Orbital Spacecraft
Satellites, shuttles and space stations
STS-116: The Inside Guide
A tip sheet for following this week's space shuttle mission.
January 2007 |
By Tony Reichhardt
Space Trippers
Did the first paying guests aboard the international space station get their $20 million worth?
November 2006 |
By Craig Mellow
How small can satellites get and still be functional?
From Nanosats to Femtosats.
September 01, 2006 |
By Joe Pappalardo
Keep Watching the Ice
Meet the satellites bringing data to the discussion of global warming
September 2006 |
By Ben Iannotta
Moonwhackers
Europe's SMART-1 is the first of several lunar crashes on the drawing board.
September 2006 |
By Tony Reichhardt
Shuttle Stop
The tensest moment in spaceflight: Docking with a 100-ton space station while orbiting Earth at five miles per second.
May 2006 |
By Thomas D. Jones
Shuttle Tiles
Why the space shuttle can withstand reentry temperatures up to 2,300 degrees.
May 2006 |
By Damond Benningfield
Leroy's Launch
To watch a friend begin his expedition to the International Space Station, our correspondent travels to emptiest Kazakhstan.
July 2005 |
By George C. Larson
The Space Shuttle Returns
How NASA recovered from the Columbia tragedy and tackled the job of getting the shuttle flying again.
May 2005 |
By Linda Shiner
The Rise and Fall and Rise of Iridium
Iridium's constellation of 66 comsats was a technological triumph but a business disaster-until an executive and a computer geek found salvation in the Pentagon.
September 2004 |
By Craig Mellow
The First 1,000 Days
Ghost alarms, foul odors, and a tourist season? Life aboard the International Space Station.
July 2004 |
By Thomas D. Jones
Retro Rocketeers
If a capsule was good enough to get a crew to the moon, these old-timers say, it's good enough to get a crew back to Earth.
May 2004 |
By James Oberg
Backgrounder: State of the Station
The International Space Station is on hold while NASA answers calls for attention in the order in which they are received.
November 2003 |
By Tony Reichhardt
Growing Pains
It's the one area of space science in which you get to eat the experiment.
September 2003 |
By Robert Zimmerman
Is It Worth the Risk?
The astronaut who commanded the first shuttle flight after Challenger explains his decision.
July 2003 |
By Richard Hauck
Bill Borucki's Planet Search
Finding another Earth may be easier than the Kepler project's long quest for funding.
May 2003 |
By Andrew Lawler
White Elephant
How the Soviet Buran space shuttle helped the United States win the cold war.
January 2003 |
By Tom Harpole
Will the Air Force Finally Get a Spaceplane?
If Boeing's X-37 can maneuver politically as well as in space.
January 2003 |
By Ben Iannotta
Konstantin Tsiolkovsky Slept Here
Following in the footsteps of the man who invented space travel.
September 2002 |
By Anatoly Zak
