A forty-year-old legal loophole means that air pollution produced when old satellites burn up in Earth’s atmosphere is exempt from environmental oversight. Is the exemption justified in the age of mega-constellations?
Neither candidate for president has anything resembling a space policy, and neither seems to care about NASA overall. Regardless, the key human spaceflight issues America must face in the next four years include the end of the International Space Station, and prospect of China landing taikonauts on the moon.
NASA's Clipper mission will determine the habitability of Jupiter's moon Europa, a mysterious water world. And what if a life-harboring oasis is revealed beneath its thick ice shell? What comes next? Scientists and researchers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory are experimenting with near-science-fiction concepts that can help investigate Europa's massive saltwater ocean and maybe even reveal its inhabitants.
We dispatched photographers Pauline Acalin and Tom Cross to shoot Starship's liftoff and attempt to catch the massive Super Heavy booster with Mechazilla, the launch tower's chopsticks arms. An idea that seemed outlandish up until the livestream said they were going for it, minutes after a surprisingly routine liftoff. So routine that the launch of Starship itself became an afterthought.
We want to understand if there is liquid water, where that liquid water exists, and whether the chemistry seem conducive to life. Do we expect redox potential in the ocean—oxidants and reductants—and where might we go to search? How might we do that search in the future, with what techniques?
DART was the first-ever planetary defense test, one that illustrated that scientists and engineers could rearrange the cosmos to make it more habitable for humans. And this October, the European Space Agency is going to check NASA’s homework: it’s launching its own mission to Dimorphos.
While DART was on its way to Dimorphos, experts had gathered at its birthplace, the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, for a role-playing game. Everyone assumed the same character roles they had in real life. Their realm was not mythical, but terrestrial; their nemesis was not a dragon, but an Earthbound asteroid.
The Polaris Dawn mission has returned to Earth safely after achieving a few unprecedented feats in orbit.
NASA says that over billions of years, a relentless flow of particles from the Sun - solar wind - has stripped away the Martian atmosphere, causing surface water to evaporate. The agency wants to find out how this happened and utilize ESCAPADE to further interrogate if Mars was once habitable.
VIPER’s cancellation is bad for lunar science, but good for NASA. Especially in a constrained budget environment, NASA should be willing to cancel more missions, sooner.
Citing the Shuttle Challenger and Shuttle Columbia disasters that resulted in the tragic deaths of 14 astronauts, NASA decided that Boeing's troubled Starliner capsule was not safe enough to bring home Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore from the International Space Station. Starliner's crew will now hitch a ride home with SpaceX.
Nothing lasts forever. Eventually, in a 100 trillion or so years’ time, the Universe will have exhausted all of its star-forming material. The last star will be born, and from thereon the Universe will face a slow death as gradually each and every star burns out.
It’s possible that, one day, a radio observatory pointed toward a constellation of diamantine specks glinting in that deep, dark ocean above will pick up something that will change everything.
Contractors employed in permanent roles that are identical to jobs performed by staff members are entitled to equal treatment including salary and benefits, according to the Dutch labor regulations. That, however, is not the case at ESA, the union said.
When stars align, magical outcomes become possible. Microlensing, an astronomical technique based on trippy relativistic effects, is taking this lyrical sentiment to new and brilliant extremes by exposing chance alignments in the universe—and the unexplored frontiers that they reveal.
After the 2017 bombshell New York Times UFO report, the US Government responded with senate hearings on UAP — Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena. Has disclosure fostered greater understanding toward the UFO community? We travel to Pine Bush, New York, "UFO Capital of the World," to find out.
Contact with alien intelligence would be a breathtaking event. Depending upon what guise this contact took, the consequences for society and faith could be profound.
Ariane 6 was designed to compete with early Falcon 9, now it has the Starship to contend with.
Space Pioneer’s hold-down test firing of its rocket suddenly became a real launch and ended in a non-fatal explosion.
19-year-old Daniel Otero was relaxing at home in Naples, Florida when an object discarded from the International Space Station came crashing through the roof of his home. His family is now suing NASA and the incident raises concern about future debris and relevant space laws.
The Supercluster team returned to the UFO capitol of the world, Pine Bush, NY. This time, we were in the trenches with the true believers.
Flight 4 provided SpaceX teams with ample data, which they called the "payload" of the test, to drive improvements needed to achieve Starship's lofty goals, set by SpaceX, NASA, and the United States, to land astronauts on the Moon under the Artemis Program.
Cyrielle Gulacsy, born in Paris in 1994, is an artist whose work is currently rooted in the realm of astronomy and astrophysics, subjects of great interest to her. Gulacsy explores and interprets complex scientific concepts like spacetime, electromagnetism, and the diffraction of light, in an effort to help others appreciate the astonishing mechanisms behind reality.
Boeing and its customer, NASA, are now dealing with a helium leak from one of Starliner's reaction control system thrusters in the spacecraft’s service module. Starliner was scheduled for its first crewed flight on May 6th, but was called off due to an issue with a pressure valve on the Atlas rocket's upper stage. It's not clear when this vehicle will launch astronauts.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has unveiled the country’s first astronauts with a plan to launch them in 2025, and with the ultimate hope of future Indian crews reaching the moon by 2040.
A recent court decision could create a crack in ESA’s seemingly impenetrable legal shell, which has for decades protected this European counterpart to NASA from external scrutiny. The battle, however, is not yet won as the taxpayer-funded agency, with an annual budget of more than 7 billion euro, has appealed against the decision in the Paris Supreme Court.
