Tag: DLR
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Mars lander on course for Monday touchdown
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…
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MASCOT lander hops around asteroid, exceeding scientists’ expectations
This image was taken by MASCOT’s camera between 10 and 20 meters (32 and 65 feet) above the asteroid’s surface. Credit: MASCOT/DLR/JAXA BREMEN and COLOGNE, Germany — The MASCOT lander released from Japan’s Hayabusa 2 spacecraft this week made three hops to different locations on asteroid Ryugu before draining its battery, outliving its design life…
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Descent begins for European asteroid lander
Artist’s concept of the Hayabusa 2 spacecraft approaching asteroid Ryugu. Credit: DLR A German-built landing probe the size of a microwave oven carrying a camera and a suite of scientific instruments was closing in on asteroid Ryugu Tuesday, riding aboard Japan’s Hayabusa 2 spacecraft to join two other robots deployed to the asteroid’s surface last…
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Live coverage: MASCOT lander begins exploring asteroid Ryugu
Live coverage of the final descent and landing of MASCOT, a miniature robot developed in Germany and France carried aboard Japan’s Hayabusa 2 spacecraft exploring asteroid Ryugu. Text updates will appear automatically below; there is no need to reload the page. Follow us on Twitter. Check this page for live updates during MASCOT’s missing at Ryugu.
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Hayabusa 2 team sets dates for asteroid landings
Hayabusa 2’s optical navigation camera captured this view of asteroid Ryugu from a distance of 6 kilometers (4 miles) on July 20. Credit: JAXA Japan’s Hayabusa 2 spacecraft is preparing to release three hopping robots to land on asteroid Ryugu in the coming month, with tiny instruments scientists hope will explore the airless world’s boulder-strewn…
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Spacewalkers toss nanosatellites into orbit, hook up bird migration monitor
EDITOR’S NOTE: Updated at 0030 GMT on Aug. 16 (8:30 p.m. EDT on Aug. 15) after the end of the spacewalk. Cosmonaut Sergey Prokopyev prepares to release a nanosatellte on Wednesday’s spacewalk. Credit: NASA TV/Spaceflight Now Clad in pressurized spacesuits, two Russian cosmonauts headed outside the International Space Station on Wednesday and hand-released four tiny…
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Hayabusa 2 probe gets a closer look at asteroid amid landing preps
A wide-angle optical navigation camera on the Hayabusa 2 spacecraft captured this view of asteroid Ryugu on Aug. 6 as the spacecraft approached to a distance of less than 2,800 feet (851 meters) from the object. Credit: JAXA, University Tokyo, Koichi University, Rikkyo University, Nagoya University, Chiba Institute of Technology, Meiji University, University of Aizu,…
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Dragon capsule reaches space station with three tons of cargo
The Dragon spacecraft approaches the International Space Station on Monday, soaring over the Nile River Delta in Egypt. Credit: NASA/Ricky Arnold A commercial cargo carrier owned and operated by SpaceX pulled into port at the International Space Station on Monday, three days after launching from Cape Canaveral with a NASA Earth science instrument, a spare…
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InSight lander flown to California for final launch preps
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…
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GRACE satellites to end research mission in November, before replacements launch
Artist’s concept of the GRACE satellites in orbit. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech Two U.S.-German satellites launched more than 15 years ago to measure Earth’s changing gravity field will stop collecting data in November, a few months before a pair of replacement craft will launch to resume gravity measurements, NASA officials said. The Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment,…