NEW YORK--Back in May 2009 two of the most iconic entities in space science and exploration came together--literally--in the final scheduled servicing mission of the space shuttle to the Hubble Space Telescope. The astronauts of space shuttle Atlantis plucked Hubble from orbit and in the course of five spacewalks dramatically revitalized the 19-year-old observatory, which had been limping along for some time. [More]

President Obama delivered his budget request for fiscal year 2011 to Congress on Monday, proposing sweeping changes to NASA's spaceflight program while increasing the agency's overall budget. As had been rumored for days , Obama's blueprint for NASA would cancel the Constellation program , the family of rockets and hardware now in development to replace the aging space shuttle, and would call instead on commercial vendors to fly astronauts to orbit. [More]