The Choctaw community has been collecting wild plants for over 12,000 years and has been growing agricultural plants for around 2,500 years. They developed tribal varieties of squash, corn, beans and other crops. Some of these heirloom seeds were sent to the International Space Station so they can experience space radiation and microgravity. Will the seeds survive?
Supercluster Chief Robin Seemangal visits the legendary Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California for the first time to see the Europa Clipper spacecraft, the largest interplanetary spacecraft ever built by NASA.
In the days that lead up to the total solar eclipse, the threat of clouds loomed for excited onlookers along the path of sold out hotel rooms and Airbnbs through the heart of America. After much consideration, Erik Kuna’s ultimate choice of location proved fruitful for capturing the rare celestial event.
The quest for a cure for pancreatic, lung, and colon cancer has led to space. In December 2018 researchers sent several cancer-causing proteins to the International Space Station. Their research made progress in developing a drug to prevent cancer growth.
On Monday mornings, the voices of Guyane Astronomie can be heard by anyone tuned to Radio Péyi, a local station in French Guiana. Every week, the devoted group of astronomers and star lovers broadcast a fictional transmission from an imagined future in which “Guyanautes” recount stories of their home country.
The flight marked a few new milestones in Starship's development. Its Raptor engines demonstrated full-duration engine burn to orbit, the Super Heavy booster performed a boost-back burn and demonstrated re-ignition of Raptor engines in-flight, SpaceX operated Starship's payload bay, and for NASA's Artemis missions, Starship demonstrated the transfer of propellant in orbit.
Without the ability to forge metal to build radio antennas, to provide the combustion necessary to launch rockets, or the means of generating energy from burning fossil fuels and developing technology to fire lasers into the sky, any aliens on an oxygen-poor planet would be largely undetectable. There could be countless planets out there with life, even intelligent life, but lacking the oxygen to start fires.
From overseeing tens of thousands of aircraft navigating the vast US airspace to regulating space launches, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) stands as the central government agency tasked with ensuring public safety both in the skies and on the ground.
One of the most anticipated missions scheduled for launch this year is Europa Clipper, a spacecraft filled with a suite of sensitive instruments that will help unlock the secrets of Jupiter's enticing, distant ocean moon.
A pair of lawsuits filed by former ispace employees claim the startup suffers from a toxic culture rife with discrimination and harassment against non-Japanese workers.
The International Space Station provides astronauts with their survival needs in terms of clean air at the right pressure and temperature, drinkable water, personal hygiene, physical fitness, and food. But how?
If you’re interested in out-of-the-box ideas for future space technology, look no further than the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts program. Some of the concepts are new ideas for missions, such as a winged vertical takeoff and landing craft for Mars or a daring sample return mission to Venus.
ULA successfully launched the first flight of its Vulcan rocket without any issues. Its payload, Astrobotic's NASA-funded Peregrine Lunar Lander, did not share the same fate.
Partly due to the dominance of SpaceX and a changing market, ULA has focused its efforts on a new rocket — Vulcan Centaur — these past few years. The company is phasing out both its Atlas V and Delta IV rockets, the last of those two fleets, with the inaugural launch of Vulcan set for next week.
The Voyager Golden Record project is now approaching its 50th anniversary and a new interstellar messaging effort called Message In A Bottle (MIAB) is taking shape with input from JPL, SETI Institute, Blue Marble Institute, and Interstellar Foundation. The goal? To propose a message for extraterrestrial or future Earth beings, and to unite humanity under a common goal.
We’re going back to the Moon, and sooner than you think. Next year, four astronauts will fly around the Moon, before our triumphant return to the lunar surface. To pave the way for these missions, NASA-funded private companies will attempt to deploy lunar landers to test out various technologies for those upcoming human missions and scout out potential landing sites at the Moon’s south pole.
The Artemis Accords have been hailed as a roadmap to the future of human space expansion, with statements often emphasizing the common national interests and ambitions of the participants. Signatories like the US, Japan, and the EU share interests in expansion beyond low-Earth orbit, but often missed in the signing ceremonies is the fact that national motivations related to space exploration are often not, in reality, the same — or even all that well aligned.
Franklin Antonio, a founder of the electronic chip maker Qualcomm, died at the age of 69 in May 2022, but in his passing, he bequeathed $200 million from his estate to the SETI Institute. The gift is the gift of life, in a way: it means that SETI research at the SETI Institute is now assured a healthy existence long into the future.
Starship achieved a maximum altitude of 150 kilometers, its highest ever. The second integrated test flight successfully demonstrated the highly dynamic stage separation system, booster boost-back burn, and all the mitigations that were in place after the first flight.
A heating globe can create catastrophic events like torrential rain, tropical storms, intense wildfires, and droughts. In 2023, Storm Daniel caused the death of over 10,000 people in Libya, according to NOAA. In August, Hurricane Dora exacerbated a wildfire on the island of Maui in Hawaii, which then became the deadliest wildfire in U.S. history.
Today, demand for strategic minerals outpaces supply as humanity plunges deeper into a human-made climate crisis. We urgently need new sources of critical metals that we can access without leaving scars of environmental degradation on our planet. Lunar and asteroid mining offer new targets for resource extraction and responsible stewardship.
Northrop Grumman announced it would end its solo bid for a commercial space station and join a competing effort. In September, Blue Origin’s proposal for a space station was said to be in limbo as other programs, such as Blue Origin’s lunar lander for NASA’s Artemis program, took precedence.
