SpaceX Launches Mission to Bring Back Starliner Astronauts
Two astronauts — one American, one Russian — are headed to the International Space Station with two empty seats for crewmates who are already in orbit.
By Kenneth Chang
I write mostly about space, including NASA’s efforts to send astronauts back to the moon, the search for a ninth planet (not Pluto!) and the possibility of life somewhere else. I also cover research closer to Earth, including fusion technology, superconductivity, mathematics and the physical sciences. The universe is full of interesting questions, and I’m fascinated with how science tackles bits and pieces of these puzzles: What came before the Big Bang? Can physics be written down in one equation? Where are the aliens? How did life begin?
I studied physics in college — I have an undergraduate degree from Princeton and a master’s from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign — before switching to writing about science. I joined The Times in 2000.
Of the thousands of science stories I’ve written, only a few have touched directly on my niche physics expertise — the control of chaos. But my science background guides me to ask follow-up questions like “What is the uncertainty in these findings?” and to understand what scientists say in reply. It has also nudged my curiosity to ask seemingly simple questions: “Why is glass solid?” Or “Why is ice slippery?” Sometimes the answers are complex and still not fully understood.
I took part in the earliest days of the World Wide Web. In 1993, the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois released Mosaic, the first web browser that included pictures, and I, working as a research programmer at NCSA, wrote early versions of “A Beginner’s Guide to HTML” and designed some of the first web pages in the world.
Like all Times journalists, I uphold the standards of integrity outlined in our Ethical Journalism Handbook. My job is not to convince you that NASA is intrinsically good or bad, that it deserves more or less federal funding. My job is to tell you what NASA is doing with the money it has, so you can decide whether it is making good or wasteful use of your tax dollars. It is also my job to tell you when scientists make a discovery they are excited about, and to explain their excitement as well as any doubts about their breakthrough. My hope is that I can provide you with an accurate and fair portrayal of what I was able to learn.
Email: kchang@nytimes.com
X: @kchangnyt
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Two astronauts — one American, one Russian — are headed to the International Space Station with two empty seats for crewmates who are already in orbit.
By Kenneth Chang
Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore of NASA spoke from the International Space Station for the first time since their Boeing orbital transport returned to Earth uncrewed.
By Katrina Miller and Kenneth Chang
Jared Isaacman, the billionaire leading the Polaris Dawn mission, and Sarah Gillis, a SpaceX engineer, exited and re-entered their spacecraft in a test of commercial space technologies.
By Kenneth Chang
After launching early on Tuesday, the billionaire Jared Isaacman and his crew traveled to altitudes not visited by any astronaut since the Apollo moon missions of the 1960s and ’70s.
By Kenneth Chang
The mission is taking people farther from Earth than anyone has traveled since the end of NASA’s Apollo moon missions.
By Kenneth Chang
The capsule, which returned without astronauts, and other space programs at Boeing have suffered many delays and cost overruns.
By Niraj Chokshi
Two NASA crew remain on the International Space Station after the troubled vehicle they rode undocked and then landed in the New Mexico desert.
By Kenneth Chang
The troubled spacecraft is scheduled to undock on Friday for a trip back to Earth while two NASA astronauts will stay in orbit.
By Kenneth Chang
Jared Isaacman is leading three other privately trained astronauts on a SpaceX vehicle for Polaris Dawn, a mission that will include a daring spacewalk.
By Kenneth Chang
Persistent concerns with the vehicle’s propulsion systems mean Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore will return home next year in a SpaceX vehicle.
By Kenneth Chang
NASA doesn’t say the Boeing Starliner astronauts are ‘stranded’ on the space station, but it’s a word that a lot of people are using.
By Kenneth Chang
After agency officials said last week that a decision was pending, they said on Wednesday that deliberations were still taking place.
By Kenneth Chang
The agency had insisted for a couple of months that it was confident that Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore would return on Starliner.
By Kenneth Chang
He directed a team of engineers that built Spirit, Opportunity and Curiosity, mobile robots that offered astonishing glimpses into the planet’s ancient past.
