Articles written by Marcia Dunn
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NASA opening moon rock samples sealed since Apollo missions
HOUSTON (AP) — Inside a locked vault at Johnson Space Center is treasure few have seen and fewer have touched. The restricted lab is home to hundreds of pounds of moon rocks collected by Apollo astronauts close to a half-century ago. And for the fi...
AP-NORC poll: Asteroid watch more urgent than Mars trip
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — Americans prefer a space program that focuses on potential asteroid impacts, scientific research and using robots to explore the cosmos over sending humans back to the moon or on to Mars, a poll shows. The poll by The...
Report: NASA's major projects busting budgets, schedules
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — NASA's major projects are busting budgets and schedules like never before, according to a congressional watchdog agency. The U.S. Government Accountability Office reported Thursday that NASA's major projects are more...
Private cargo ship brings Easter feast to the space station
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — A private cargo ship brought the makings of an Easter feast to the International Space Station on Friday, along with mice and little flying robots. Space station astronaut Anne McClain used a robot arm to capture...
Pence calls for landing US astronauts on moon in 5 years
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — Vice President Mike Pence on Tuesday called for landing astronauts on the moon within five years, an accelerated pace that would aim to put Americans on the lunar south pole. Pence said NASA needs to achieve that goal...
NASA nixes 1st all-female spacewalk due to suit-sizing issue
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — NASA has nixed the first all-female spacewalk over a spacesuit sizing issue. Astronaut Anne McClain was supposed to float out of the International Space Station this Friday with newly arrived Christina Koch, to replace...
Crew capsule rockets toward space station with test dummy
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — America's newest capsule for astronauts rocketed Saturday toward the International Space Station on a high-stakes test flight by SpaceX. The only passenger was a life-size test dummy, named Ripley after the lead...
US-built capsule with a dummy aboard docks at space station
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — A sleek new American-built capsule with just a test dummy aboard docked smoothly with the International Space Station on Sunday, bringing the U.S. a big step closer to getting back in the business of launching...
SpaceX debuts new crew capsule in crucial test flight
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — SpaceX closes in on human spaceflight with this weekend's debut of a new capsule designed for astronauts. The six-day test flight will be real in every regard, beginning with a Florida liftoff Saturday and a docking the...
Israel flying to moon after SpaceX launch
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — An Israeli spacecraft rocketed toward the moon for the country's first attempted lunar landing, following a launch Thursday night by SpaceX. A communications satellite for Indonesia was the main cargo aboard the Falcon...
NASA, SpaceX OK 1st test flight of crew capsule next week
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — NASA and SpaceX on Friday approved a first test flight next week of the new commercial Dragon capsule designed for crew. No one will be aboard, only an instrumented dummy in a white SpaceX spacesuit. But the capsule...
Neptune's newest, tiniest moon likely piece of bigger one
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — Neptune's newest and tiniest moon is probably an ancient piece of a much larger moon orbiting unusually close. In the journal Nature on Wednesday, California astronomers shine a light on the 21-mile-diameter...
And now for the weather on Mars, courtesy of new NASA lander
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — And now for the weather on Mars: NASA's newest lander is offering daily reports on the red planet's frigid winter. Starting Tuesday, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory is posting the highs and lows online , along with...
Space junk harpooned like whale in orbit-cleanup test
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — A harpoon flung from a satellite has successfully captured a piece of pretend space junk, like a whale. The British-led experiment is part of an effort to clean up debris in orbit, hundreds of miles above Earth. The...
NASA rover finally bites the dust on Mars after 15 years
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — NASA's Opportunity, the Mars rover that was built to operate for just three months but kept going and going, rolling across the rocky red soil, was pronounced dead Wednesday, 15 years after it landed on the planet. The s...
NASA about to pull plug on Mars rover, silent for 8 months
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — NASA is trying one last time to contact its record-setting Mars rover Opportunity, before calling it quits. The rover has been silent for eight months, victim of one of the most intense dust storms in decades. Thick...
NASA's storm-silenced rover marks 15th anniversary on Mars
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — NASA's Opportunity rover is silently marking the 15th anniversary of its touchdown on Mars. The spacecraft hasn't been heard from since a global dust storm last June. The six wheeler — about the size of a golf cart...
Telescopes capture moment of impact during eclipse of moon
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — Astronomers managed to capture the moment of an impact during this week's eclipsed moon. Spanish astrophysicist Jose Maria Madiedo of the University of Huelva said Wednesday it appears a rock from a comet slammed into...
Blue Origin shoots NASA experiments into space in test
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — Jeff Bezos' rocket company, Blue Origin, launched NASA experiments into space Wednesday on a brief test flight. The New Shepard rocket blasted off from West Texas, hoisting a capsule containing the experiments. The...
Total lunar eclipse meets supermoon Sunday night
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — Here comes a total lunar eclipse and supermoon, all wrapped into one. The moon, Earth and sun will line up this weekend for the only total lunar eclipse this year and next. At the same time, the moon will be ever so...
Scientists: Saturn spent billions of years without its rings
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — Saturn may have flown solo for billions of years — almost its entire existence — before getting its stunning set of rings, a new study suggests. An Italian-led team reported Thursday in the journal Science that...
Total lunar eclipse meets supermoon Sunday night
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — Here comes a total lunar eclipse and supermoon, all wrapped into one. The moon, Earth and sun will line up this weekend for the only total lunar eclipse this year and next. At the same time, the moon will be ever so...
Asteroid-circling spacecraft grabs cool snapshot of home
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — An asteroid-circling spacecraft has captured a cool snapshot of home. NASA's Osiris-Rex spacecraft took the picture days before going into orbit around asteroid Bennu on New Year's Eve. The tiny asteroid — barely...
Scientists show off space snowman, Ultima Thule, in 3D
LAUREL, Md. (AP) — The newly visited space snowman — the most distant object ever explored — is now appearing in 3D. At a news conference Thursday, scientists and others put on 3D glasses to see the city-size, two-sphered cosmic body in stereo,...
NASA: Icy object past Pluto looks like reddish snowman
LAUREL, Md. (AP) — A NASA spacecraft 4 billion miles from Earth yielded its first close-up pictures Wednesday of the most distant celestial object ever explored, depicting what looks like a reddish snowman. Ultima Thule, as the small, icy object...