Twelve years after his suicide, an ESA engineer's family is still fighting for justice, and looking for answers about the alleged bullying and harassment that led to this tragedy.
SpaceX's goals for the second flight test of Starship Super Heavy remain more or less the same — to test out the current technologies aboard the vehicle and on the launch pad, gauge how the improvements over the previous flight pan out, and ultimately get the entire launch system — the largest ever developed — to orbit.
NASA's proposed Habitable Worlds Observatory represents a dual commitment from the agency: engaging in a profound search for Earth-like worlds that may harbor life and optimizing the way flagship missions like Webb and Hubble are designed and launched.
Inside our planet is a core made of metal that spins to give Earth its protective magnetic field. However, we can’t see it for ourselves. But an asteroid called 16 Psyche might be the next best thing — the suspected remnant core of a planet floating freely in space.
Any potential signal from ET is assumed false, until proven otherwise. Scientifically, taking this skeptical approach is the right thing to do, but emotionally, there’s always a tingle of excitement for researchers when a candidate signal is found.
On September 24, in a highly choreographed operation, OSIRIS-REx will return to Earth and drop off regolith material for scientists to study. The samples will land in the Utah desert, while the spacecraft itself speeds off to another destination in space.
JWST data has provided new and intricate details of so many different objects in the universe: stars, galaxies, black holes, and even distant extrasolar planets, those outside our solar system. With the telescope's crisp infrared spectra, more detailed information can be garnered than ever before.
India's Chandrayaan-3 mission achieved the near-impossible, successfully landing near the lunar south pole and becoming the first spacecraft to do so. India now stands alongside Moon exploration veterans: the United States, Soviet-era Russia, and China.
Hypergolic propellants are great for spacecraft. To start and stop the engine, you can just start and stop the flow of the two liquids. And you can keep them in tanks on your spaceship for years.
The problem of distinguishing between technosignatures (true signals from alien technology) and radio frequency interference, or RFI, continues to be the major challenge for modern SETI.
In and around Tokyo, there’s a thriving ecosystem of ambitious start-ups, business networks, student organizations, and gathering spaces all working to put Japanese space operations on the map.
Ever wanted to get sushi delivered from your favorite Japanese restaurant — in Japan? How about a trip from New York to London in 90 minutes? Or a life-saving organ transplant delivered around the world?
The researchers who stunned the scientific community in 2020 when they announced the detection of phosphine in the atmosphere of Venus, have now detected it again, twice. Phosphine is a potential indicator of life on our extremely inhospitable neighboring planet.
Thanks to several technological convergences, humans may be close to building an early and rudimentary 'Dyson swarm' of satellites that could collect sunlight, convert it into either microwaves or optical laser light, and beam that energy down to Earth, the Moon, or other spacecraft.
The ways one could meet an untimely demise in the vastness of space can be assorted and ultimately macabre. If you’re living the dream in orbit, without a spacesuit, you’ve only got a couple of minutes to beam that selfie back to Earth.
Earlier this year, for the first time, gravitational lensing was used to detect and measure a black hole. There are major implications for the future of astronomy.
The record for fastest piloted airplane — one capable of takeoff and landing — was set by the Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird, way back in 1976. But now a startup called Hermeus is looking to make hypersonic flight a reality for the rest of us, with the ultimate goal of a commercial passenger aircraft called Halcyon, and a first flight as early as 2030.
SkyFi is an Earth imagery company with a surprising origin story — using state-of-the-art artificial intelligence tools to uncover the hidden histories of runaway slaves.
Supercluster was invited to attend an event on Monday, June 12th, being held by the Disclosure Project at the National Press Club in Washington, DC. The gathering was touted as a “disclosure” event where startling evidence and testimony regarding UAP coverups would be put forth by whistleblowers from the military and defense contractors. They used the word “definitive” in describing the reveals.
The Mauritian government was making it illegal to import a satellite dish, however, they hadn’t said anything about building your own. Reflecting on this little bit of legal hairsplitting, retired airline mechanic Jaques Gentil laughs, “I love a challenge. This was an opportunity for me to do something."
A SETI listening station on the moon was always thought to be impossible due to the obscene price tag of lunar missions. Now, commercial spaceflight is reducing the costs of bringing a payload to the moon and fueling a renaissance in lunar astronomy.
If you wake up on the Salvation Islands, a jungle oasis off the coast of the city of Kourou, French Guiana, then you are a stone’s throw away from an active spaceport. And a rocket launch might be imminent.
Following the explosive launch of Starship Super Heavy, Supercluster photographer Erik Kuna left Starbase for New York City to teach a class on photography. We asked him to shoot the Big Apple while in town.
Did SpaceX fail its larger objectives during the Starship Super Heavy flight test? Yes. Did they accelerate the program by further proving flight systems and gathering critical launch data? Also, Yes.
Supercluster photographers Erik Kuna and Jenny Hautmann capture the Earth-shaking liftoff of the largest vehicle to ever fly.
Our team visits the behemoth Starship Super Heavy at Starbase
On October 14, 1947, a test pilot achieved a milestone so important that it was immediately classified as “Top-Secret.” Several months later, reports were leaked, and the world learned for the first time that a human being had flown faster than the speed of sound.
"The cool thing about Starship is it's kind of a blend between Falcon and Dragon,” says SpaceX's Stuart Keech in an exclusive interview with Supercluster. “We can take the lessons learned and the best parts of both—and eliminate the worst parts—and make an ultimately better and more capable vehicle.”
