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According to a new NASA study, when America goes back to the moon and on to Mars it will do so with hardware that looks very familiar. NASA has decided to build two new launch systems - both of which will draw upon existing Space Shuttle hardware. One vehicle will be a cargo-only heavy lifter, the other will be used to launch the Crew Exploration Vehicle. The Plan NASA has essentially completed its Exploration Systems Architecture Study - also known as the "60 day study". Briefings of the study’s conclusions and recommendations will be conducted by Doug Stanley. Stanley led...

Leading aerospace contractors are eagerly awaiting NASA's multi-billion dollar decision on who'll build the space agency's follow-on to the space shuttle now set for retirement in 2010. Flying NASA's Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV) by 2014 is vital to what's dubbed the Constellation Systems--the spaceship, boosters and interrelated hardware needed to tend the International Space Station, return to the Moon by 2020, and plant footprints on Mars in future years. Will it be Lockheed Martin or the team of Northrop Grumman/Boeing--each group partnered with a cast of all-star subcontractors--that will work with NASA to field the space agency's first new human...

PE CANAVERAL, Fla., May 30 (Reuters) - NASA is dumping plans for a throw-away version of the space shuttle's main engines for its planned cargo launcher and will instead buy existing rocket engines used on Boeing Co.'s Delta 4 boosters, U.S. space agency officials said on Tuesday. Both the shuttle's main engines and the RS-68 motors that power Boeing's (BA.N: Quote, Profile, Research) Delta rockets are made by Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne, a unit of United Technologies Corp. (UTX.N: Quote, Profile, Research) that is based in Canoga Park, California. NASA estimates the cost of buying the Delta motors for its...