British billionaire Richard Branson opened the world's first-ever commercial spaceport in the New Mexico desert, the new home for his company, Virgin Galactic. | Earth has been told to brace for a possible satellite collision as an orbiting telescope weighing nearly three tons has spun out of control and is plummeting homewards. | Europe's collective space agency is planning an ambitious space mission that would send a satellite nearly three-quarters of the way to the Sun. | High-profile critics fear President Barack Obama's commercial overhaul of human spaceflight is going nowhere and could mark the end of half a century of US supremacy among the stars and planets. | A defunct NASA science satellite is expected to fall back to Earth on Friday, showering debris somewhere on the planet although scientists cannot predict exactly where, officials said. | NASA space junk experts have refined the forecast for the anticipated death plunge of a giant satellite, with the U.S. space agency now predicting the 6 1/2-ton climate probe will plummet to Earth around Sept. 23, a day earlier than previously reported. | A pair of spacecraft rocketed toward the moon Saturday on the first mission dedicated to measuring lunar gravity and determining what’s inside Earth’s orbiting companion – all the way down to the core. | Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen and aerospace pioneer Burt Rutan are building the world’s biggest plane to help launch cargo and astronauts into space, in the latest of several ventures fueled by technology tycoons clamoring to write America’s next chapter ... |