For the first time in decades, a rocket instead of a space shuttle is occupying launchpad 39-B at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

It's the most complex construction project in history. Flying 250 miles overhead, the international space station can be seen with the naked eye, orbiting the Earth every 90 minutes, usually carrying a crew of six. Now, before construction of the station is even complete, there is already talk of when the lights will be turned off. NASA is waiting for the Obama administration to decide how much longer the station will fly and exactly which direction the U.S. space agency ...

There wasn't a cloud in the sky early Friday when Dave Samuels trained his telescopes at the moon, hoping to catch a glimpse of a NASA rocket striking the lunar landscape. "We saw nothing," he said. Samuels is vice president of the Fremont Peak Observatory near Monterey, California, which had invited members of the public to watch Friday's NASA mission through its telescopes. The lunar strike happened shortly after 4:30 a.m. on the West Coast (7:30 a.m. ET). ...

The space shuttle Discovery will land in California Friday evening, NASA said after bad weather near Kennedy Space Center forced it to wave off a landing in Florida. The shuttle is scheduled to touch down at 5:53 p.m. (8:53 p.m. ET) at Edwards Air Force Base in the Mojave Desert, where the weather is described as "pristine," NASA said. A California landing adds a week to the turnaround time before the shuttle can be ready for another mission and adds ...

Space shuttle Discovery was scheduled to launch early Tuesday morning for a mission to deliver equipment to the international space station. The shuttle's seven-member crew has boarded the vehicle and the hatch is closed, leaving the 15-story tall spacecraft waiting at Kennedy Space Center famed Launch pad 39A, gleaming under the bright lights, for Tuesday's early morning launch. Commander Rick Sturckow and Pilot Kevin Ford will guide Discovery to the space station after launch, scheduled for 1:36 a.m. ET Tuesday, ...

On July 23, 1969, as Apollo 11 hurtled back towards Earth, there was a problem -- a problem only a kid could solve. It sounds like something out of a movie, but that's what it came down to as Apollo 11 sped back towards Earth after landing on the moon in 1969. It was around 10:00 at night on July 23, and 10-year-old Greg Force was at home with his mom and three brothers. His father, Charles Force, was at ...

You have a degree in astrophysics and you know how to fly a jet. You've endured years of preparation and training, logged thousands of hours of flight time and even survived NASA's terrifying "vomit comet" weightlessness test. Now you're up in space for the very first time, floating around the shuttle's cabin, and as you look out of the window, you realize something: you're hungry. What are you going to eat? Initial voyages into space introduced questions scientists ...

NASA released newly restored videos Thursday of two U.S. astronauts taking the world's first steps on the moon. The images were released just four days before the 40th anniversary of the historic event that captivated the world on July 20, 1969. Astronaut Neil Armstrong, now 78, was the first to venture onto the moon's surface after the lunar module Eagle landed on the so-called Sea of Tranquility. Following him was Buzz Aldrin, now 79. The videos are far superior to ...

Humans are a step closer to returning to the moon after NASA launched a lunar orbiter Thursday to provide a comprehensive survey of our nearest celestial neighbor. The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter lifted off aboard an Atlas V Rocket from Cape Canaveral in Florida at 5:32 p.m. ET, powered by two liquid-fueled engines and a pair of solid-fueled boosters. NASA described the liftoff as "flawless" on its Web site. It is the first mission in NASA's plan to return ...

A gaseous hydrogen leak on the space shuttle Endeavour forced NASA to cancel Saturday's planned launch, the space agency said. NASA halted fueling of the shuttle after detecting the leak on a vent line that leads from the ground umbilical carrier plate to the launch pad and to the "flare stack" where vented hydrogen is burned off, the space agency said. The leak is similar to the one that happened during the first launch attempt of space shuttle Discovery ...