When the Axiom-2 mission docks at the International Space Station this Summer, there will be 3 Arabic astronauts onboard — Crew-6's Sultan Al Neyadi from UAE and Rayyana Barnawi and Ali al-Qarni from Saudi Arabia — marking a historic first for the Arab world.
A new machine-learning algorithm, written by an undergraduate student at the University of Toronto, has cut through the terrestrial noise to uncover eight currently unexplained radio signals.
Welcome to Norton Space Props. This unassuming business has been a low-key destination in the space world for more than seven decades. What looks at first glance like just another cut-rate junkyard was actually a vital bridge connecting the first space age to the current new space era.
On Thursday, March 2nd, SpaceX launched its workhorse Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft to the International Space Station from Kennedy Space Center in Florida carrying Crew-6. Our team members Jenny Hautmann and Erik Kuna were on site to capture liftoff.
In 2004, the words “flight-proven rocket” would have seemed absurd, as there was no such thing. That previously-flown rockets are now considered the more reliable option is a testament to how far spaceflight has come in such a short time, and a large measure of credit to that goes to Jon Edwards himself.
NASA and DARPA plan to demonstrate a nuclear-powered rocket engine for long-duration deep space missions.
The Supercluster App now tracks the location, crew, and docking schedules for the Chinese Space Station, the Tiangong.
Three space travelers need a ride home from the ISS after their spacecraft was damaged in a micrometeoroid strike.
Our Kardashev Scale short film was a model-making labor of love. Each level of technological development was brought to life with a scratch-built diorama painstakingly assembled by the Supercluster Model Maker's Club.
SpaceX launched the fifth mission of its behemoth Falcon Heavy rocket, lofting a clandestine payload to orbit for the U.S. Space Force. Twin Falcon 9 side boosters then came soaring back to Earth for touchdowns on Landing Zones 1 and 2 at Cape Canaveral.
There’s something paradoxical about The Kardashev Scale, and it’s questionable whether it would have been proposed today, in an era facing the dangers of rampant industrialization and energy consumption.
Starship Super Heavy's first flight test is imminent. The mission is a critical milestone for SpaceX’s Mars ambitions and for their partner NASA, who needs Starship to return its astronauts to the moon.
In our new space age the dread of deadly radiation still looms. And new answers are needed to establish lunar outposts and shield astronauts on potentially months-long lunar missions.
SpaceX launches the Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) satellite for NASA and CNES that will survey nearly all the water on Earth. We captured the liftoff of the critical mission.
All the ways our own history, wars, and politics have been reflected in a 45-year-old space opera. And, how those ideas and events shaped the galaxy far, far away through generations of storytellers.
Russia’s war in Ukraine has had huge implications for an international space industry dominated by the same giants who are actively or passively involved in the conflict.
A year after launch and five months into its mission, JWST has been working non-stop, peering into space and discovering the unexpected. Astronomers are able to realize the promise of this extraordinary, long-awaited telescope, decades in the making.
An Edinburgh-based company has developed technology to convert previously un-recyclable plastic waste into high-performance rocket fuel.
NASA has successfully launched the Space Launch System from Kennedy Space Center, carrying the Orion spacecraft on a mission that will pave the way for humans to finally return to the Moon. Our photographers captured the epic liftoff.
The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence might be dangerous. But our messy geopolitics could be the real threat when making first contact.
Engineer Oleg Kutkov shares his ongoing experiences using SpaceX’s Starlink internet in Kyiv, Ukraine throughout the Russian invasion.
SpaceX launched the most powerful operational rocket in the world, Falcon Heavy, on a classified mission for the Space Force.
Three decades since it premiered, Babylon 5 fans wait in nervous anticipation for positive news about a proposed reboot from series creator J. Michael Straczynski.
Back when SETI began, we expected intelligent extraterrestrial civilizations would build brilliant beacons in our galaxy. Now we're looking beyond that.
We captured SpaceX's launch of NASA astronauts Nicole Aunapu Mann, and Josh Cassada, JAXA astronaut Koichi Wakata and Roscosmos cosmonaut Anna Kikina to the International Space Station.
American hospitality giant Hilton recently signed a deal with Voyager Space and Lockheed Martin to build the solar system’s first space hotel onboard the Starlab space station.
Firefly's Alpha rocket successfully reached orbit and delivered its customer's payloads on its second-ever launch. That's pretty amazing.
Phosphine occasionally shows up in the intestinal bacteria of animals. Apparently, for some reason, it's also floating around in the atmosphere of Venus.
Today on the Supercluster Podcast Robin and the crew talk Endless SLS scrubs and when NASA's giant new rocket might finally leave Earth.
Why did NASA scrub the test flight of the Space Launch System twice?
Is SpaceX delivering on its promise to bring internet connectivity to areas and people in need?
If SETI had a mythology, then the Wow signal would be its number one myth. And while it has never been forgotten by the public, the academic side of SETI has, by and large, dismissed it.
JWST researchers are finally doing the science they’ve wanted for decades.
Buzz Aldrin sells off his prized Apollo 11 gear. Congress makes it easier to report UAPs.
SETI needs to embrace searches for Bracewell probes in the Solar System just as it does searches for techno signatures beyond our Solar System. Put them front and center, and let them be SETI’s answer to the UAP craze.
Next year, kids and collectors can get their hands on SpaceX toys thanks to a recent deal the aerospace company inked with Mattel.
The first full-color images and data from the James Webb Space Telescope have now been shared with the world, allowing humanity to peer deeper into the known universe than ever before.
