Orbital Gets Pioneer

Orbital Science's team that developed the Cygnus spacecraft has been presented the Pioneer Award by the National Space Society.

Cygnus will be used to bring supplies to ISS, and, hopefully, other orbital outposts.

Big To Supermassive

NFL linemen can have average-sized or even small parents, but a new study suggests that the supermassive black holes at the center of many galaxies grew from "seed" black holes that were themselves huge.

Those findings still need to be confirmed and the process worked out, but if true, this would be one more piece of evidence showing how the universe works.

Curiosity Science

The Curiosity rover has been mostly on the move recently, making time towards reaching Mount Sharp, but NASA has announced the rover will be stopping soon to closely examine some interesting rocks scientists have spotted.  The rocks seem to be of a slightly different type than others in the area.

NASA still plans to reach Mount Sharp sometime in May.

Dragon Delayed Again

SpaceX's launch of its next Dragon supply flight to ISS has been delayed again, this time due to faulty U. S. Air Force radar.

The launch is now scheduled for Sunday.

NASA And Civilization's Collapse

NASA chief Charles Bolden distanced his agency from an upcoming study of various ways civilizations can collapse.  NASA has been reported as a sponsor of the study, but Bolden says the researchers involved in the study simply used certain research tools developed by NASA.

Bolden says NASA doesn't endorse the study or its conclusions.

U. S.-Russian Launch Goes Ahead

Despite the crisis in Ukraine, the launch of an American-Russian crew to ISS will go ahead as planned today.

Both nations have huge investments in the ISS partnership, but if the Ukrainian situation deteriorates into something approaching war, it's not clear the current space arrangement can be maintained.

Waves On Titan

The Cassini spacecraft at Saturn has imaged what could be sunlight glinting off small waves in a hydrocarbon lake in the north polar region of Titan.

If that interpretation holds up, it will be the first time a sea surface beyond Earth has been directly observed.