Tag: Discovery Program

  • InSight tweaks trajectory to home in on Mars landing site

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    Artist’s concept of the InSight spacecraft in its interplanetary cruise configuration. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech On the eve of its blazing entry into the Martian atmosphere, NASA’s InSight spacecraft briefly pulsed its control jets Sunday to target a safe, flat landing zone near the planet’s equator — the last in a series of trajectory correction maneuvers since…

  • Video: JPL’s Rob Manning explains InSight’s entry, descent and landing

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    JPL chief engineer Rob Manning, a veteran of Mars mission teams dating back to Mars Pathfinder more than two decades ago, describes how the InSight spacecraft will enter the Martian atmosphere and touch down on the red planet. InSight’s “seven minutes of terror” begin with entry into the Martian atmosphere at a velocity of 12,300…

  • InSight’s entry, descent and landing timeline

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    Artist’s concept of the InSight spacecraft streaking into the Martian atmosphere. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech NASA’s InSight lander will fly from the outer edge of the Martian atmosphere at a speed of more than 12,000 mph to a controlled descent rate of 5 mph just above the red planet’s surface in less than seven minutes. The robotic…

  • Mars lander on course for Monday touchdown

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    STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS & USED WITH PERMISSION The InSight spacecraft approaches Mars in this artist’s concept. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech After a six-month voyage from Earth, NASA’s InSight Mars lander, streaking through space at at some 12,300 mph, will slam into the thin martian atmosphere Monday afternoon to begin a nail-biting six-and-a-half-minute descent to the surface, kicking…

  • NASA says goodbye to Kepler planet-hunter

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    Artist’s concept of the Kepler observatory. Credit: NASA Ground controllers have beamed the final commands to NASA’s Kepler telescope, turning off the spacecraft’s transmitters and disabling the craft’s automatic recovery software after the planet-hunting observatory ran out of fuel last month. The last signals to Kepler were broadcast from a control center at the Laboratory for…

  • NASA’s trailblazing Kepler telescope ends planet hunt

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    This illustration depicts NASA’s exoplanet hunter, the Kepler space telescope. Credits: NASA/Wendy Stenzel/Daniel Rutter NASA’s Kepler telescope has run out of fuel and ended science operations, closing out a pioneering decade-long mission that showed planets are commonplace across our galaxy, agency officials said Tuesday. The observatory’s supply of hydrazine has run low for months, but…

  • InSight lander flown to California for final launch preps

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    NASA’s InSight spacecraft, seen here in its launch configuration shortly after arriving at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, is set for launch May 5. Credit: Lockheed Martin NASA’s robotic InSight Mars lander arrived at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California this week aboard a U.S. Air Force cargo plane, ready for final testing, fueling and…

  • Earlier launch of NASA’s Psyche mission touted as cost-saving measure

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    Artist’s concept of the Psyche spacecraft, which will conduct a direct exploration of an asteroid thought to be a stripped planetary core. Credit: SSL/ASU/P. Rubin/NASA/JPL-Caltech A NASA spacecraft set to explore a metallic asteroid for the first time will launch in 2022, a year earlier than originally planned, and reach its destination in 2026, four…

  • Two asteroid missions get nod from NASA

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    Artist’s concepts of the Lucy and Psyche missions. Credit: SWRI and SSL/Peter Rubin NASA has selected two robotic missions to visit asteroids in the early 2020s from a field of proposed interplanetary probes, approving projects to explore a metallic relic from the early solar system and a half-dozen so-called Trojan objects left over from the…

  • NASA official says new mission selections on track despite InSight woes

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    Artist’s concept of the InSight lander on Mars. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech A $150 million cost overrun and two-year launch delay for NASA’s InSight Mars mission could mean fewer opportunities for new planetary science missions in the next few years, but the head of the agency’s science division said this week NASA will still approve development of…