Webb's astonishing first color images and exoplanet data will soon be shared with the world.
Falcon 9 is America's record-breaking, work-horse rocket. But many companies are close to adopting new reusability techniques to challenge SpaceX's dominance.
Astronaut Mike Massimino was gifted a baby Jesus for good luck when flying to space.
Designing and transmitting messages into space is a field called ‘METI’ — Messaging Extraterrestrial Intelligence. A debate has emerged around what the consequences of making contact could be.
SpaceX launched Egypt-based Nilesat's newest satellite, Nilesat-301, into a geostationary transfer orbit with their workhorse Falcon 9 rocket.
The emergence and success of SpaceX's fleet of Falcons transformed the space industry. Where does Starship, the heir apparent, leave them?
The Webb team helps clarify the unique advantages of Lagrange point 2. Using puppies and Pringles potato chips.
Once a crown jewel of the Soviet space program, the Buran became a neglected, graffitied wreck.
We rolled the dice on Vandenberg launch coverage. The fog wasn't having it.
A group of researchers is taking a fresh look at 1970s O’Neill habitats. And there is a growing optimism — that maybe our technology has finally caught up.
Landsat helps scientists monitor global warming in the most inaccessible places on Earth
NASA rolls out the Artemis-1 Space Launch System to the pad for a wet dress rehearsal and more tests.
InSight, the first fully-fledged geophysicist on Mars, is in trouble. The amazing robot will soon lose power. Unfortunately, it had to be this way.
Tech Editor Sage Lazzaro explains how Artificial Intelligence will be a critical tool in autonomous space exploration.
If not for that famous flaw in Hubble’s mirror, Webb’s design could be very different from what it is today.
Supercluster photographers Deven Perez and Jenny Hautmann head to Boca Chica to document the rise of Starship Super Heavy.
Supercluster's Joey Roulette heads to Starbase, Texas, for an existential update on humanity's future amongst the stars.
Our team captures the COSMO-SkyMed mission launched by SpaceX
39 Exceptional Undergrads Earn Prestigious Patti Grace Smith Fellowships, Bringing More Black Excellence to Aerospace.
In 1983 Boba Fett disappeared into the Sarlacc Pit, and that could have been the end of that. But the “fans have never let him die.”
Robin is joined on the Supercluster Podcast by CNBC Space Reporter Michael Sheetz for a roundup of business news and to unpack Wall Street and Hollywood's presence in the spaceflight industry.
The Tonga blast generated a shockwave that quickly traversed the planet three times. Satellite photography reveals the power with striking clarity.
The Transporter-3 Falcon 9 launch and landing was captured by our team at Cape Canaveral
A new branch of SETI is searching for alien technology in our own backyard
Trotskyist revolutionary J. Posadas had no doubt UFOs existed. And if we found them, they'd be communists.
Why are alien megastructures like Ringworlds so captivating and pervasive in science fiction? We asked science.
Planning for an asteroid apocalypse
Dr. Amy Mainzer, science advisor for Netflix's Don’t Look Up, on how best to communicate technical (and terrifying) scientific findings to the public.
NASA is preparing to send humans back to the moon
Over a year in the making, our Exoplanet Playing Cards are finally here, a deep collaborative process between artists, an astronomer, and a theoretical cosmologist.
The Overview Effect is approaching middle age, and, instead of a midlife crisis, it seems to be just now hitting its stride.
A small sliver of NASA's overall budget is now going toward higher-risk, high reward concepts, to see whether recent innovations can make lower-cost missions viable for the future.
The NASA GRACE experiment highlights a strange effect of global warming on the movement of our wobbling earth.
The mind behind the acclaimed documentary on Michael Jordan is a pro when it comes to sports coverage, but jumping into the space industry? That would be an entirely different ballgame.
ULA launches the Landsat 9 Earth-observation satellite for NASA and U.S Geological Survey
A new model shows hitching rides with passing stars is the quickest way to explore the galaxy.
SpaceX has completed the first privately-crewed orbital mission in history. Our team was there to capture it.
The development of sophisticated gene-editing technologies has opened up the possibility of bringing the woolly mammoth back to life and rewilding it in its former Siberian stomping grounds.
After Soviet Russia launched Sputnik 1, some in the US Military wondered: "You know what? Why not nuke the moon."
The vistas of Utah offer an escape to our own cosmic neighborhood
Psychologist Jack Baird raises a disturbing possibility — the reason we haven’t heard from aliens is due to fundamental limits of the human mind.
The world's largest rocket is taking shape before its orbital flight
As soon as 2022, the UK might start launching rockets to space. Here’s how it’s going to happen.
Falcon 9 boosters will land on a new droneship in the Atlantic
The people who decided to build their own rocket ships will be some of the first to fly. That's a good thing — for the rest of us.
This year ‘Wally Funk,’ will make history. She was a member of the Mercury 13, and at the age of 82, she will become the oldest person to have traveled to space.
We visited the James Webb Space Telescope
For the first time in history, America’s space agency is officially sponsoring a search for alien megastructures.
Yumna Majeed is fighting to promote the advancement of space technology in Pakistan, a nation she describes as still placing “more importance in astrology than astronomy.”
Jill Tarter, the inspiration behind Ellie Arroway in Contact, describes SETI as "searching a 9 dimensional haystack for a needle which may not exist."
A 1955 Disney series helped spark public imagination in space. The connection is stronger than ever.
Record-holding veteran astronaut Peggy Whitson and John Shoffner, a pilot and race car driver, will lead Axiom Space’s Ax-2 mission to the International Space Station.
