Airliners today are data centers in flight, using multiple connections to ground stations. Keeping them cybersecure requires constant vigilance.

Will Your Airliner Get Hacked?

Meet the people who are making sure it won’t.

The three-legged Surveyor 3 (an engineering model will be on display in the National Air and Space Museum's new Destination Moon gallery) had a TV camera for photographing its surroundings and a digger-scraper to test the lunar soil.

The Robots That Paved the Way For Apollo

Then as now, machines preceded the humans.

Shepard shields his eyes from the bright sun at Apollo 14’s Fra Mauro landing site, February 1971.

He Was the Fifth Man on the Moon, But That Wasn’t His Most Famous Flight

Two trips, a decade apart, spanned the most exciting era in space history.

In 1957, before we saw the moon up close, artist Chesley Bonestell imagined a craggy lunar landscape. Within a decade, photos from the surface showed that the mountains of the moon were smooth and rounded. Click here to see the full image.

The National Air and Space Museum’s New Take on Lunar Exploration

Destination Moon will tell the story with a post-Apollo audience in mind.

America’s first astronaut Alan Shepard (left) is all smiles during water egress training in 1970 with his Apollo 14 crewmates Stuart Roosa and Ed Mitchell (right). They would fly to the moon the following year.

Alan Shepard’s Comeback

His Apollo mission 50 years ago was a vindication for the first American in space.

The Museum’s Huey served with four units in Vietnam between 1966 and 1970. Though now painted in National Guard livery, it retains an XM52 smoke generator similar to the one it carried for the 11th Combat Aviation Air Battalion.

More Than Just a Helicopter, the “Huey” Became a Symbol of the Vietnam War

The Bell UH-1H Iroquois was a single-engine workhorse.

German aviation company Lilium promises its future fleet of air taxis will be inaudible from the ground when flying above 400 meters.

A Fleet of Air Taxis Is Coming to Central Florida by 2025

Orlando takes the high road.

Artist’s conception of the reusable Talon-A, which will be 28 feet long.

This Could Be the Future of Hypersonic Flight

Stratolaunch previews the Talon-A research vehicle

A Centaur upper stage like this one, photographed in 1964, was recently identified by a telescope that normally looks for asteroids.

This Apollo-Era Rocket Stage, Lost For Half a Century, Turned Up in a Telescope Search

Found in a hunt for asteroids, an old pal checks in on its way around the sun.

Flight Director Paul Dye presides in Mission Control during the STS-115 shuttle mission in 2006.

What It Takes to Be a NASA Flight Director

Sitting in the hot seat at NASA’s Mission Control.

An artist’s depiction of InSight with the Mole, on the right, firmly embedded in the soil. If only.

The Long, Frustrating Saga of the Mole on Mars

Digging on another planet is harder than it looks.

The Parkes Telescope in Australia heard something odd in 2019. Unfortunately, the signal, if it was one, has not been repeated.

The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth?

Examining this and other intriguing questions at the start of 2021.

Director-star George Clooney confers with David Oyelowo and Tiffany Boone during the filming of a spacewalk sequence at London's Shepperton Studios.

In George Clooney’s The Midnight Sky, the Crew of a Planetary Exploration Mission Faces an Impossible Choice

Actors David Oyelowo and Demián Bechir discuss their roles as astronauts investigating a potentially habitable Jovian moon.

With Chang'e-5 having just returned samples from the moon, China's next extraterrestrial landing (by Tianwen 1, shown in an artist's conception) will be on Mars in February 2021.

Astrobiology’s Biggest Stories of 2020

A lot has been achieved, even in an awful year.

Earth's early magma ocean gave our planet its first atmosphere.

Early Earth Was No Inviting Blue Planet—It Was More Like Venus

New insights on how, and when, terrestrial planets become habitable.

Why should Jacob fly commercial if he can do it himself?

Best Children’s Books of 2020

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

Yeager in the seat of the Bell X-1, which propelled him past the speed of sound on October 14, 1947.

Chuck Yeager 1923-2020

The most famous pilot of his generation epitomized the “right stuff.”

Early settlers on Mars will need a way to make their own rocket fuel.

How Salt Water Could Fuel a Mars Mission

A new invention might speed up human exploration of the Red Planet.

Baldwin painted each of his half-dozen “Red Devil” pusher biplanes a bright scarlet, though some claim their demonic moniker was awarded after an airfield mishap moved the designer to a memorable flight of profanity.

For a 1910 Biplane, the Baldwin ‘Red Devil’ Was a Speed Demon

Descended from a Glenn Curtiss design, this speedster had a short run.

Kate Greene (far left) and crewmates outside their HI-SEAS habitat in Hawaii in August 2013.

Living the Martian Life, in Hawaii

A science experiment simulates what it’s like to live on another planet.

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