By Sam Roberts
Six Olympic athletes described the delicate mechanics behind their chosen event. Here’s how they do what they do.
By Emily Anthes, Kenneth Chang, Dennis Overbye, Katrina Miller, Gina Kolata and Franz Lidz
With the Falcon 9 rocket set to fly again, and testing of the Starliner capsule progressing, the agency is seeking to turn the page on a brief, troubled chapter in orbit.
By Kenneth Chang
The rock, studied by NASA’s Perseverance rover, has been closely analyzed by scientists on Earth who say that nonmicrobial processes could also explain its features.
By Kenneth Chang
ShadowCam, a NASA instrument aboard a South Korean spacecraft, is taking pictures of the moon where the sun doesn’t shine.
By Kenneth Chang
Delays and concerns about NASA’s future budgets doomed the VIPER mission, which aimed to search for ice near the moon’s south pole.
By Kenneth Chang
The malfunction, the first since 2016, ended a streak of more than 300 successful launches for the Falcon 9 rocket.
By Kenneth Chang
In a news conference from aboard the International Space Station, Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams said they had confidence in the troubled spacecraft to get them home.
By Kenneth Chang
Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams will spend additional weeks in orbit as teams on the ground study malfunctioning thrusters on the Starliner spacecraft.
By Kenneth Chang
It was the second scheduled spacewalk by NASA astronauts aboard the space station that faced an interruption this month.
By Kenneth Chang
An extensive examination of medical data gathered from the private Inspiration4 mission in 2021 revealed temporary cognitive declines and genetic changes in the crew.
By Kenneth Chang
Two NASA astronauts, Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, opened the hatch of the spacecraft and boarded the outpost in orbit.
By Kenneth Chang
The company achieved a key set of ambitious goals on the fourth test flight of a vehicle that is central to Elon Musk’s vision of sending people to Mars.
By Kenneth Chang
The launch marks a long-delayed win for the aerospace giant, and the next step in NASA’s reliance on the private sector for its human spaceflight program.
By Kenneth Chang
This was featured in live coverage.
By Kenneth Chang
This was featured in live coverage.
By Kenneth Chang
This was featured in live coverage.
By Kenneth Chang
This was featured in live coverage.
By Kenneth Chang
Here’s a timeline of the setbacks that proceeded the spacecraft’s first trip to orbit with astronauts on board.
By Kenneth Chang
This was featured in live coverage.
By Kenneth Chang
This was featured in live coverage.
By Kenneth Chang
This was featured in live coverage.
By Kenneth Chang
As it studies cosmic microwaves, the Simons Observatory in Chile aims to help prove or disprove cosmic inflation, a notion that the universe expanded rapidly in the moment after the Big Bang.
By Kenneth Chang
This was featured in live coverage.
By Kenneth Chang
This was featured in live coverage.
By Kenneth Chang
This was featured in live coverage.
By Kenneth Chang
This was featured in live coverage.
By Kenneth Chang
This was featured in live coverage.
By Kenneth Chang
At a time when the U.S. government is concerned about its reliance on a mercurial billionaire for access to space, new competitors say Elon Musk’s SpaceX is using tactics intended to squash them.
By Eric Lipton
Officials from NASA and Boeing say they have worked out a solution to a helium leak that has kept the Starliner astronaut capsule grounded.
By Kenneth Chang
This was featured in live coverage.
By Kenneth Chang
This was featured in live coverage.
By Kenneth Chang
This was featured in live coverage.
By Kenneth Chang
This was featured in live coverage.
By Kenneth Chang
With the help of Google Cloud, scientists churned through hundreds of thousands of images of the night sky to reveal that the solar system is filled with unseen objects.
By Kenneth Chang
The agency will seek new ideas for its Mars Sample Return program, expected to be billions of dollars over budget and years behind schedule.
By Kenneth Chang
This was featured in live coverage.
By Kenneth Chang
An earthquake struck the Northeast on Friday, rippling from Philadelphia to Boston.
By Thomas Fuller
So far, seismologists have not identified any distinguishing characteristics of a given quake that would warn of an impending larger one.
