Tag: Jet Propulsion Laboratory
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Assembly of Mars rover’s rocket to begin this week
EDITOR’S NOTE: United Launch Alliance ground crews raised the Atlas 5 rocket’s first stage inside the Vertical Integration Facility at Cape Canaveral’s Complex 41 launch pad Thursday, May 28, to begin stacking of the launch vehicle for the Perseverance rover mission. Wrapped up for shipment, the first stage of the Atlas 5 rocket that will launch…
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Launch preparations continue for NASA’s next Mars rover
NASA’s Perseverance rover is seen underneath its back shell inside the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on April 29. Credit: NASA JPL/Christian Mangano On track for launch from Cape Canaveral in July, NASA’s Perseverance rover has been secured to its rocket-powered descent stage and back shell, part of the…
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Scientists optimistic planetary probes won’t face coronavirus launch delays
EDITOR’S NOTE: Updated to correct spelling of Hal Levison’s name. Artist’s concept of the Lucy spacecraft flying by Trojan asteroids. Credit: NASA/SWRI Launches of interplanetary missions can only depart Earth when the positions of the planets are just right, and officials managing the development of probes set for launch in 2021 and 2022 to explore asteroids…
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Ground teams fuel Perseverance rover landing system, attach Mars Helicopter
The Mars Helicopter was installed on NASA’s Mars Perseverance rover April 6 inside the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Credit: NASA/JPL Working under the cloud of the global coronavirus pandemic, technicians and engineers at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center have installed a rotor-driven drone on the agency’s next Mars rover…
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Swarm of NASA nanosats to probe source of solar eruptions
This image from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory in 2013 shows the bright light of a solar flare on the left side of the sun and an eruption of solar material shooting through the sun’s atmosphere, called a prominence eruption. This same region of the sun sent a coronal mass ejection out into space. Credit: NASA/SDO…
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Seventh-grader wins contest to name new Mars rover: Perseverance
Alexander Mather, a seventh-grade student in Virginia, reads his winning essay proposing the name “Perseverance” for NASA’s next Mars rover. Credit: NASA/Aubrey Gemignani Twenty-eight thousand students across the United States submitted essays and proposed names for NASA’s newest Mars rover and on Thursday, the agency announced the winner: Perseverance, submitted by Virginia seventh-grader Alexander Mather.…
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NASA’s InSight mission shows Mars is a seismically active world
In this artist’s concept of NASA’s InSight lander on Mars, layers of the planet’s subsurface can be seen below and dust devils can be seen in the background. Credit: IPGP/Nicolas Sarter While one of its two science instruments remains sidelined, NASA’s InSight probe has proven Mars is seismically active through the detection of hundreds of…
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Mars 2020 rover arrives at Kennedy Space Center for July launch
The shipping container with the Mars 2020 rover was unloaded from a U.S. military cargo plane Wednesday after landing at the Shuttle Landing Facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Credit: NASA/Cory Huston Two U.S. Air Force cargo planes delivered the Mars 2020 rover, cruise stage, descent module and the Mars Helicopter to the…
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NASA uplinks final command to deactivate Spitzer telescope
Artist’s concept of the Spitzer Space Telescope seen against the infrared sky. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/R. Hurt (SSC) NASA declared the Spitzer Space Telescope’s 16-year mission complete Thursday after sending final commands for the spacecraft to enter hibernation as it drifts farther from Earth. The Spitzer Space Telescope, one of NASA’s original four “Great Observatories,” studied the…
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NASA prepares to shut down one of its ‘Great Observatories’
Artist’s concept of NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope, backdropped by an image of the infrared sky. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech NASA will say goodbye to the Spitzer Space Telescope this week after more than 16 years observing the most distant galaxies ever detected, planets orbiting other stars, and star-forming clouds of dust and gas. Spitzer, one of NASA’s four…