Tag: NASA
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NASA picks ancient Martian river delta at Jezero Crater as landing site for 2020 rover
This color-coded image of the Jezero Crater delta combines information from two instruments on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, the Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars and the Context Camera. (NASA / JPL-Caltech / MSSS / JHU-APL) One week before the next Mars mission is due to land, NASA has chosen the landing site for its next…
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NASA picks Jezero Crater landing site for next Mars rover
STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS & USED WITH PERMISSION On ancient Mars, water carved channels and transported sediments to form fans and deltas within lake basins. Examination of spectral data acquired from orbit show that some of these sediments have minerals that indicate chemical alteration by water. Here in Jezero Crater delta, sediments contain clays and carbonates.…
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NASA says goodbye to Kepler planet-hunter
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…
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Antares rocket launches Cygnus cargo ship, doubling up space station deliveries
Northrop Grumman’s Antares rocket rises from its launch pad at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. (NASA Photo / Joel Kowsky) Two uncrewed cargo craft are now en route to the International Space Station, thanks to the launch of a Northrop Grumman Cygnus spaceship atop an Antares rocket. Liftoff came right on time at 4:01…
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No new date set for Pegasus launch with NASA’s ICON satellite
The Pegasus XL rocket, slung underneath an L-1011 carrier jet, before departure from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on Wednesday morning for a launch attempt that was later aborted. Credit: NASA/Frank Michaux NASA and Northrop Grumman officials have not set a new target date for the launch of the ICON ionospheric research satellite aboard an…
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Timeline for Pegasus launch of ICON satellite
Northrop Grumman’s Pegasus XL rocket will take about 11 minutes to place NASA’s Ionospheric Connection Explorer, or ICON, satellite into a roughly 357-mile-high (575-kilometer) orbit after an airborne launch off Florida’s east coast. The nearly 53,000-pound (24-metric ton) rocket will drop from the belly of a modified L-1011 carrier plane, named Stargazer, flying on an…
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NASA managers clear Pegasus rocket for launch with ICON satellite
Northrop Grumman’s L-1011 carrier jet, named Stargazer, arrived at Cape Canaveral’s Skid Strip on Oct. 19. Credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett NASA and Northrop Grumman managers at the Kennedy Space Center decided Tuesday to press ahead with final preparations to launch a NASA scientific research satellite early Wednesday aboard an air-launched Pegasus XL rocket off Florida’s east…
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Live coverage: Pegasus launch scrubbed, carrier jet returns to Cape Canaveral
Live coverage of the countdown and launch of a Northrop Grumman Pegasus XL rocket with NASA’s Ionospheric Connection Explorer satellite. Text updates will appear automatically below. Follow us on Twitter. NASA TV’s live video coverage of the Pegasus XL launch with the ICON satellite begins at 2:45 a.m. EST (0745 GMT). Become a member today and support…
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Parker Solar Probe sets records during first encounter with the sun
EDITOR’S NOTE: Updated Nov. 8 with confirmation of Parker Solar Probe’s health after perihelion. Artist’s concept of NASA’s Parker Solar Probe. Credit: NASA/JHUAPL/Steve Gribben Less than three months after its fiery departure from Cape Canaveral, NASA’s Parker Solar Probe flew within 15 million miles (24 million kilometers) of the sun Monday for the $1.5 billion mission’s…
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Pegasus launch set for no earlier than Wednesday, but data review continues
Technicians work on the Pegasus XL rocket last month at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, before its ferry flight to Florida. Credit: USAF 30th Space Wing/Tony Vaulcin The launch of a NASA research satellite built to probe conditions along the boundary between Earth’s atmosphere and space has been tentatively rescheduled for no earlier than Wednesday…