Cutting Edge

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla.--The shuttle Endeavour was hauled to a launch pad Wednesday for work to ready the ship for a planned February 7 launch on a space station assembly mission, the first of a final five flights planned for 2010.

Endeavour, mounted atop a mobile launch platform carried by an Apollo-era crawler-transporter, began the 3.4-mile trip from the Vehicle Assembly Building to launch complex 39A at 4:13 a.m. EST. The MLP was "hard down" at the pad at 10:37 a.m.

A program-level flight readiness review is planned for January 19 and … Read more

NASA's Kepler space telescope, which searches for Earth-like planets in habitable zones beyond our solar system, has found five new exoplanets.

NASA said on Monday that the exoplanets, planets outside of our solar system, are called Kepler 4b, 5b, 6b, 7b, and 8b. Finding those planets, NASA says, justifies using Kepler as a means of finding another Earth-like planet. The space agency also said the telescope "will meet all its science goals."

NASA's Kepler mission, which launched on March 6 last year, is designed to observe more than 150,000 stars to find Earth-like planets. NASA … Read more

NASA has chosen three options it will consider as its next target for future scientific space exploration--Venus, the moon, or an asteroid.

The three areas of focus are finalists in a competition designed to help the space agency determine where it should spend its time and money to get the most scientific value out of research about our solar system. It's part of NASA's New Frontiers Program, which already has two missions under way. The first is the New Horizons mission, a spacecraft that's currently on its way to Pluto and has already sent back images from … Read more

A veteran Russian cosmonaut, a Japanese shuttle flier, and a NASA astronaut making his first space flight docked with the International Space Station Tuesday after a two-day orbital chase, donning Santa hats to mark the holiday season.

With Commander Oleg Kotov monitoring a problem-free automated approach to the huge lab complex, the Russian Soyuz TMA-17 spacecraft docked at an Earth-facing port on the Russian Zarya module at 5:48 p.m. EST, as the two spacecraft sailed 220 miles above the Atlantic Ocean east of Rio De Janeiro, Brazil.

Hatches were opened about an hour and a half later, after … Read more

A Russian Soyuz spacecraft carrying three fresh crew members bound for the International Space Station blasted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan early Monday local time, lighting up a cold, pre-dawn sky with a torrent of flame visible for miles around.

With Soyuz commander Oleg Kotov, a station veteran, Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi, a shuttle veteran, and rookie astronaut Timothy Creamer strapped into the Soyuz TMA-17 capsule, the rocket roared to life at 4:52 p.m. EST Sunday (3:52 a.m. Monday local time) and quickly climbed away from the same pad used by Yuri Gagarin at … Read more

Science buffs got an early Christmas present when rare video was released showing a spectacular undersea volcanic eruption deep in the Pacific Ocean.

The West Mata volcano sits nearly 4,000 feet below the surface of the Pacific in an area bordered by Fiji, Tonga, and Samoa. It was discovered in May by scientists with funding from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Science Foundation. Lucky researchers managed to catch high-definition video of the eruption with the help of a remotely-operated underwater robot named Jason.

Jason's cameras captured masses of lava bubbling up into the cold … Read more

A humanoid robot has been deployed to a supermarket in Japan to help senior shoppers with their grocery purchases.

The modified version of the Robovie II robot developed by Japan's Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute International, or ATR, is working as a temporary shopping assistant at Apita-Seikadai supermarket in Kyoto until March. It's another experiment to test the viability of advanced personal robots in everyday situations.

Robovie can wirelessly receive a list of items selected beforehand by the customer, carry the shopping basket, and make recommendations about what to buy.

In the video below, the robot slowly follows a … Read more

Iraqi insurgents have reportedly intercepted live video feeds from the U.S. military's Predator drones using a $25.95 Windows application that allows them to track the pilotless aircraft undetected.

Hackers working with Iraqi militants were able to determine which areas of the country were under surveillance by the U.S. military, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday, adding that video feeds from drones in Afghanistan also appear to have been compromised.

Meanwhile, a senior Air Force officer said Wednesday that a wave of new surveillance aircraft, both manned and unmanned, were being deployed to Afghanistan to bolster "eyes in the sky" protection … Read more

Earlier this week I had the very awesome opportunity to attend the first flight of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner in Seattle. This is usually Daniel Terdiman's beat, but knowing that I'm a huge airline geek, CNET let me take a break from cell phones to cover the first flight. Daniel wrapped up the event with blogs and great photos of the take-off and landing--I helped by shooting the take-off video--but I also had the opportunity to visit the Dreamliner Gallery.

The gallery, which is located in Everett, Wash., just near Paine Field where the 787 was … Read more