John Casani spent more than half a century turning speculative ideas about distant worlds into working spacecraft that could survive the trip. His quiet influence at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory ...

The solar system—our Sun’s system of planets, moons, and smaller debris—is humankind’s cosmic backyard. Small by factors of millions compared to interstellar distances, the spaces between the planets ...

A near term laser ablation of micropellets can be made to rapidly accelerate one ton space probes to reach Pluto in one year. The NASA New Horizons launched in 2006 took 9.5 years to reach Pluto and ...

Introduction: NASA's solar system exploration paradigm : the first fifty years and a look at the next fifty / James L. Green and Kristen J. Erickson -- Part I. Overview. Exploring the Solar System : ...

Major space missions in 2025 are reshaping exploration. Here's a detailed look at key NASA missions, global projects, and the ...

Missions to the outer planets are an important and exciting part of NASA’s goals because these scarcely visited worlds, particularly the ice giants Neptune and Uranus, undoubtedly hold secrets about ...

The picture-perfect launch of twin Escapade orbiters bound for Mars presages a fantastical new age in exploring the planets, ...

To commemorate the 50th anniversary of the first successful planetary mission, Mariner 2 sent to Venus, the NASA History Program Office and the Division of Space History at the National Air and Space ...

China envisions exploring the solar system, and it seems that would happen soon. The country launched Tianwen-2, an innovative space probe tasked with retrieving samples from an uncharted asteroid and ...

Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. I cover aerospace, astronomy & hosted The Cosmic Controversy Podcast. Artist’s concept of the Parker Solar Probe spacecraft ...