By Kenneth Chang
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By Kenneth Chang
The agency’s future moon buggies will reach speeds of 9.3 miles per hour and will be capable of self-driving.
By Kenneth Chang
The Delta IV Heavy, a rocket that briefly bursts into flame just before it lifts off, is set to launch for the last time soon.
By Kenneth Chang
Victor Glover, a nine-year veteran of the astronaut corps who will fly around the moon in 2025, said the search for excellence and diversity were not mutually exclusive.
By Kenneth Chang and Emma Goldberg
Michel Talagrand of France has credited a brush with blindness for leading to the work that resulted in his recognition by the math equivalent of the Nobel Prize.
By Kenneth Chang
He broke barriers as the first Black physicist in nearly every role. But his identity made him reach for dreams beyond his career as a scientist.
By Katrina Miller
The third test flight of the most powerful rocket ever built achieved a series of milestones before the spacecraft was lost as it re-entered Earth’s atmosphere.
By Kenneth Chang
Seeing plasma build up beneath a spacecraft in near-real time is uncommon.
By Kenneth Chang and Michael Roston
While SpaceX has a major head start on the way to orbit, Blue Origin has a plan to put an uncrewed spacecraft on the moon in 12-16 months.
By Kenneth Chang
This was featured in live coverage.
By Kenneth Chang
This was featured in live coverage.
By Kenneth Chang
Bigger than the Statue of Liberty, the SpaceX vehicle is central to NASA’s plans to get to the moon and Elon Musk’s dreams of the red planet.
By Kenneth Chang
This was featured in live coverage.
By Kenneth Chang
A new paper challenges the idea that the large, carnivorous Spinosaurus dived after prey rather than wading and plucking it out of the water.
By Kenneth Chang
Two spacecraft have ended up askew on the lunar surface this year. It is easier to tip over in the weaker gravity on the moon than you may imagine.
By Kenneth Chang
The commercial spacecraft’s builder, Intuitive Machines, released new images from the moon’s surface as the company described plans to try to wake it up in two to three weeks.
By Kenneth Chang
The privately built American spacecraft’s ability to send home images and other data has been limited by its sideways landing. On another part of the moon, a Japanese spacecraft woke up.
By Kenneth Chang
The Odysseus spacecraft was drifting horizontally as it set down, and a landing strut may have hit an obstacle on the surface.
By Kenneth Chang
Odysseus was the first privately built vehicle to make it to the moon, and points to a future in which NASA, companies and others rely on commercial lunar delivery services.
By Kenneth Chang
This was featured in live coverage.
By Kenneth Chang
This was featured in live coverage.
By Kenneth Chang
This was featured in live coverage.
By Kenneth Chang
This was featured in live coverage.
By Kenneth Chang
This was featured in live coverage.
By Kenneth Chang
This was featured in live coverage.
By Kenneth Chang
This was featured in live coverage.
By Kenneth Chang
This was featured in live coverage.
By Kenneth Chang
This was featured in live coverage.
By Kenneth Chang
This was featured in live coverage.
By Kenneth Chang
This was featured in live coverage.
By Kenneth Chang
This was featured in live coverage.
By Kenneth Chang
If all goes as planned, Odysseus, a private spacecraft, will touch down on the lunar surface on Thursday. It will be the first U.S. moon landing in more than 50 years.
By Kenneth Chang
Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket rolled to the launchpad for a series of tests in preparation for its flight debut later this year.
By Kenneth Chang
A SpaceX rocket lifted the spacecraft, which was built by Intuitive Machines of Houston to carry cargo for NASA and other customers to the lunar surface.
By Kenneth Chang
The latest flight of a private company attempting to carry NASA payloads to the lunar surface was delayed to Thursday morning.
By Kenneth Chang
Carnegie Mellon University students built Iris, a tiny lunar rover. When the spacecraft carrying it to the moon malfunctioned, they turned their vacation house into mission control.
By Kenneth Chang
The robot flew 72 times, serving as a scouting partner to the Perseverance rover, aiding in the search for evidence that there was once life on the red planet.
By Kenneth Chang