Tag: Jet Propulsion Laboratory
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NASA invites public to vote on name for Mars 2020 rover
The Mars 2020 rover is seen during a drive test in December at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech NASA has announced the nine finalists for the name of the space agency’s next Mars rover — scheduled for launch in July — and invited the public to vote on the candidates before…
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NASA’s next Mars rover will soon ship to Cape Canaveral launch site
The Mars 2020 rover inside the Spacecraft Assembly Facility high bay Dec. 27 at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. Credit: Alex Polimeni / Spaceflight Now Fresh off its first terrestrial test drive, NASA’s Mars 2020 rover was displayed to media last week at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California before it’s packed up…
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Ground teams studying setback with InSight’s subsurface heat probe
EDITOR’S NOTE: Updated at 8 p.m. EDT (0000 GMT) with comments from Bruce Banerdt, Insight’s principal investigator, about Level 1 requirements. Mars continues to surprise us. While digging this weekend the mole backed about halfway out of the ground. Preliminary assessment points to unexpected soil properties as the main reason. Team looking at next steps. #SaveTheMole…
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NASA to proceed with asteroid surveillance mission
Artist’s concept of the Near-Earth Object Camera, or NEOCam, spacecraft. NASA’s planned NEO Surveillance Mission will be similar to the NEOCam concept, which has been under study for more than a decade. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech After years of studies, NASA plans to move forward with a space-based telescope that could launch as soon as 2025 to…
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NASA’s Juno spacecraft sees moon’s otherworldly shadow on Jupiter
The shadow of Jupiter’s moon Io is cast on the cloud tops of the giant planet in this view taken Sept. 12 by a camera on-board NASA’s Juno spacecraft. Kevin Gill, a software engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, created this mosaic from imagery taken by the JunoCam instrument. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Kevin M. Gill Fresh images…
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Mini-helicopter installed on NASA’s next Mars-bound rover
Members of the NASA Mars Helicopter team attach a thermal film to the exterior of the flight model of the Mars Helicopter. The image was taken on Feb. 1, 2019 inside the Space Simulator, a 25-foot-wide (7.62-meter-wide) vacuum chamber at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech Engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory…
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NASA’s first interplanetary smallsats may struggle to stay under cost caps
Artist’s concept of the Janus mission imaging a binary asteroid. Credit: NASA The first set of proposals for a new class of small robotic probes NASA wants to dispatch across the solar system came in with higher cost estimates than agency officials expected, a NASA manager said Sunday. NASA selected three finalist mission concepts in…
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Mars 2020 rover on track for launch next July
In this image, taken July 19 in the clean room of the Spacecraft Assembly Facility at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, the rover’s 7-foot-long (2.1-meter-long) arm maneuvers its 88-pound (40-kilogram) sensor-laden turret as it moves from a deployed to a stowed configuration. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech The launch of NASA’s Mars 2020 rover is less than…
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Mars lander’s ground team begins inspection of stuck instrument
The InSight lander’s robotic arm camera captured this view of the stuck mole from the Heat Flow and Physical Properties Package (HP3) instrument June 30, soon after the arm lifted and moved the instrument’s support structure. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech In a bit of interplanetary troubleshooting, the robot arm on NASA’s InSight Mars lander has lifted a…
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NASA technology experiments hitching a ride on SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket
EDITOR’S NOTE: The Falcon Heavy successfully launched on the STP-2 mission at 2:30 a.m. EDT (0630 GMT) on Tuesday, June 25. The Green Propellant Infusion Mission spacecraft inside the Falcon Heavy payload fairing. Credit: SpaceX NASA is sending into orbit Monday night a spacecraft to test a safer type of rocket fuel, an ultra-precise atomic clock…