NASA postponed the Orion test flight until Friday, Dec. 5. (NASA/Kim Shiflett) Orion test flight, take two. After a valve malfunction and some windy weather prompted NASA to cancel today’s launch, the agency said it would aim for Friday morning, 7 a.m. Eastern time, for its next attempt. “Our plan is to fly tomorrow,” Orion Project Manager Mark Geyer said during a press briefing. Dan Collins, chief operating officer of United Launch Alliance, whose Delta IV Heavy rocket was to...

NASA’s Orion spacecraft was slated to leave Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida for a four and a half hour test flight at 7:05 a.m. Eastern time Thursday morning. However, several delays, including a boat moving into prohibited waters, windier-than-expected conditions and technical glitches, caused the agency to scrub today’s test flight. The decision was made five minutes before the launch window closed at 9:44 a.m. NASA said if it makes another attempt tomorrow morning, it would again aim...

Images sent back from Mars have a tendency to excite, inspire and confuse. In 1976, while scouting possible landing sites for Viking 2, NASA’s Viking 1 captured a photo of what appeared to be a massive face hewn into the planet’s surface. Since then NASA has sent back images of a jelly doughnut-shaped structure, a femur look-alike and 'skulls' aplenty, to the delight of conspiracy theorists and Martian lovers. (MORE:NASA’s Orion Spacecraft Completes ‘Picture Perfect’ Flight, Splashes Down in Pacific)...

NASA successfully launched the Orion spacecraft Friday morning at 7:04 a.m. ESTafter experiencing a setback Thursday. Delays from weather, technical issues with several of Orion’s valves and a boat in waters too close to the launch pad caused the space agency to postpone the launch. Friday’s forecast wasn't ideal, with cloudy conditions and light winds, but it was a mild morning with temperatures in the lower 70s. NASA decided early in the launch window that the conditions would be good...

Just before 11:30 a.m. EST, Orion splashed down in the Pacific Ocean, completing what one NASA official called “the most perfect flight you could ever imagine.” Amber Philman, of NASA Communications, called the journey “picture perfect.” During this morning’s test flight, Orion did just what it was intended to do, according to NASA, orbiting the Earth twice, passing through the Van Allen radiation belt twice (with no ill-effects to the systems or computers aboard), separating from the rocket and splashing...

Artist’s concept of the New Horizons spacecraft as it approaches Pluto in July 2015. The craft's miniature cameras, radio science experiment, ultraviolet and infrared spectrometers and space plasma experiments will characterize the global geology and geomorphology of Pluto and and its largest moon, Charon, map their surface compositions and temperatures and examine Pluto's atmosphere in detail.(JHUAPL/SwRI) After traveling for nearly a decade and for more than 3 billion miles, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft awoke from its final hibernation — an...

This evenly layered rock photographed by the Mast Camera on NASA's Curiosity Mars Rover in August 2014, shows a pattern typical of a lake-floor sedimentary deposit not far from where flowing water entered a lake. (NASA) Water on Mars may have been more prevalent than originally thought, according to new data from NASA’s Curiosity. The rover recently observed that Mount Sharp in Gale Crater — the three-mile high peak NASA’s been studying — was “built by sediments deposited in a...

Black holes are among the most mysterious objects in the universe, making them the subject of much research, discussion and science fiction. Recent theories have posited that every black hole contains a universe — and that we’re inside a black hole right now — and that the universe itself started when a four-dimensional star collapsed into a black hole. There are some things we do know about these cosmic oddities. Taking advantage of the Black Friday spirit, NASA and other...

Tomorrow night and Sunday, you’ll want to brave the cold to witness the best meteor shower of the year, the Geminids. You don’t even need to be a night owl to see these shooting stars: Best views happen sometime between 10 p.m. and midnight — plenty of time for some star-gazing and a good night’s sleep. The Geminids have a pretty cool backstory. They’re said to come from an extinct comet called 3200 Phaethon, or as NASA’s Meteoroid Environment Office...

NASA has a long and grand history — the agency turns 100 in 2015 — making amazing strides in space exploration and discovery, and pushing the United States farther beyond Earth’s boundaries every year. It’s celebrating a big milestone on Dec. 20, 2014, the 75th anniversary of Ames Research Center. At the time it was built, in 1939, Ames was created as the second lab for what was then the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics or NACA. (It became NASA...

Earth is very unique. It’s the only planet in our solar system that supports life. But all living things must die. It’s something we all know is coming, but how exactly will this blue marble we call home cease to exist? (MORE: Earth in Northern California Still Moving Months After Earthquake) There are many theories, but the most likely scenario is pretty awful. At about four and a half billion years old, our Sun is considered middle-aged, and as it...

This was a big year for space exploration. For the first time in history, a spacecraft landed on a comet. With its Orion test flight, the U.S. took steps to get back into the manned space-travel game — and toward putting a man on Mars. And we found organic chemicals on Mars. Here, we highlight 14 important space stories from 2014. 1. We landed a spacecraft on a comet The surface of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko as seen from Philae, which landed...