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Air & Space Magazine

The ultimate destination for the lunar and many other solar system samples is the astromaterials laboratory at Houston’s Johnson Space Center, where a technician examines particles of a comet returned in 2006 by NASA’s Stardust mission.

Robot Geologists Will Soon Bring Asteroid Samples Back to Earth

Planetary exploration is becoming a two-way street.

Standing on one end of a big robotic arm, Clay Anderson settled months of debate within NASA on July 23, 2007, when he manually shoved a large ammonia tank safely away from the International Space Station. This manual-jettison maneuver became standard procedure.

Tossing Out Trash From the Space Station Takes More Planning Than You’d Think

Job one is to make sure it doesn’t come back and hit you at 17,000 mph.

Sorato is smaller and lighter than any other lunar or Martian space-qualified rover. It was donated last October to the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum by ispace, a Japan-based private lunar exploration company.

A Tiny Moon Rover With a Big Impact

A new Japanese donation to the National Air and Space Museum points to the future of lunar exploration.

In 1930 from a Junkers F.13 leased by the Anglo-Persian Oil Company (a forerunner of BP), the site of the first oil strike in the Middle East (1908), looks deserted. Today, its wells produce 5,000 barrels a day.

In the 1930s Middle East, Airplanes Helped Open the Oil Fields

Pilots flying for the Anglo-Persian Oil Company faced long distances, primitive airfields, sandstorms, breakdowns, and a hostile population.

The only flying Twin Mustang leads the way for a Boeing B-29 (the restored Doc), a flight reminiscent of the P-82’s intended—but unrealized—role as a bomber escort in World War II.

No Twin Mustang Has Ever Been Restored…Until Now

Last of the long-distance escorts.

Colin (left) and Sean Welch search for fragments of a German V-2 missile in the British village Lynsted. Their other quarry is the V-1 “doodlebug”—thousands of which were shot down over the countryside during World War II.

These Amateur Archaeologists Dig Up the Buzz Bombs That Fell on England in WW2

Two brothers scour the English countryside for remnants of Hitler’s vengeance weapons.

To turn Warbler, a 1946 Ercoupe, into a reasonable stunt double for the de Havilland DH-4s flown by early airmail pilots, our correspondent ordered “U.S. MAIL” markings. He also bought himself a leather helmet and goggles. Wouldn’t you?

I Flew the Same Route as the 1920s Airmail Pilots, and Lived to Tell the Tale

From Omaha to Salt Lake City, without GPS.

What gives Katie Stack Morgan the confidence to point not just to the Jezero Crater but to an area on its edge, which she hopes the Mars 2020 rover will explore? A new technology, “terrain-relative navigation.” The crater once held a deep lake and is believed to have once harbored microbes.

The Key to Future Mars Exploration? Precision Landing

The science team on NASA’s next expedition to the Red Planet knows exactly where to go.

Publicity stunt? Joke? Excuse to drink alien-themed beer? September’s #StormArea51 event in Nevada ended up being more of a lark than a bold attempt to prove that the truth is out there. But it seemed to be linked to a rise of media interest in UFOs.

The Year of UFOs

In 2019, our eyes were on the skies.

Last June a test model of the Space Launch System's 70-foot-long liquid oxygen tank was loaded on a barge called Pegasus for transfer from the Michoud facility in Louisiana to the Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama. For the SLS core stage, NASA needed a bigger boat and added 50 feet to the Pegasus.

A Critical Test for NASA’s Monster Rocket

Facing immense challenges, the agency bulls ahead with its Space Launch System.

Astronaut Kathy Sullivan during her first space shuttle mission in 1984, when she became the first American woman to walk in space.

The People Who Made Hubble Great

A spacewalking pioneer reports on the behind-the-scenes work that enabled the Hubble Space Telescope to wow the world.

Detail from the Royal Flying Corps 1915 map.

Neuve-Chapelle, France Was the First Town Ever Mapped From Aerial Photos

In 1915, the Royal Flying Corps tried a new method for map-making.

Ancient lake sediments in Gale Crater (pictured here by NASA's Curiosity rover) are rich in salts and clays, and so may be a prime location to explore for the possibility of methane-producing archaea in the near subsurface of Mars.

A Biological Solution to the Mystery of Methane on Mars

Under simulated Martian conditions, organisms on Earth can produce this critically important biomarker.

Lake Magadi, a carbonate-rich lake in Kenya, has a bed made of volcanic rock and salty water rich in microbes.

The Phosphate Problem for the Origin of Life May be Solved

And it may help us decide whether to search for life on ocean worlds or lake worlds.

Kitty Hawk Kites founder John Harris flying the Lilienthal glider in December 2019.

More Than a Century Later, Lilienthal and Wright Gliders Fly Together for the First Time at Kitty Hawk

Reproductions of two of history’s most famous aircraft share the sky in North Carolina.

Christmas time on Mir, 1997, with cosmonauts Pavel Vinogradov (left) and Anatoly Solovyev. Russians are much more lax about drinking in space than Americans are, and alcohol isn't just for holidays.

How to Drink Cognac in Space

On the Russian Mir space station, alcohol came in small, floating spheres, best drunk with a straw.

Where'd it go? An image taken in the 1950s (left) shows a large object at center that doesn't appear in an image of the same field taken more recently.

A Stellar Mystery: How Could 100 Stars Just Vanish?

A comparison of old and new star catalogs shows that some objects seem to have gone missing.

The Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST) in southwest China's Guizhou Province.

Giant Chinese Telescope Joins the Search for Alien Radio Signals

Will it help us find an answer to the Fermi Paradox, or even those puzzling UFOs?

Elizabeth Haidle’s cover illustration for “The Girl Who Named Pluto: The Story of Venetia Burney,” by Alice B. McGinty.

Best Children’s Books of 2019

The year’s best aviation- and space-themed books for young readers.

Artist's conception of Taeniolabis, an ancient mammal.

Life Recovers in a Geological Blink of an Eye after an Armageddon Event

The rise of mammals and what it means for the robustness of a biosphere.

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