(NASA) LOS ANGELES -- NASA has given up on the Deep Impact spacecraft, which suddenly went silent after nine years of exploration. The space agency said Friday the mission is over for Deep Impact, which in 2005 smashed a comet with a projectile to give scientists a peek of the interior. The spacecraft went on to rendezvous with two more comets. (MORE: ) Last month, engineers lost contact with Deep Impact. After trying for a month to regain communications, NASA...

In this image released by the Department of Homeland Security, researchers tested the FINDER prototype technology at the Virginia Task Force 1 Training Facility in Lorton, Va. (Department of Homeland Security) NASA and the Department of Homeland Security have joined forces to create a radar detection device that searches out the most precious of treasures: the human heartbeat. FINDER (Finding Individuals for Disaster and Emergency Response) is a lightweight, portable radio wave detector that acts as surrogate ears for emergency...

Artist's concept of DARPA's Experimental Spaceplane (XS-1), a proposed unmanned, hypersonic vehicle that the agency hopes will lower satellite launch costs substantially. Officials are targeting Mach 10 for the suborbital vehicle. (DARPA) SAN DIEGO — The United States military is kick-starting a suborbital hypersonic vehicle program that also aims to launch payloads into orbit on the cheap. The new program, run by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, is called Experimental Spaceplane, or XS-1. It follows in the footsteps of...

In this photo provided by NASA, the Orbital Sciences Corp. Antares rocket lifts off the launchpad at the NASA Wallops Island test flight facility in Wallops Island, Va., Wednesday, Sept. 18, 2013. (AP Photo/NASA, Bill Ingalls) CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- A new commercial spaceship will wait all week before aiming again for the International Space Station. Orbital Sciences Corp.'s Cygnus capsule was supposed to arrive Sunday, four days after its launch. But the rendezvous was aborted because of a discrepancy...

The moon is quite a bit younger than scientists had previously believed, new research suggests. The leading theory of holds that it was created when a mysterious planet — one the size of Mars or larger — slammed into Earth about 4.56 billion years ago, just after the solar system came together. But new analyses of lunar rocks suggest that the moon, which likely by this monster impact, is actually between 4.4 billion and 4.45 billion years old. The finding,...

LONDON — Water, water everywhere, and some of it fit to drink. That’s the picture of ancient Mars that has emerged during the past few months thanks to discoveries by NASA's which has been exploring the Red Planet since touching down inside Gale Crater in August 2012. The announcements have come in dribs and drabs, but presented together recently here at the European Planetary Science Congress, they provide compelling evidence that Mars was quite wet in the distant past. []...

The potentially dazzling Comet ISON was discovered exactly a year this month, and now a fleet of spacecraft is gearing up to track the icy wanderer during its close encounter with Mars next week. was discovered by Russian amateur astronomers on Sept. 21, 2012 and has since been billed by scientists as a potential "comet of the century" if it survives an extremely close brush with the sun later this year. Next Tuesday (Oct. 1), the at a range of...

MOSCOW -- A Soyuz capsule carrying three astronauts successfully docked with the International Space Station early Thursday, bringing the size of the crew at the orbiting outpost to six. The new crew's six-month mission will include a spacewalk with the Olympic torch. American Michael Hopkins and Russians Oleg Kotov and Sergei Ryazansky traveled six hours in the capsule from the Russian-leased launch pad in Kazakhstan before linking up with the space station's Russian Poisk research module at 6.45 a.m. Moscow...

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- NASA's newest delivery service made its first-ever shipment to the International Space Station on Sunday, another triumph for the booming commercial space arena that has its sights set on launching astronauts. Orbital Sciences Corp.'s unmanned cargo ship, the Cygnus, pulled up at the orbiting lab with a half-ton of meals and special treats for the station astronauts who assisted in the high-flying feat. With the smooth linkup, Orbital Sciences of Virginia became only the second company...

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launches from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., Sunday, Sept. 29, 2013. The rocket carried a satellite which has instruments to study space storms in the upper atmosphere and their potential effects on GPS navigation and radio communications. (AP Photo/Vandenberg Air Force Base, Michael Peterson) (AP Photo/Vandenberg Air Force Base, Michael Peterson) VANDENBERG AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. -- A SpaceX rocket carrying a Canadian satellite intended to track space weather launched from the California coast Sunday...

This concept image shows an astronaut preparing to take samples from the captured asteroid after it has been relocated to a stable orbit in the Earth-moon system. Hundreds of rings are affixed to the asteroid capture bag, helping the astronaut carefully navigate the surface. Image released Aug. 22, 2013. (NASA) Decades from now, people on Earth may be gearing up for an unprecedented celestial spectacle — the intentional smashing of an asteroid into the moon. NASA is currently planning out...

This undated image provided by NASA shows Saturn’s largest moon, Titan. NASA’s Cassini spacecraft has detected the presence of a plastic ingredient in Titan’s atmosphere, the first time the chemical has been found in a world other than Earth. (AP Photo/NASA) PASADENA, Calif. -- You expect to find plastics in your lunch box, not on a moon of Saturn. But that's exactly where NASA found an ingredient of plastic - the first time the chemical has been detected on another...