Boeing has long embraced the power of redundancy to protect its jets and their passengers from a range of potential disruptions, from electrical faults to lightning strikes. The company typically uses two or even three separate components as fail-safes for crucial tasks to reduce the possibility of a disastrous failure. Its most advanced planes, for instance, have three flight computers that function independently, with each computer containing three different processors manufactured by different companies. So even some of the people who have worked on Boeing's new 737 MAX airplane were baffled to learn that the company had designed an automated safety system that abandoned the principles of component redundancy, ultimately entrusting the automated decision-making to just one sensor — a type of sensor that was known to fail.

China eked out 2.3% economic growth in 2020, likely becoming the only major economy to expand as shops and factories reopened relatively early from a shutdown to fight the coronavirus while the United States, Japan and Europe struggled with rising infections.

The first private space station crew was introduced Tuesday: Three men who are each paying $55 million to fly on a SpaceX rocket.

Billionaire Samsung scion Lee Jae-yong was sent back to prison on Monday after a South Korean court handed him a two and a half-year sentence for his involvement in a 2016 corruption scandal that spurred massive protests and ousted South Korea’s then-president.

Fifty years ago on Christmas Eve, a tumultuous year of assassinations, riots and war drew to a close in heroic and hopeful fashion with the three Apollo 8 astronauts reading from the Book of Genesis on live TV as they orbited the moon. To this day, that 1968 mission is considered to be NASA's boldest and perhaps most dangerous undertaking.

NASA has accepted delivery of a key European part needed to power the world's next-generation moonship. U.S. and European leaders gathered at Kennedy Space Center on Friday to mark the occasion. The newly arrived powerhouse, or service module, will propel NASA's Orion capsule to the moon during a test flight without passengers planned for 2020. A mega rocket under development by NASA, known as SLS for Space Launch System, will launch the combo.

You've heard about the International Space Station for years. Want to visit? NASA announced Friday that the orbiting outpost is now open for business to private citizens, with the first visit expected to be as early as next year.

Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic is gearing up to finally send its tourism rocket ship to the edge of space. If successful, it would be a major step toward the long-delayed dream of commercial space tourism.

Richard Branson's Virgin Orbit reached space on Sunday, eight months after the first demonstration flight of its air-launched rocket system failed, the company said.