It is expected to be announced that NASA will cut funding for the exploration of the planet Mars after Congress cut its 2013 budget. However, a former high ranking NASA official calls the move “irrational and unjustified.”

NASA has been criticized lately about building a heavy-lift rocket -- the Space Launch System (SLS) -- without a clear goal in mind as to where it will go in space. NASA responds to this question.  

Even though the Russians know their Phobos-Grunt probe came down and landed somewhere along a track that goes over the Pacific Ocean, they really have not indicated that they know just where it landed.

Russian officials announced that its Phobos-Grunt probe fell out of Earth orbit, and crashed into the southern Pacific Ocean.

According to Russian space officials, the Phobos-Grunt probe, originally to go to the Mars’ moon Phobos and launched on November 9, 2011, will instead come crashing down back to Earth sometime on Sunday, January 15, 2012.

NASA announced on January 11, 2012, that its Kepler Space Telescope has detected three planets orbiting the star KOI-961. They are considered the smallest planets ever found outside of our solar system – all three are about half the radius of Earth.

In 2011, NASA began to develop a heavy-lift rocket for manned exploration, discovered the first Earth-sized exoplanet, assisted with commercial spaceflight, and made other major accomplishments and discoveries to help all of us here on Earth. You can vote for your favorite 2011 story by NASA.

According to a December 7, 2011 NASA report, the Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity has discovered a vein of mineral, which mission scientists think is gypsum, that was deposited by water sometime in the distant past.

The Mars Science Laboratory, popularly called Curiosity, is on its way to Mars. However, a problem with following the rules has resulted in some equipment being not as safe as originally planned in assuring the planet Mars is not infected with Earth contamination.

A team of astronomers have established two ways to rank planets and moons as to how similar they are to Earth and how likely they are to hold the essentials to produce life.