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NASA's space shuttles have racked up an amazing set of accomplishments over the last 30 years, not to mention the miles and statistics. But after three decades and 135 flights, the era of the NASA space shuttle is at an end. The final shuttle flight, NASA's STS-135 mission aboard Atlantis , will land Thursday (July 21) to cap a 13-day trip that delivered supplies and spare parts to the International Space Station

At a recent meeting of the American Astronomical Society, Bill Borucki , principal investigator for NASA's planet-finding Kepler spacecraft, provided an update on Kepler's hunt for distant worlds, especially those Earth-like planets that might be habitable: [More]

One of the most anticipated shuttle launches of all time took place July 8 when Atlantis lifted off at 11:29 A.M.

There is a certain sense of unreality as I sit this morning at the Kennedy Space Center press site, with Atlantis on the launch pad just over three miles away awaiting its last mission (STS 135), NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver finishing a briefing on NASA's ambitious plans for the future, a hundred enthusiastic young people from all over the country gathered for a "Tweetup" to communicate their impressions of being at a launch--while in Washington, D.C., the House Appropriations Committee apparently is intending today to cut almost $2 billion from NASA's budget. There is a remarkable disconnect between the excitement surrounding the last shuttle launch, set to lift-off Friday, and the pervasive and merited anxiety about NASA's future that is almost the first thing out of the mouths of any of the space veterans I have encountered in the past 24 hours. I commented to a reporter earlier today that the current level of uncertainty about the future of the NASA program is the greatest that I have seen in 45 years of close observation of the U.S.

By Eric Hand of Nature magazine When NASA invites proposals in 2013 for its next round of low-cost planetary missions, ideas are sure to be plentiful -- but not the leaders crucial to the missions' success. [More]

By Eric Hand of Nature magazine The potential cost of NASA's flagship mission to Jupiter's icy moon Europa was recently put at $4.7 billion. [More]

By Eric Hand of Nature magazine The potential cost of NASA's flagship mission to Jupiter's icy moon Europa was recently put at $4.7 billion. [More]

A NASA spacecraft that in 2005 discovered watery plumes spewing from the surface of Saturn's icy moon Enceladus has now found compelling evidence that the plumes stem from an underground reservoir of saltwater. [More]

The end of the Space Shuttle era is slightly depressing. NASA won't be flying its own astronauts into space for a while, either, putting a further damper on the good PR that comes from the visually and intellectually stimulating space program, which encourages students of engineering and science.

NASA's revealed plans for manned human spaceflight, centering on the four-seat, conical Orion capsule. NASA's plans for manned human spaceflight are salvaged from the wreckage of the Constellation program

Titan, Saturn's largest moon, has numerous lakes and seas. But they're not bodies of water--Titan's reservoirs are full of liquid hydrocarbons such as methane.

(PhysOrg.com) -- Stanford and NASA researchers have confirmed two predictions of Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity, concluding one of the space agency's longest-running projects.

A 12-minute NASA video with scientist interviews gives an overview of the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) project: [More]

Come 2013, the burliest rocket in the world may belong not to NASA, Boeing or any of the other traditional heavy-hitters in the aerospace field. It will belong to a relative newcomer, if start-up spaceflight firm SpaceX has its way

On March 17, after a roundabout, nearly seven-year journey, NASA's MESSENGER probe became the first spacecraft to orbit Mercury , the closest planet to the sun.