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Air & Space Magazine

DJI Phantom drones weigh close to three pounds—not something you want falling onto a crowd.

If You Crash a Drone, You Might Land Yourself in Jail

The story behind a recent landmark conviction.

Professor Greg Odegard (center) works with students on the Michigan Tech SUPERIOR computer cluster, to be used to simulate carbon nanotube materials.

Strong Stuff

These students are designing materials tough enough to land on another planet.

Stacey Rudser leans on the engine nacelle of an Airbus A321 at Florida’s Orlando International Airport. The A321 is powered by a CFM56 engine—nice enough, but Rudser says she’s awed by the technology in the newer CFM LEAP engine.

Airframe and Powerplant Mechanic

Stacey Rudser, STS Aviation Services, Orlando International Airport, Florida.

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Purple Skies for Cygnus

ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet photographed the Cygnus cargo spacecraft as it approached the International Space Station to be captured by the robotic Canadarm2 last April.

Berlin Express skirts the coast of Greenland, with friendly icebergs below.

Crossing the Atlantic in a Mustang, With Mr. Conservative in the Pilot’s Seat

Even when you’re the world’s best, it pays to be prepared.

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Hornets to Washington

An F/A-18E Super Hornet lands on the USS George Washington.

If aliens sent probes the size of these cubesats to observe us from space, our chances of detecting them would be very close to zero.

The Search for Extraterrestrial Artifacts

SETI research is picking up on the other side of the Atlantic.

Saddle up, DragonflEye.

These Dragonflies Are Steerable, Thanks to Bio-Engineering

Cyborg insects wearing saddles. Sure, why not?

The 1903 Wright Flyer undergoing restoration in 1984-1985.

Handling Charge

What fate awaits the fool who messes with an aeronautical icon?

Two Apollo EVA spacesuits, covered in dark gray lunar dust. The short times spent on the Moon by the Apollo astronauts meant that the long-term issues associated with dust could be ignored during those missions.

Nothing to Sneeze At

Alien dust can be a problem for human explorers.

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Surveying the Farmland

An A-10 Thunderbolt flies in support of Operation Inherent Resolve to eliminate ISIS.

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Serenity Now

A beautiful sight of calm oceans below the International Space Station.

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Seahawk at Night

An SH-60 Seahawk sits under the glow of deck lights aboard the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt.

Mars Pathfinder and its mini-rover Sojourner (pictured) landed on the Martian surface 20 years ago this week. The planet has been continuously “inhabited” by landers and orbiters ever since.

A Toxic Cocktail on the Surface of Mars

New experiments on Earth may affect how we search for life on the Red Planet.

James Merle Thomas and Mikael Jorgensen.

Electronic Music Duo Looks to NASA’s Past for Inspiration

Wilco keyboardist, art historian team up to revisit the early space age.

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Osprey Incoming

An MV-22 Osprey lands aboard the USS Iwo Jima during at-sea training.

The largest mass extinction, about 250 million years ago, was likely caused by massive outpouring of magma in Siberia for about 60,000 years.

Most Mass Extinctions Have Been Due to Global Warming

Might the next one be caused by humans rather than volcanoes?

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Stars and Stripes in Space

A U.S. flag hangs inside the cupola of the International Space Station.

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Eye of the Sahara

This structure in the Sahara desert is called many things, including the Richat Structure, Guelb er Richat, and the Eye of the Sahara, but one can’t really see it when walking across it, only from above. Scientists think it may have been created by uplifted rock that has been sculpted by erosion.

A U.S. Air Force Martin B-57A in flight over Chesapeake Bay Bridge, Maryland, in 1953.

The Open Gate

The B-57 crew had repeated this nuclear alert drill dozens of times. But today was different.

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