Aerospace and Defense

It can be hard to pinpoint the time when engineering innovations really move out from the laboratory to make a serious impact on the global economy, but one of the great new waves in manufacturing seems to be reaching that threshold  - 3D printing.

NASA has been dealing with its wildly successful Curiosity rover for much of the past year, but the agency has several important satellites that are going to need some attention in coming months and years.

A great deal of attention has been focused in recent months on the growing use of drones in domestic airspace by everyone from police forces to utility companies cleaning up in the wake of Hurricane Sandy. But one of the biggest stories for unmanned aircraft is actually the effort to further expand their role in the military, as the Navy's X-47B Unmanned Combat Air System (UCAS) prepares for one of its most important final tests later this month.

NASA's Cassini probe, an impressive piece of engineering innovation launched toward Saturn in 1997, recently captured high quality images of an enormous hurricane on the planet's North Pole. The hurricane has raised some eyebrows due to its unusual similarities to hurricanes on Earth.

Mars has always held a prominent place in the world of science fiction, with countless missions to go explore the desolate planet and more than a few chances for Martians to repay the favor. But now one group is hoping to make these hopeful dreams a reality, without any further great engineering innovations, and applications for the program are open and accepting.

With the U.S. shutting down its shuttle program in 2012, there seems to be an opening for other countries to take the lead in terms of space exploration. In a special announcement for what Russia calls Cosmonaut's Day, President Vladimir Putin outlined his plans to push the country forward with its own brand new launch pad and massive spending on new engineering research and development efforts.

For many people, when they hear about the U.S. space agency's new plan to capture an asteroid and bring back into Earth's orbit, they have visions of countless Hollywood movies with asteroids the size of mountains hurtling toward the planet.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration has slowly been handing off its duties shuttling people and supplies back and forth to near-Earth orbit, hiring private companies to help service the International Space Station, But the agency has its eyes set a bit further out in space, and a new type of engine being developed at the University of Washington.

Researchers at the Carnegie Institute may have changed the perception of supernovas forever, as a new discovery found a new type of this stellar explosion

The findings made by the NASA Curiosity rover have fueled speculation in the science world, as an analysis of a rock sample recovered by the unmanned vehicle shows that ancient Mars may have been able to support living microbes.