Hurray! Juice Deploys its Stuck Antenna
ESA’s Juice mission launched last month on April 14, beginning its long journey to explore Jupiter’s icy moons, Ganymede, Europa, and Callisto. But soon after launch, mission controllers realized a...
View ArticleNew Photos Show Collapsed Chains of Craters on a Martian Volcano
Most everyone is familiar with Olympus Mons, the largest volcano on Mars and also the largest in the Solar System. But there are several other enormous shield volcanoes on Mars. The second largest is...
View ArticleOne Day Astronauts Will Be Breathing Oxygen Made From Rocks
When there’s a permanent base on the Moon, astronauts will need a way to replenish their oxygen supply. Fortunately, there’s an almost infinite amount of oxygen in the surrounding regolith, locked up...
View ArticleNew High-Resolution Photos of Deimos From the Hope Mission
We’ve seen our share of photos of Mars from orbit and the surface, but what about its moons? The United Arab Emirates Hope orbital mission to Mars sent home new beautiful high-resolution images of the...
View ArticleSolar Orbiter Continues to Get Closer to the Sun, Revealing More and More...
On April 10th, ESA’s Solar Orbiter made its closest flyby of the Sun, coming to within just 29% of the distance from the Earth to the Sun. From this vantage point, the spacecraft is performing...
View ArticleIf Titan Has the Chemistry For Life, Dragonfly Could Find it
The highly-anticipated Dragonfly robotic rotocraft mission to Saturn’s moon Titan is scheduled to launch in 2027. When it arrives in the mid-2030s, it will hover and zoom around in the thick...
View ArticleHere’s Where Artemis III Might Land. It Looks… Inviting
Where on the Moon will the first crewed Artemis mission Land? While NASA is still deliberating on the exact location, they’ve chosen several candidate landing sites near the lunar south pole. This new...
View ArticleLucy Adds Another Asteroid to its Flyby List
In October 2021, NASA launched its ambitious Lucy mission. Its targets are asteroids, two in the main belt and eight Jupiter trojans, which orbit the Sun in the same path as Jupiter. The mission is...
View ArticleWatch a NASA Supercut of the Entire Artemis I Mission, From Launch to Landing
In case you missed any of the 25-day flight of Artemis 1, NASA has compiled a 25-minute highlight reel that showcases the top moments of the mission, from launch to splashdown. The Space Launch System...
View ArticleWill We Ever Go Back to Explore the Ice Giants? Yes, If We Keep the Missions...
It’s been over 35 years since a spacecraft visited Uranus and Neptune. That was Voyager 2, and it only did flybys. Will we ever go back? There are discoveries waiting to be made on these fascinating...
View ArticleTiny Cubesat Will Shine an Infrared ‘Flashlight’ Into the Moon’s Shadowed...
A tiny spacecraft is ready to head out for a big job: shining a light on water ice at the Moon’s south pole. Lunar Flashlight is a cubesat about the size of a briefcase, set to launch on December 1 on...
View ArticleVolcanoes are the worst. They’ve caused extinctions on Earth, and probably...
Is there anything good about volcanoes? They can be violent, dangerous, and unpredictable. For modern humans, volcanoes are mostly an inconvenience, sometimes an intriguing visual display, and...
View ArticleEdward Stone Has Been the Voyagers’ Project Scientist for 50 Years. He Just...
Edward Stone is retiring after 50 years as Project Scientist for the Voyager mission. The twin spacecraft revolutionized our understanding of our Solar System, and Stone was along for the ride every...
View ArticleWatch a Nicely Stabilized Video of DART Flying Past Didymos and Slamming Into...
Here’s one of the best videos we’ve seen of the last minutes of the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission as it headed towards and slammed into the asteroid Dimorphos. This stabilized...
View ArticleSouth Korea’s First Orbital Mission to the Moon is on its Way
South Korea launched its first robotic mission to the Moon last week, as a SpaceX Falcon 9 successfully launched the Danuri Lunar Pathfinder mission on August 4, 2022 from Florida’s Cape Canaveral...
View ArticleESA’s EnVision Mission Doesn’t Have a lot of Fuel, so it’s Going to Aerobrake...
Venus has almost been “the forgotten planet,” with only one space mission going there in the past 30 years. But the recent resurgence of interest in Earth’s closest neighbor has NASA and ESA...
View ArticleFirst Images From JWST are Coming on July 12th
We’re about to reach a milestone that many thought we would never reach. After years of wrangling, cost overruns, threats of cancellation, and lobbying by the science community, the James Webb Space...
View ArticleNASA is Building a Mission That Will Refuel and Repair Satellites in Orbit
NASA is planning a mission to demonstrate the ability to repair and upgrade satellites in Earth orbit. The mission, called OSAM-1 (On-orbit Servicing, Assembly, and Manufacturing-1), will send a...
View ArticleInSight is Losing Power, it Probably Will be Shut Down in a Few Months
The InSight Mars lander will cease science operations sometime in the next few months due to a decreasing power supply, mission managers said at a news conference on May 17. Martian dust covering the...
View ArticleFive Rover Teams Chosen to Help Explore the Moon’s South Pole
The Moon may seem barren, and it is. However, a certain species of inquisitive primates is still very interested in exploring the Moon, uncovering its secrets and maybe establishing a longer-term...
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