Mars Science Laboratory Our How Things Work feature for November 2011 focuses on the landing of the Curiosity Mars Science Laboratory in August 2012. But that will be just the start of this most ...

the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL). "We have been searching for these features since the Opportunity and Spirit landers began their missions in 2004. Earlier missions, beginning with Opportunity in ...

The 3.7-billion-year-old formations in the planet's Gale Crater suggest the presence of long-gone bodies of liquid water, with no ice covering the surface ...

Russia's State Atomic Energy Corporation, Rosatom, recently developed a new spacecraft engine with impressive specifications. It far surpasses the capabilities of traditional chemical rocket engines, ...

A laboratory prototype of a plasma electric rocket engine based on a magnetic plasma accelerator has been produced by Rosatom ...