Scientists suspect molten iron erupts from volcanoes somewhere in the galaxy. But ferrovolcanism, as it’s technically known, has never been spotted.
X-energy is working on an advanced nuclear reactor that could open the solar system to crewed exploration.
The art of launching humans to space
Space Shuttle veteran Mike Massimino is joined by For All Mankind star Joel Kinnaman to talk the Cold War and Humanity's future in space.
Just like us mere Earthlings, Astronauts work regular hours, and when the weekend rolls around, it's time to unwind.
Amidst all the metal and mechanics of our Mars rovers exists the growing presence of artificial intelligence.
In November, Mark Kelly became the fourth astronaut to be elected to Congress — nearly as unlikely as the average American landing on the moon.
Track every spacecraft currently docked to the International Space Station, arrival and departure times, current crew, location in orbit, and ongoing experiments.
SN10 sticks the landing then exits the stage with a bang.
Scientists have been puzzled by puffy gas giant "cotton candy" worlds for years. Then came WASP-107b, the world that shouldn’t exist.
Where the rover leads, humans will follow—sooner than any of us think.
Why American, European, Canadian, and Japanese space travelers are called 'astronauts' is a little mystifying — and a little lost to history.
Oumuamua is the first known interstellar object to enter our solar system. Harvard astronomer Avi Loeb suggests it could be the remnants of an alien solar sail.
In March of 2020, SETI@home went quiet. But after twenty years, the project is only just beginning.
In 2008, of all NASA’s programs, the one most troubling to Lori Garver was Constellation. Billed in 2004 as "Apollo on steroids," the program was a long-term, station-moon-Mars plan for human spaceflight.
The moon rock that now sits in President Biden's Oval Office has a (very) long and storied history.
SpaceX is preparing the Starship SN9 prototype for launch
Spiral Graph is a citizen science project hunting distant spiral galaxies for a mysterious and rare species of black hole.
Construction on the ISS marked the end of another era: The Space Race.
When things go sideways, NASA turns to its biomedical engineers, who are responsible for developing systems that safeguard our space explorers in orbit.
Two-time Space Shuttle astronaut Alvin Drew is joined by Selma and Lincoln alum David Oyelowo to discuss space exploration, culture, and David's new Netflix movie, The Midnight Sky.
The Saturn and Jupiter Systems converge in the night sky.
From pulp science fiction, to political squabbles, to grand visions and human tragedy, the Station is our short documentary on the history and future of the ISS — our improbable, fantastical home amongst the stars.
Actress Felicity Jones and Astronaut Nicole Stott share a love for space and discovery.
SpaceX launches its 21st resupply run to the international space station for NASA.
Cathy Ang, star of Netflix’ Over the Moon, on what drew her to a story of lunar goddesses and garage-built rocket ships.
We haven’t just lost a great observatory. We’ve lost an iconic structure in the midst of mountains and jungle, from where we first reached out to the Universe to say hello.
A brief history of boozing in low Earth orbit.
SpaceX Launches an ocean-monitoring satellite for NASA and its European partners.
SpaceX performs the first privately-flown crew rotation to the International Space Station.
Supercluster Explains is our ongoing series of experimental animated shorts. Each episode tackles one of our favorite mind bending space concepts in 60 seconds or less.
Going to space changes the way people view Earth. The more people who can have that experience, the better.
Johnson Space Center Communications Specialist Leah Cheshier heads to SpaceX headquarters to host a livestream of NASA's next crew launch to the space station.
Jack Parsons was one of the most influential figures in the history of the American space program. He was also a Marxist, stood accused of espionage, and held a deep fascination with the occult.
SpaceX launches a fourth GPS-III satellite for the U.S Space Force from Cape Canaveral
Supercluster's spaceflight photographer Erik Kuna hits the road to New Mexico and discovers an otherwordly vista.
The Astronaut Database is the most complete, interactive record of every living thing to leave planet Earth. It wasn't easy to build.
A stunning sunrise liftoff of the Falcon 9 ends a rough stretch of launch scrubs and delays on Florida's historic space coast.
Scrolling the homepage of Hypergiant.com, you might feel like the future is finally here, while not really knowing exactly what you’re looking at.
Meet Pooja Jesrani, NASA's first South Asian female flight director, tasked with keeping ISS astronauts safe from back here on planet Earth.
Europa is not easily explored. It is a pitiless Thunderdome, setting humanity’s best engineers against the solar system’s most vexing planetary system.
Our planet has become so “loud” in the part of the radio spectrum observed by SETI that it threatens to drown out any signal sent from an extraterrestrial civilization
There’s a soccer team that brings space engineers from around the country together on the field. Not as adversaries in a race to the moon or Mars, but as a team — united.
Ronald McNair was just 35 years old when he died aboard the Challenger Space Shuttle. That tragedy ended a brilliant life spent conquering adversity.
The Survival Goggles, Sun Bonnet, and Quilt are a painstakingly handmade homage to the Apollo survival missions of August, 1964.
The International Space Station is a modern marvel of engineering. Designing it was a nightmare.
SpaceX launches the first Polar Orbit mission from Cape Canaveral since the 1960s.
Space Age Museum holds the largest archive of this unique moment in popular culture, during a time that radically transformed our perspective.
A global surge of nationalism and the commercialization of space means the ISS may be the first — and last — space station of its kind.
