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A Russian Soyuz ferry craft glided to a computer-orchestrated docking with the International Space Station early Tuesday, bringing a Russian cosmonaut, a NASA astronaut and a Japanese engineer to the lab complex two days after launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

With veteran cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko monitoring the autonomous approach from the center seat of the Soyuz TMA-05M command module, the spacecraft's docking system engaged its counterpart on the Earth-facing Rassvet module at 12:51 a.m. EDT as the two spacecraft sailed 252 miles above northeast Kazakhstan.

"Docking confirmed," someone said on the Russian flight … Read more

Unexpected problems with a NASA science satellite in orbit around Mars could briefly delay receipt of telemetry from the agency's $2.5 billion Mars Science Laboratory rover during the spacecraft's dramatic 7-minute descent to the surface August 6, officials said Monday.

While the issue with the orbiting Odyssey satellite will have no effect on the rover's ability to successfully execute its autonomous entry, descent, and landing sequence -- half jokingly dubbed "Seven Minutes of Terror" by project engineers -- it could mean an additional period of nail-biting before confirmation that the so-called "sky crane&… Read more

A Soyuz spacecraft carrying a Russian commander, a NASA flight engineer, and a Japanese astronaut -- all veteran space travelers -- blasted off and streaked into orbit late Saturday (U.S. time), the first leg of a two-day flight to the International Space Station.

Under a partly cloudy sky, the Soyuz TMA-05M spacecraft blasted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 10:40 p.m. EDT Saturday (GMT-4; 8:40 a.m. Sunday local time) and quickly climbed away atop a rush of fiery exhaust.

The launching came on the 37th anniversary of the 1975 Apollo-Soyuz Test Project that … Read more

Engineers are making final preparations for launch of a Russian Soyuz spacecraft this weekend to ferry an all-veteran U.S.-Russian-Japanese crew to the International Space Station to boost the lab's crew complement back to six. The launch will kick off a "fantastically busy" timeline, with nine space station "visiting vehicle" operations and two spacewalks over the next six weeks.

"The mission is going to be action packed," Soyuz flight engineer and eventual space station commander Sunita Williams told CBS News. "I think we're really up for the pace, we're … Read more

EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif.--If you want to know what the future of airplane design looks like, you might have to make your way out to the middle of the Mojave Desert.

Tucked away inside a nondescript warehouse building at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center here, NASA, the U.S. Air Force, Boeing, and Cranfield Aerospace are working on an entirely new kind of plane, one which they hope could someday revolutionize aviation.

Known as a hybrid wing body, the plane design, which NASA describes as a cross between a conventional plane and a flying wing design, is … Read more

When you're watching the London Olympics later this month on your big-screen TV, you probably won't give a second thought to how those images got to you from across the ocean. Hit the Power button on your remote, and presto -- the 4x100 relay, live, and in the moment.

It wasn't always so.

Once upon a time, and not so long ago, watching faraway events as they unfolded was an exotic thing, a rarity marked by the phrase "Live, via satellite." Look back just 50 years, and you'll find the satellite that got it … Read more

If you were an American astronaut heading into space anytime in the last 50 years or so, chances are your trip started in Florida.

More specifically, that flight -- into Earth's orbit or to the moon, in a shuttle or in a capsule -- would have started at the Kennedy Space Center on the Atlantic coastline. That now sprawling facility has been at the heart of NASA's operations since the fledgling space agency took over what had been a missile firing laboratory as the 1950s gave way to the 1960s.

The facility didn't carry John Kennedy's … Read more

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla. -- The first space-bound Orion capsule, the centerpiece of NASA's post-shuttle push to break out of low Earth orbit for eventual manned flights to a variety of deep space targets, was officially unveiled at NASA's Florida spaceport today. The spacecraft will be outfitted for an unmanned test flight in 2014.

"As KSC celebrates its 50th anniversary this month, I can't think of a more appropriate way to celebrate than by having the very first Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle here at KSC," Robert Cabana, the center's director and a former shuttle … Read more

Of all the cataclysmic threats facing humanity, the one that could really wipe us off the map -- a hit by a truly massive asteroid -- gets relatively little in terms of resources.

The B612 Foundation aims to change that with the launch of a space telescope that would try to track half a million asteroids in the inner solar system believed to be larger than the one that hit Russia's Tunguska in 1908, causing enormous damage.

The Tunguska object's size and nature remains a matter of debate. But only 1 percent of larger asteroids have been mapped so far, according to B612, which was named after the fictional asteroid home of the Little Prince. … Read more