Kids News

SpaceX is no stranger to making history. It was the first private spaceflight company to carry astronauts to the International Space Station and the first to develop a reusable rocket booster. On September 15, 2024, SpaceX reached a new milestone with the successful completion of Polaris Dawn, the first of three commercial space missions under the Polaris program. This five-day flight saw a crew of all civilian astronauts set several space altitude records and conduct a pioneering spacewalk....

On August 25, 2024, NASA officials announced that Boeing's Starliner spacecraft will return to Earth in early September without its crew members Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams. NASA's decision is based on lingering concerns about the spacecraft's safety. Wilmore and Williams will remain at the International Space Station (ISS) until February 2025....

There are numerous meteor showers throughout the year. However, few are as popular, or as reliable, as the Perseids. The "shooting stars" have been zooming across the skies at a rate of about a dozen an hour since mid-July. But the best time to watch them will be from midnight to dawn on August 11, 12, and 13, 2024. That is when the number of meteors will increase sharply to between 50 and 100 an hour. Also, unlike previous years, this upcoming show will not be overshadowed by a bright Moon. This will make it easier to view even the dimmer meteors....

China's Chang'e 6 lunar probe made history on June 25, 2024, when it brought back soil samples from the Moon's far side. The feat marks the first return of materials from the unexplored lunar region....

NASA's X-59 aircraft, unveiled in January 2024, hopes to change the way we travel. The innovative plane is designed to fly at supersonic speeds without producing the characteristic sonic boom. The prototype is part of the US Space Agency's Quiet SuperSonic Technology (QueSST) mission....

A week after launching aboard a SpaceX rocket, the uncrewed Odysseus spacecraft gently landed near the Moon's south pole at 6:32 pm ET on February 22, 2024. The 14-foot-tall (4.3 meters) lander was developed and flown by Texas-based Intuitive Machines. It is the first privately-built spacecraft to make a moon landing. More significantly, Odysseus is the first American lander to successfully touch down on the lunar surface since Apollo 17 in December 1972....

Frank Rubio has inadvertently set a new record for the longest time in space by an American. The NASA astronaut who returned to Earth on September 23, 2023, was supposed to have been at the International Space Station (ISS) for 180 days. Instead, he was stuck there for 371 days. Rubio's time in space surpasses Mark Vande Hei's US spaceflight record of 355 days set in 2022. Russia holds the world record of 437 days, set in the mid-1990s....

NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft successfully sent asteroid Bennu's samples to Earth on September 24, 2023. The capsule, carrying the rocks and dust, entered Earth's atmosphere around 10:42 AM EDT (7:42 AM PT). Soon after, it made a picture-perfect landing on the sandy floor of the Utah desert....

On May 20, 2023, The Lego Group successfully launched 1,000 minifigures into space. The tiny astronauts made the journey aboard roofless 3D-printed space shuttles. The lightweight vehicles were built by a team of space architects and engineers from Slovakia and the Czech Republic. The purpose of the mission was to encourage kids to follow their dreams....