NASA

In the beginning, everyone was skeptical. But Elon Musk's SpaceX defied expectations- and on May 27 hopes to make history by ferrying two NASA astronauts into space, the first crewed flight from U.S. soil in nine long years.

NASA gave the green light on May 22 to next week's launch of two astronauts aboard a SpaceX vessel- the first crewed space flight from U.S. soil in nine years and a crucial step towards ending American dependence on Russian rockets.

Europe and NASA's Solar Orbiter rocketed into space on Feb. 9 night on an unprecedented mission to capture the first pictures of the sun's elusive poles.

"We're on the way to the sun. Go Solar Orbiter!" said Cesar Garcia Marirrodriga, project manager for the European Space Agency. "It's a fantastic moment ... it's like, well, we're unstoppable."

NASA's Christina Koch returned to Earth safely Feb. 6 having shattered the spaceflight record for female astronauts after almost a year aboard the International Space Station.

Koch touched down at 0912 GMT on the Kazakh steppe after 328 days in space along with Luca Parmitano of the European Space Agency and Alexander Skvortsov of the Russian space agency.

A potentially dangerous asteroid with a diameter of 440 to 990 meters is approaching Earth, according to NASA's website.

According to the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), a celestial body with the number 163373 will approach the Earth at a minimum distance of February 15.

Boeing's new Starliner capsule ended up in the wrong orbit after lifting off on its first test flight on Dec. 20, a blow to the company's effort to launch astronauts for NASA next year.

NASA's Maryland Space Center experts in have confirmed that there are traces of water vapor above the surface of Jupiter's icy moon Europa, Science Alert reported.

They analyzed data obtained from the Hawaiian Keck Observatory over 17 observations with a spectrograph to study the chemical compositions of other planets' atmospheres by scanning the infrared light they release or absorb

U.S. astronauts Christina Koch and Jessica Meir of NASA are set to make history by performing an all-women spacewalk on Oct. 18.       

The Japanese government has decided that the country will join NASA's program to colonize the moon, which moves the landing to the lunar surface in 2024, the Kyodo news agency said.

The decision will be formally announced by the end of this year. NASA has announced that the new moon assimilation program has been named "Artemis." It will consist of three stages.

The US Space Agency intends to resume its piloted flights to the International Space Station (ISS) in the first half of 2020, world agencies reported.

They cite a statement by NASA Chief James Bridenstein during a visit to a U.S. space company in Hawthorne, California.