Space Program | featured news

India plans to launch a space probe that will orbit Mars, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh confirmed on Wednesday after press reports that the mission was scheduled to begin late next year. The project would mark another step in the country's ambitious space programme, which placed a probe on the moon three years ago and envisages its first manned mission in 2016.

A Chinese space capsule with three astronauts aboard returned to Earth on Friday from a 13-day mission to an orbiting module that is a prototype for a future permanent station. The crew of the Shenzhou 9 parachuted to a landing on the grasslands of the country's sprawling Inner Mongolia region at about 10 a.m. (0200 GMT). China declared the mission to the Tiangong 1 module a major stride ahead for the country's ambitious space program.

The failed Russian space probe Phobos-Grunt fell back to Earth on Sunday, crashing in the southeastern Pacific Ocean off Chile, Russia's state news agency Itar-Tass announced.

Some of the recent failures of Russian satellites may have been the result of sabotage by foreign forces, the nation's space chief said.

China is set to launch a unmanned spacecraft on Tuesday to dock with a capsule orbiting the Earth, as part of its work to build a space station.

Is China on course to surpass the United States as the world's space superpower and stake a claim on the moon in the next 15 years? Billionaire space executive Robert Bigelow is deeply worried about that scenario — and he says Americans need a "kick in the ass" to respond to the challenge.

A top official in Iran's space program admitted that the country's attempt to launch a monkey into outer space ended in failure, according to reports.

Atlantis' landing in the faintest glimmer of dawn this morning ended the flawless final mission of NASA's space shuttle program and gave way to NASA's new era of uncertainty, with no more manned space flight launches for many years.

NASA's Dawn spacecraft on Saturday became the first probe ever to enter orbit around an object in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.

Astronauts unlikely to match amount of work or danger involved for generations to come.