Tag: Planetary Science
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NASA’s New Horizons probe wakes up for New Year’s Day flyby
Artist’s concept of the New Horizons spacecraft. Credit: NASA/JHUAPL/SWRI Speeding through the outer reaches of the solar system nearly 3.8 billion miles from Earth, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft has awakened from a five-and-a-half month slumber, ready for a second act after its 2015 flyby of Pluto with a New Year’s Day encounter with a primordial…
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Scientists resume use of Curiosity rover’s drill and internal lab instruments
NASA’s Curiosity rover successfully drilled a 2-inch-deep hole in a target called “Duluth” on May 20. It was the first rock sample captured by the drill since October 2016. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS Using new drilling techniques after a stalled electrical motor halted sampling operations on Mars, the Curiosity rover has delivered rock powder to one of…
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Helicopter to accompany NASA’s next Mars rover to Red Planet
Artist’s concept of the Mars Helicopter. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech A flying drone fitted with counter-rotating blades, on-board autonomy, and a lightweight carbon-fiber fuselage will ride to the Red Planet with NASA’s Mars 2020 mission, officials announced Friday. Promising results from recent ground testing and a funding boost provided by a new NASA budget passed by Congress…
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Water plumes on Europa detected by Galileo spacecraft
STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS & USED WITH PERMISSION Artist’s illustration of the Galileo spacecraft, Europa and Jupiter. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Michigan A review of data captured by NASA’s Galileo spacecraft as it orbited Jupiter in the 1990s indicates it likely flew through a plume of water vapor spewing from cracks in the surface of the moon…
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Managers clear InSight for launch after heat shield review
Ground crews oversee the installation of InSight’s heat shield last month. Credit: USAF 30th Space Wing/Aaron Taubman NASA officials have determined that the robotic InSight lander is ready for its mission to Mars after concluding that the probe should not suffer the same flaw that led to a crack in a heat shield undergoing tests…
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NASA cancels lunar rover, shifts focus to commercial moon landers
The Resource Prospector prototype searches for a buried sample tube at the Johnson Space Center rock yard in August 2015. Credit: NASA As NASA turns up support for future commercial lunar landers, the space agency last week canceled a mission that would have placed a rover on the moon to survey resources, such as water…
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Photos: NASA’s InSight lander buttoned up for trip to Mars
The payload fairing of InSight’s Atlas 5 launcher was closed around the spacecraft April 16. Credit: USAF 30th Space Wing Now cocooned inside a heat shield and the nose shroud of an Atlas 5 rocket that will send it to Mars, NASA’s InSight lander is awaiting launch May 5 from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California.…
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NASA to replace cracked heat shield in time for Mars 2020 rover launch
Artist’s concept of the Mars Science Laboratory, containing the Curiosity rover, entering the Martian atmosphere. The Mars 2020 mission will use the same heat shield design. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech NASA officials plan to replace the Mars 2020 rover’s heat shield after engineers discovered a crack in the structure earlier this month, but managers anticipate no delay…
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Atlas 5/InSight launch windows
Artist’s concept of the United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket on its launch pad at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California. Credit: NASA The United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket carrying NASA’s InSight lander toward Mars will have a roughly two-hour predawn launch window each day from May 5 through June 8 to boost the science…
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InSight Mars lander joined with Atlas 5 launcher at Vandenberg Air Force Base
File photo of a payload being lifted atop an Atlas 5 rocket at Vandenberg Air Force Base before a previous mission. Credit: United Launch Alliance Ground crews at Vandenberg Air Force Base on California’s Central Coast hoisted NASA’s InSight Mars lander atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket Monday, kicking off nearly two weeks…