Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. You can now own a 1 gold coin celebrating one of America's most revolutionary achievements: the NASA Space Shuttle program. The latest variant in the ongoing American Innovation 1 Coin series is available to order through the United States Mint. Selected to represent the state of Florida, the noncirculating legal tender is the third coin released this year and the 28th coin in the 15-year project first announced in 2018. While the coin's front displays the series' Statue of Liberty image, the back shows the shuttle launching above plumes of exhaust.

DOGE leader Elon Musk opens up about his work in space on'Kudlow.' Elon Musk has confirmed that SpaceX's Starship will head to Mars at the end of 2026. The ship will be carrying Optimus, Tesla's humanoid robot. The tech billionaire said that if all goes well, humans could be on the red planet by 2029, although he admitted that 2031 is more likely. NASA's Perseverance Mars rover used its dual-camera Mastcam-Z imager to capture this image of "Santa Cruz," a hill within Jezero Crater, on April 29, 2021, the 68th Martian day, or sol, of the mission. The X account for Optimus replied to Musk's announcement with just two words: "Hold on."

Once regarded as a futuristic technology that would be exploited by robots to take over the world, artificial intelligence is rapidly growing in scope and capabilities. Automakers, for one, are putting it to use to create advanced concepts and production vehicles. And Italian supercar builder Maserati is harnessing the technology to set world records. This month, an AI-controlled Maserati MC20 reached 197.7 miles per hour at Kennedy Space Center. The Maserati obliterated the previous record set by an Indy Autonomous Challenge AV-21 racecar set in 2022 by nearly five full seconds, an impressive feat for a robot-driven car.

A new age of commercial moon exploration is upon us, and one of the most exciting missions yet is about to launch--one laden with rovers, a drill, and even a hopper spacecraft that will try to "jump" into a permanently dark lunar crater to search for ice. The IM-2 mission, from Texas-based company Intuitive Machines, is scheduled to launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral in Florida on Wednesday, February 26. The lander, nicknamed Athena and about the size of a car, is partially funded by NASA, as the US space agency attempts to create a new lunar economy that can support upcoming planned human missions to the moon. "NASA and the space industry is creating a new business, getting science and payloads to the surface of the moon," says Laura Forczyk, founder of the Georgia-based space consultancy firm Astralytical. "And these uncrewed missions are preparing us to send humans."

From NASA's mission to study Jupiter's icy moon Europa to Elon Musk's SpaceX catching its Starship rocket mid-air, there's no doubt 2024 saw some incredible space feats. 'In 2024, NASA made leap after giant leap to explore, discover, and inspire – all while bringing real, tangible, and substantial benefits to the American people and to all of humanity,' said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. And 2025 is set to be an even more remarkable year for space agencies and companies around the world, who have an assortment of exciting missions lined up. Among them are NASA, which is sending two twin spacecraft to Mars – although its upcoming return to the moon has been delayed yet again. There's also the European Space Agency, which is set to launch its futuristic'Space Rider' spaceplane – described as a'robotic laboratory the size of two minivans'.

On March 8, a piece of space debris plunged through a roof in Naples, FL, ripped through two floors and (fortunately) missed the son of homeowner Alejandro Otero. On Tuesday, NASA confirmed the results of its analysis of the incident. As suspected, it's a piece of equipment dumped from the International Space Station (ISS) three years ago. NASA's investigation of the object at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral confirmed it was a piece of the EP-9 support equipment used to mount batteries onto a cargo pallet, which the ISS' robotic arm dropped on March 11, 2021. The haul, made up of discarded nickel-hydrogen batteries, was expected to orbit Earth between two to four years (it split the difference, lasting almost exactly three) "before burning up harmlessly in the atmosphere," as NASA predicted at the time.

America is set to return to the moon on Thursday, marking the first time a US-made craft touched down on the lunar surface since the last Apollo mission in 1972. Odysseus, or Odie, is soaring through space, but unlike previous trips, this one is owned by Houston-based Intuitive Machines. The six-legged robot lander is scheduled to touch down at 6:24pm ET at a crater called Malapert A near the moon's south pole. The landing attempt will be livestreamed on NASA TV beginning at 5pm ET. While the mission is operated by a private company, NASA has sponsored the journey to take its scientific instruments and technology to the moon.

It's been just over 21 years since one of the darkest days in NASA's history. On the morning of February 1, 2003, Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated as it reentered the atmosphere over Texas and Louisiana. The seven astronauts aboard – David Brown, Rick Husband, Laurel Clark, Kalpana Chawla, Michael Anderson, William McCool and Ilan Ramon – all lost their lives. The tragic event is being retold for a BBC Two documentary series airing from this week on BBC Two, 'The Space Shuttle That Fell to Earth'. MailOnline has revealed a step-by-step graphic showing exactly what went wrong on that fateful morning, which changed NASA forever.

A renowned astrophysicist is calling foul on reports of alien sightings in Earth's atmosphere, arguing that biological creatures would be unable to survive a journey to our planet. "It would take about a billion years to cross from one side of the Milky Way galaxy to the other," Avi Loeb, a Harvard astrophysicist, said during an appearance on GB News this week. "Given that, I don't think any spacecraft that would arrive to us from another star would carry biological creatures." Loeb's comments come amid increased reports of UFO sightings in recent years, with videos and pictures of supposed alien craft going viral across the internet. It also comes after NASA created a new position aimed at overseeing research on UFOs after a 2022 study by the agency determined that such sightings were unlikely to be caused by extraterrestrial life.

NASA's first mission to the moon's surface since the Apollo missions in the 1970s has begun with the launch of a new Vulcan rocket carrying a robotic lander with seven scientific instruments. The mission, which launched from Cape Canaveral in Florida at 7.18am GMT (2.18am EST) on 8 January, forms the first part of NASA's ambitious Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) programme, with six more launches planned for this year. Unlike previous NASA missions, which were carried out almost entirely in-house, these efforts will be public-private partnerships, aided by space companies. The Vulcan rocket was built by both Lockheed Martin and Boeing as part of the United Launch Alliance (ULA), and the Peregrine lander was built by space robotics company Astrobotic. The lander will take 46 days to reach the moon, before attempting to land on 23 February.