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InSight lander completes seismometer deployment on Mars
NASA’s InSight lander has placed a protective enclosure over a French-developed seismometer designed to detect tremors on Mars, completing the deployment of the first of two science instruments delivered to the Red Planet in November.
ULA wins contract to launch NASA’s Lucy mission to visit unexplored asteroids
NASA has selected United Launch Alliance's Atlas 5 rocket to dispatch the Lucy spacecraft on a mission from Cape Canaveral in October 2021 to fly by seven unexplored asteroids, including six objects locked in orbits leading and trailing Jupiter, where scientists expect swarms of miniature worlds could hold clues about the formation of the solar system.
JPL still trying to contact Opportunity rover on Mars
NASA's Mars Opportunity rover landed on Mars 15 years ago this week, but the long-lived robot remains out of action in the wake of a global dust storm last summer that caused it to lose power. Engineers are still trying to contact the spacecraft, sending commands and listening for any sort of response, but hopes are fading, a senior manager said Friday.
Ultima Thule revealed in new detail with fresh flyby image
A new image captured minutes before NASA’s New Horizons probe zipped by a rocky object in the Kuiper Belt on New Year’s Day shows the dual-lobed world — nicknamed Ultima Thule — is covered with intriguing fractures and a large crater-like depression that could provide clues about the early history of the solar system.
Most distant object ever visited resembles a snowman
The first well-resolved image of the faraway chunk of rock fleetingly visited by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft on New Year’s Day reveals the object — officially named 2014 MU69 but nicknamed Ultima Thule — is made of two lobes scientists say came together in an ancient slow-speed collision just as the solar system’s planets were forming.
Video: The New Horizons team hold news conference after flyby declared a success
Watch as the New Horizons team hold a press conference an hour after they received confirmation that the spacecraft had successfully flown by Ultima Thule and had recorded the expected amount of science data.
New Horizons scientists elated as Ultima Thule’s shape comes into view
A fresh image from NASA's New Horizons spacecraft released Tuesday showed the mission's distant flyby target a billion miles beyond Pluto -- nicknamed Ultima Thule -- has an elongated shape like that of a peanut shell or a bowling pin, and the prospect of higher-resolution pictures arriving on Earth later in the day had scientists salivating for more.
New Horizons phones home, confirms successful flyby
NASA's New Horizons spacecraft raced past a frozen remnant of the solar system's birth early New Year's Day, phoned home to confirm a successful flyby and readied a treasure trove of pictures and other data for transmission back to eager scientists some 4.1 billion miles away.
Video: Queen guitarist Brian May discusses his song celebrating Ultima Thule flyby
Queen guitarist and contributing New Horizons scientist Brian May wrote a song celebrating the spacecraft's New Year's flyby with Ultima Thule, a supposed block of ice and rock in the Kuiper Belt beyond the orbit of Pluto.
Video: New Horizons phone home will confirm health of spacecraft
New Horizons Mission Operations Manager (MOM) Alice Bowman describes how New Horizons will turn to Earth and 'phone home' to confirm if the flyby of Ultima Thule was a success.