, scientists say. The Chinese mission is set to determine how much of the rare element Helium -3, which exists in very small quantities on Earth, can be extracted from the purported rich deposits located on the moon's far side. H-3 is a light non-radioactive gas that has the potential to...

SpaceX's new Crew Dragon capsule may be reserved for astronauts traveling to and from the International Space Station — but now you can take a virtual tour of the vehicle's insides. The company just released interior photos of the spacecraft, as well as a video showing closeups of its control panels and crew seats. The images offer our first glimpse at what the finished Crew Dragon will look like. The photos show an interior that is sleek and smooth, with mostly black and white hardware. It gives off the vibe of a luxury sports car (which makes sense, given CEO...