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Air & Space Magazine

The sky over Cape Canaveral on the morning of January 28, 1986.

Remembering Challenger

Three perspectives on one of NASA’s darkest days.

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Rocket Tails and Vapor Trails

This sounding rocket launched from the Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia last October tested a second stage engine and a vapor tracer experiment.

University Valley in Antarctica.

Scientists Find One of the Rare Uninhabited Places on Earth

No traces of life turn up in Antarctica’s University Valley.

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Caged Falcon

A menacing shot of an F-16 in the hangar at Holloman Air Base in New Mexico.

Examining a piece of a bomb dropped during a zeppelin raid, 1915.

Terror Over London

A new book recalls the city’s first blitz during World War I.

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Martian Path

This image taken last year by HiRISE on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows the area through the Martian sand dunes the Curiosity rover is currently traveling.

Tidal flats at Turnagain Arm in Alaska.

Life Found Refuge From Radiation on the Early Earth

Maybe the ocean wasn’t the only habitable place four billion years ago.

Space 2016: Six Stories to Watch

SpaceX took a step toward launcher reusability in December 2015 with the return of the Falcon 9 first stage to a landing site in Florida.

Bezos, Bigelow, Branson and Musk

Can billionaires save the space program?

The last Chinese space crew (Shenzhou-10) returned to Earth in June 2013. A new three-person crew will launch to a new space station this year.

China Picks Up the Pace

A second Chinese space station launches on a new rocket, and the schedule of moon landings accelerates.

Inspecting the James Webb Space Telescope’s test mirrors.

Searchlights in a Dark Universe

New missions to find what’s hidden.

CubeSats deployed from the ISS.

Rise of the CubeSats

Small satellites get real.

It will be another 10 years at least before this artist's concept -- of NASA's proposed Europa mission -- becomes a reality.

Slowdown in the Outer Solar System

After Juno arrives at Jupiter, we’ll see a hiatus in missions beyond the asteroid belt.

Designing a grapple system for asteroids at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

To an Asteroid…or Not

Destination decisions in an election year.

Crash Correspondent

TV reporter Tom Costello recounts what he’s seen and learned in a decade of covering commercial aviation accidents.

Brian and Charlotte Smith recently started using a drone to get a better view.

What Are Those Giant Arrows Dotting the American Landscape?

And no, they aren’t alien markings.

Even before Sputnik, Robert Gilruth pushed to launch a satellite. A flight-test veteran who understood risk, he became key to launching men to the moon.

Bob Gilruth, the Quiet Force Behind Apollo

How a research engineer came to lead NASA to the moon.

Arnold Ebneter takes the E-1 for a spin around Snohomish, Washington, in 2005. A few years and a few changes later, he set a distance record in it.

Across the Continent in a Homebuilt

Some pilots build airplanes just to travel far.

View of the USS Macon wreck

The Underwater Airship

Exploring the wreckage of the USS Macon, which went down off the California coast 80 years ago.

Instruments on top, living quarters below. Observations from Harqua Hala helped identify changes in the sun’s energy output.

The Devil’s Observatory

The worst thing about Harqua Hala was the isolation.

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