Tag: Solar System
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Dawn spacecraft flying low over Ceres
This image of Ceres’ limb was obtained by NASA’s Dawn spacecraft May 30 from an altitude of about 280 miles (450 kilometers). Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA In the closing months of a nearly 11-year mission, NASA’s Dawn spacecraft has arrived in its final orbit around the dwarf planet Ceres and is obtaining the sharpest views yet of…
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Huge dust storm knocks aging Mars rover out of contact with Earth
STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS & USED WITH PERMISSION This series of images shows simulated views of a darkening Martian sky blotting out the Sun from NASA’s Opportunity rover’s point of view, with the right side simulating Opportunity’s current view in the global dust storm (June 2018). The left starts with a blindingly bright mid-afternoon sky, with…
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NASA approves three-year extension for Juno mission orbiting Jupiter
Artist’s concept of the Juno spacecraft orbiting Jupiter. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech NASA’s robotic Juno spacecraft wil spend another three years probing the inside of Jupiter, giving the mission more time to meet its primary science objectives after concerns over the health of the probe’s engine prevented it from dropping into a lower, shorter orbit around the…
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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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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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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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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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SpaceX to build BFR factory in Southern California
Artist’s concept of SpaceX’s planned spaceship on the moon. Credit: SpaceX SpaceX plans to build its massive BFR rocket boosters and spaceships inside a cavernous new factory at the Port of Los Angeles, officials announced this week. Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti confirmed Monday during a State of the City address that SpaceX will produce…
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NASA is counting on long-lived Mars orbiter lasting another decade
NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, seen here before its launch in 2005, carries the largest high-gain antenna ever sent to Mars for data relay and science downlinks. Credit: NASA NASA’s focus at the red planet has shifted to collecting and bringing rock samples back to Earth — a feat that could take a decade and leave…