A Falcon 9 rocket has now launched and landed a record six times
There’s a deep connection between psychedelic culture and space art. The earliest blotters advertised their possibilities with crescent moons, swirling nebulas, and starscapes.
India’s first lunar mission, Chandrayaan 1, confirmed the existence of water on the Moon. It was a groundbreaking achievement for Mission Director Srinivasa Hegde.
Mars is hard. The global success rate of Mars missions is just 48%, yet NASA has a seemingly impossible 88% success rate. Perseverance hopes to raise the bar even higher.
ULA has launched every NASA mission to Mars — and Perseverance, their most important mission, will carry the first flying machine to the surface of another planet.
Marla Pérez-Davis now heads NASA Glenn and will help ensure that the first woman arrives safely on the surface of the moon.
Embedded within towering limestone mountains, the giant Five-hundred-meter F.A.S.T. is the world’s most powerful radio telescope. It’s also the next great hope in SETI.
Supercluster's own Jamie Carreiro and Eric Collins discuss the outlandish engineering that made it possible for humans to drive on another world.
A new book outlines how to upend the most dominant theory in cosmology. Good luck actually doing it.
This year the International Space Station turns 20. Astronaut Nicole Stott reflects on her time aboard the station, what it means for science, and what it means for humanity.
Join us for this special episode of the Supercluster Podcast as we look back into aviation history to bring you the incredible story of legendary American aviator Wiley Post.
Crew Dragon's stunning launch, and Falcon 9's triumphant return from its first human mission.
Kerbal’s Developers built a space program for the rest of us.
With 3.1M following the ISS Twitter account, Leah Cheshier and her team at Johnson Space Center have a massive audience that depends on them for the latest space news
Astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley stand on the precipice of history, like so many space explorers before them.
It's not a ticket on Starship, but hopefully this library of wallpapers, zoom backgrounds, and a collection of greatest hits reminds you what life will be like when we're back under the stars.
Experiments at the International Space Station have paved the way to Mars and beyond
Satiating astronauts’ deepest food desires—from freshly baked cookies to crisp apples—is an exciting frontier for those whose jobs it is to prepare and launch more palatable foods to space.
During this year's Earth Day, SpaceX successfully launched a new batch of Starlink satellites on a reusable Falcon 9 from NASA's Kennedy Space Center.
From China and Japan to Scandinavia and beyond, people from all over the planet have their own supernatural interpretations of the aurorae.
Virgin Orbit performed their final development test while manufacturing ventilators in the fight against COVID-19. Supercluster's Pauline Acalin was there.
You can learn a lot about a galaxy by tracing its arms. Like how fast it spins, how much dark matter it contains, or even whether a rare black hole lurks at its core.
Astrology is a 2 billion dollar business, and the most popular apps crunch data directly from NASA. So what do astronomers think of these high tech horoscopes?
On Thursday, March 26th at 4:18 pm Eastern time, ULA fired off the Atlas V from Cape Canaveral on its first mission for the newly established Space Force. Supercluster was there.
The Supercluster launch tracker is now available for iOS and Android. Get mission info, countdowns, livestreams, viewing locations and customized launch alerts
The story of Celestis, a company that offers a different kind of memorial — launching the ashes of your deceased love ones into space. Featuring Celestis CEO Charles Chafer.
Could space tourism pose a threat to the Apollo landing sites?
In the shadow of Mount Hopkins, four giant, segmented mirrors stare at the night sky.
In late 1984, NASA and the Federal Aviation Administration intentionally crashed a remote-controlled Boeing 720 passenger jet (filled with crash-test dummies) in the Mojave Desert.
Solar Sail technology fascinated Bill Nye for decades. Now, with Planetary Society, he is helping to make it a reality.
A literally star-studded wedding might sound romantic, but it’s not without its legal challenges.
Star Trek has changed the pop culture landscape in many ways since it first aired in 1966. It’s hard to pinpoint any other franchise that has so fundamentally impacted our world.
The year before Armageddon came out, Hale-Bopp whizzed past earth. I remember standing barefoot on the deck behind our ranch-style house in the suburbs, watching the comet's glow.
There is little evidence the Sugar Grove telescope ever existed. The only clues that construction ever began are a few steel struts rising from an anonymous concrete pad.
Satellite fishing maps take much of the guesswork out of the where-to-go-to-find-fish equation.
SpaceX flew 40 Mice to the ISS for NASA. The group will help us further understand the effects of space travel on human physiology and biology.
The amazing story of the Apollo Soyuz Test Project, the first time the USA and Soviet Union worked together on a cooperative mission in outer space.
In the 1970s astronomers started asking “Why is our Solar System in this part of the Milky Way, and not somewhere else?”
A closer look at the latest addition to America's armed forces ― which, no, will not resemble Star Trek.
Ancient Hawaiian law prohibited anyone but tribal leaders from ascending Mauna Kea. But today you'll see hardhats, bulldozers, and protesters decrying the desecration of native land.
America’s rocket launch program began at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in the 1950s. We were given the chance to visit these launch sites and explore 60+ years of the base's rich history.
Shining a light on the Cosmic Dark Ages, with plumbing parts and chicken wire.
Boca Chica, Texas exists in some nexus between the United States, Mexico, and now, Mars.
Elon Musk reveals a Starship prototype in Texas: a massive rocket, seemingly inspired by the Tintin cartoons from the 1950s, that SpaceX will use to launch humans to deep space.
It's probably not a great idea to launch a citizen's raid on Area 51. However, if you do, don't leave home without the Supercluster Area 51 Guide.
