Technicians lift the mirror of the James Webb Space Telescope using a crane at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. The telescope’s 18-segmented gold mirror is specially designed to capture infrared light from the first galaxies that formed in the early universe.

The size and cost of CubeSats allows NASA and other organizations to pursue riskier missions, and investment is pouring in as new uses for the small satellites remain under development.

The price tag for a Space Force is so far unknown. The Air Force estimates it will cost $13 billion.

This infographic shows how NASA plans to operate the Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway, a space station near the Moon that would serve as a stopping point for deep space missions.

From civilians in space to the colonization of Mars, the real challenge comes when humans try to boldly go deeper into space, and seek out new worlds.

On Aug. 3, NASA announced the astronauts who will ride the first commercial capsules into orbit next year. From left, Sunita Williams, Josh Cassada, Eric Boe, Nicole Mann, Christopher Ferguson, Douglas Hurley, Robert Behnken, Michael Hopkins and Victor Glover stand in front of Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner and SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsules at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Former astronaut Buzz Aldrin, center left, has pressed for more NASA funding. And as a result of President Trump’s space policy, House and Senate lawmakers have for now agreed to bolster NASA spending.

Harrison “Jack” Schmitt, the last living crew member of the Apollo 17 mission and one of only four living astronauts who have walked on the moon, hands a figurine to President Trump after he signed a space policy directive to send American astronauts back to the moon and ultimately Mars.

Remotely operated robots on the surface of another planet would have greater strength, endurance and precision than human explorers.

Although NASA hasn’t asked Congress for specific funding, the agency has already been working on exploring the planet. The InSight robotic lander arrives this year, and in 2020 NASA will send its fifth rover since 1997.

“As the United States of America, we are dependent on space to the point to where our adversaries have called it the American Achilles’ heel,” says NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine.

Hurricane Harvey over Texas on Aug. 26, 2017, is seen from the International Space Station.

U.S. astronaut Nick Hague, right, and Russian cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin pose for a photo before their final preflight practical examination in a mock-up of a Soyuz spacecraft at the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City, Russia, on Sept. 14. They are scheduled to launch on Oct. 11 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on the Soyuz MS-10 spacecraft for a six-month mission on the International Space Station.

Since Russia launched the Space Age with the “beep beep beep” of Sputnik’s telemetry, its missions, hardware and cosmonauts have been an insistent presence that can’t be ignored if you are to make sense of NASA’s journey from Earth to the stars.