The Antares rocket at its launch pad on the evening of Saturday, Oct. 25. (NASA/Joel Kowsky) NASA aborted the launch of its Antares rocket and Cygnus spacecraft in Virginia on Oct. 27 because of a boat in the launch area. NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility and Virginia’s Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport were set to send the Antares rocket carrying the Cygnus spacecraft and 5,000 pounds of supplies to the International Space Stationbefore the interruption. The launch was planned to take place right...

The Orbital Sciences Corporation Antares rocket, with the Cygnus spacecraft aboard, is seen on launch Pad-0A, Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2014, at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. (NASA/Joel Kowsky) After a scrubbed attempt Monday NASA will try again Tuesday evening tolaunch its Antares rocket and Cygnus spacecraft. The launch is scheduled for 6:22 p.m. ETatNASA’s Wallops Flight Facility and Virginia’s Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport. Since the launch is around sunset, millions of people could see the rocket as it creates a...

The unmannedAntares rocket carrying the unmanned Cygnus spacecraft exploded moments after takeoff aboveNASA'sWallops Flight Facility in Wallops Island, Virginia, Tuesday evening. NASA and Orbital Sciences are still trying to assess the damage and understand the cause of the failure. Screenshot shows explosion in Virginia Tuesday. (NASA-TV) The launch was scheduled for 6:22 p.m. ET and aired on a live stream of NASA-TV. The video shows debris falling to the ground. The company said everyone at the site had been accounted...

Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo broke apart over California's Mojave Desert on Friday after a device to slow the experimental space tourism rocket's descent deployed too soon, according to investigators. The accident killed the co-pilot, Michael Alsbury; the pilot, Peter Siebold, who piloted the mission, survived after parachuting out of the plane. On Sunday, Siebold was described as alert and talking with his family and doctors. National Transportation Safety Board Acting Chairman Christopher Hart said that while no cause for Friday's crash...

Engine failure was the cause of the explosion of an unmanned rocket shortly after it lifted off from a launch pad in Wallops Island, Virginia, last month, according to the company behind it. Orbital Sciences Corp. said in a news release Wednesday that an internal investigation has reviewed both telemetry and video data as well as a "substantial" amount of the debris from the failed Oct. 28 Antares rocket launch. "Preliminary evidence and analysis conducted to date points to a...

NASA continues to prepare for its biggest test flight in years despite last week's space travel setbacks. Officials say the Dec. 4 Orion capsule test launch, which will travel without a crew, looks good. In the future, Orion missions will attempt to send astronauts to deep space. (MORE: Explosion at NASA Flight Facility in Virginia) The spacecraft will blast off atop a Delta IV rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida. The four-hour flight will send it on two laps around Earth...

An unusually bright meteor shot across the Texas sky Saturday night, wowing people across the U.S. Southwest. The American Meteor Society received more than 250 reportsof “an extremely bright green light that rivaled the brightness of the sun.”The organization believes the meteor was at least 4-feet wide and weighed 4,000 pounds. “This event was so bright that it was picked up on a NASA meteor camera in the mountains of New Mexico over 500 miles away,” Dr. Bill Cooke with...

It's difficult to put the massive size of a sunspot into perspective, butJames Tyrwhitt-Drakehas released a time-lapse video that may help with that conundrum. The video at the top of this page was created by the Infinity Imagined blogger by stringing together more than 17,000 images of the sunspot, as they were captured by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory, according to the Huffington Post. In the clip, Earth is projected next to the sunspot to provide scale and allow the human...

Stargazers everywhere are preparing for a beautiful showcase, as the 2014 Leonid Meteor Shower approaches. If forecasts stand correct, the meteor shower will peak on Monday afternoon for those in the eastern U.S. time zone, according to Scientific American. The best time to catch a glimpse of this brilliant display will be between midnight and dawn of Monday and Tuesday morning. This year's meteor shower will be of a smaller scale, as the Leonidswill be weak, Space.com reports. If you...

Friday will mark a major milestone for space exploration, and NASA plans to celebrate accordingly. Nearly 90,000 messages will be beamed to Mars to honor the 50-year anniversary of the Mariner 4 spacecraft's launch– the first ship to complete a fly-by of another planet– according to NBC News. Mariner 4 launched on Nov. 28, 1964, and sent back the first up-close images of the Red Planet seven months later, the report added. "Beam Me to Mars" will be carried out...

NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft is about to wake up from hibernation, and when it does, it’ll achieve space history. The mission will approach the surface of Pluto and New Horizons will come within 6,200 miles of the dwarf planet—the closest any spacecraft has come to its surface—according to ABC News. The last of the ship’s 18 hibernation periods ends Dec. 6, and the initial approach toward Pluto will begin on Jan. 15, 2015. The hibernation periods lasted anywhere from 36...

Tune into The Weather Channel beginning at 6:30 a.m. ET for live coverage of the Orion launch. Weather conditions will be favorable for NASA's Orion spacecraft launch tomorrow morning. The spacecraft, designed to eventually carry astronauts to Mars,is scheduled to lift off on its first test flight at 7:05 a.m. ET Thursday from Cape Canaveral, Florida. The launch window will be open for two hours and 39 minutes. Weather.com senior meteorologist Jonathan Erdman said that temperatures during the launch window...