You don’t need government funding to take a great photo of the cosmos.
A discussion on the mythology of Star Trek and its impact on human space exploration.
Tardigrades––tiny but extremely tough creatures––were snuck aboard the Beresheet Israeli lunar lander and may have survived their crash landing on the moon.
When aliens call, will artificial intelligence pick up the phone?
This week: Supercluster's Robin Seemangal is down at Cape Canaveral with contributor and launch expert Chris Gebhardt to recap a busy week of launches around the world.
A few miles drive from NASA Kennedy Space Center, the world’s premier space port, a young company is quietly attempting to revolutionize rocketry.
A fateful visit to Kennedy Space Center would eventually inspire Max Haot to pursue space exploration.
This week: Our Chief of Content Robin Seemangal is joined by Supercluster contributor and launch expert Chris Gebhardt to discuss the 50th anniversary of the historic Apollo 11 launch.
In the past 18 months UFO theories have passed from tin-hat support groups to the hallowed pages of the New York Times and Washington Post. Why?
Stars, planets, and the thought of exploring them has taken a leading role in everything from film and apparel to internet and celebrity culture. But why, and why now?
There is a growing trend toward space-based memorial services. Startups are competing to send the remains of our loved ones to the edge of space, the moon, or endless earth orbit.
This week: NASA gets a huge leadership shakeup while Arianespace suffered a loss of its Vega rocket and payload during a launch from French Guiana.
We thought dolphins on acid could help us talk to aliens.
We travel to the town of Pinebush, NY, UFO capital of the world, to search for signs of life.
Inside the global network of astronomers searching the skies for classified government satellites.
Carl Sagan dreamt of navigating the cosmos on sails pushed by gusts of sunlight, streaming out from our star.
On a special edition of The Supercluster Podcast, our Chief of Content Robin Seemangal travels down to Cape Canaveral, Florida to prepare for the SpaceX Falcon Heavy STP-2 launch.
Light the desert on fire! Put a giant mirror on the Eiffel Tower! Blow up the Moon!
Robin Seemangal is joined by seasoned aerospace photographers Tom Cross and Pauline Acalin, who were on the road last week visiting SpaceX’s mysterious facility in Boca Chica, Texas.
Nothing brings a small town together like an alien invasion.
They were selected from hundreds, trained for a mission of national importance.
PHD candidate Macey Sandford is crafting an instrument for the Mars 2020 rover to help unlock the Red Planet’s greatest mystery: did life once exist here?
Vice Reporter Samantha Cole discusses her new feature for Supercluster on the business of sending your dead loved ones to space.
Astronauts are real-life superheroes. Their daring feats in space defy all expectations.
SpaceX launches 60 of its experimental broadband satellites to orbit from Cape Canaveral.
Tom Van Sant, a sculptor from California, set out to create one of humanity’s single largest pieces of art: a giant human eye, visible only from space.
SpaceX's plan to bring the internet everywhere.
Humanity has a complex relationship with extraterrestrials. Sometimes they come shooting, sometimes they come probing.
Every week Supercluster keeps you up to date on what just happened in space.
On April 11th 2019, for the first time in history, three separate boosters returned to Earth for reuse.
Abigail Flom and Casey Honniball are among the next generation of young women prepared to take the plunge.
What caused the SpaceX Crew Dragon to explode?
Opportunity and its twin, Spirit, touched down on opposite sides of Mars in 2004, tasked with a common goal: find evidence of water (and perhaps even life) on the red planet.
The World's Most Powerful Rocket.
Falcon Heavy is twice as powerful as the next most powerful rocket.
Kids used to want to be astronauts, now they want to be YouTubers.
Humans will face brutal questions and decide what it means to be humane as we expand our footprint into the solar system.
Out in the icy depths of the solar system, far from the warmth of our star, drifts a tiny frozen world shrouded in perpetual twilight.
Changes in rocket ship price tags mean a rapidly growing community of nations in space.
With the rise of private space exploration companies, Florida's Space Coast is undergoing a second renaissance.
A forty-year-old legal loophole means that air pollution produced when old satellites burn up in Earth’s atmosphere is exempt from environmental oversight. Is the exemption justified in the age of mega-constellations?
Neither candidate for president has anything resembling a space policy, and neither seems to care about NASA overall. Regardless, the key human spaceflight issues America must face in the next four years include the end of the International Space Station, and prospect of China landing taikonauts on the moon.
NASA's Clipper mission will determine the habitability of Jupiter's moon Europa, a mysterious water world. And what if a life-harboring oasis is revealed beneath its thick ice shell? What comes next? Scientists and researchers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory are experimenting with near-science-fiction concepts that can help investigate Europa's massive saltwater ocean and maybe even reveal its inhabitants.
We dispatched photographers Pauline Acalin and Tom Cross to shoot Starship's liftoff and attempt to catch the massive Super Heavy booster with Mechazilla, the launch tower's chopsticks arms. An idea that seemed outlandish up until the livestream said they were going for it, minutes after a surprisingly routine liftoff. So routine that the launch of Starship itself became an afterthought.
We want to understand if there is liquid water, where that liquid water exists, and whether the chemistry seem conducive to life. Do we expect redox potential in the ocean—oxidants and reductants—and where might we go to search? How might we do that search in the future, with what techniques?
DART was the first-ever planetary defense test, one that illustrated that scientists and engineers could rearrange the cosmos to make it more habitable for humans. And this October, the European Space Agency is going to check NASA’s homework: it’s launching its own mission to Dimorphos.