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Air & Space Magazine

An MQ-9 Reaper in its lair at Balad, Iraq, 2008. A bigger, badder Predator, the MQ-9 has a turboprop engine and Y-shaped tail and can carry almost 4,000 pounds of ordnance.

The Man Who Invented the Predator

Before he designed the world’s most feared drone, Abraham Karem was just trying to get a robot to stay in the air

The British Aircraft Corporation TSR-2 was to have been a supersonic bomber that would have dashed in under the Soviet Union’s radar to deliver nuclear weapons. Taking off from Wiltshire, England, the TSR-2 eventually pushed past Mach 1 but had to fly its first nine tests gear down.

Britain’s High-Mach Heartbreak

The TSR-2 bomber was a case of aeronautical genius foiled by political foolishness.

Emptying into the Arctic Ocean, the 2,800-mile-long Lena River in Siberia forms one of the world’s largest deltas.

Earth’s Mirror

Landsat shows us the home planet, warts and all.

Artist's conception of a Galileo validation satellite in orbit. If successful, Galileo will be the world's third global satellite navigation system.

Why Europe Wants its Own Satellite Navigation Program

The beginning of a new global navigation system, Galileo.

During a July 2012 jaunt, pilot Bob Newhouse raises his hands to prove that Fichera, in the front cockpit, is flying the 1930s-era aircraft.

The plane that taught Anne Morrow Lindbergh to fly is flying again.

Lindbergh’s Trainer: The Brunner-Winkle Bird

The rugged and reliable Sikorsky HH-60 Jayhawk, here in a demonstration near Yorktown, Virginia, is the Coast Guard’s only medium-range search-and-rescue helicopter. It can loiter over a target for 45 minutes, and bring back six survivors.

An Aircraft Saves the Day

Five daring helicopter crews on five very bad days.

The S.20 Mercury pulls away from its launcher aircraft, the S.21 Maia, at the start of the pair’s 1938 nonstop flight.

The Parasitic Aircraft of Britain’s Short Brothers

Did the S2.0 Mercury pave the way?

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In a Throw-Away Culture, What Lasts?

Airplanes

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Massive Star Mystery

A B-2 Spirit lifts off from Whiteman Air Force Base during an exercise in 2012.

How often does the B-2 fly?

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On Those FAA Tower Closures

Bad news for air traffic controllers, but the traveling public and small aircraft pilots should see little impact

Area 51: Origins

America’s once-secret air base had humble beginnings

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Shenzhou’s Pigs In Space

As far as we know, Captain Link Hogthrob remains the first porcine astronaut

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Sharper Universe Baby Pictures

The Planck mission gets new information about the early universe.

Built with the area rule in mind, the narrow-waisted Convair F-106 Delta Dart was the U.S. Air Force’s main interceptor from the 1960s to the 1980s.

Why Don’t Today’s Fighters Have Narrow Waists?

Richard Whitcomb and the Area Rule.

Adam Steltzner (center) and team await the good news from their Mars lander last August.

Special Delivery

The team that landed Curiosity on Mars takes home a trophy.

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Soyuz Express

The next Space Station crew will take the quick route to orbit.

Want a Jupiter missile rocket engine?

Free to Good Homes

The National Air and Space Museum holds its version of a yard sale

Canaveral Junior

Wallops Island gets ready for the big time

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The World’s Smallest SST

Tiny scale models helped engineers solve big problems. 

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