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More signs of past — and possibly present — habitability of Mars
NASA's Mars Curiosity rover, slowly making its way up the side of a towering mountain of sedimentary rock at the center of its Gale Crater landing site, has found fresh evidence for the red planet's past -- and possibly present -- habitability, scientists reported Thursday.
NASA’s New Horizons probe wakes up for New Year’s Day flyby
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 world set to become the most distant object ever explored.
Scientists resume use of Curiosity rover’s drill and internal lab instruments
Using new drilling techniques after a stalled electrical motor halted sampling operations on Mars, the Curiosity rover has delivered rock powder to one of its onboard lab instruments for analysis for the first time since 2016, officials said Monday.
NOAA’s new GOES-17 weather satellite has degraded vision at night
Engineers are studying a malfunction with the main imaging instrument on NOAA's GOES-17 weather satellite, launched March 1, that could limit the observatory's ability to monitor storms, winds and other weather phenomena at night, officials said Wednesday.
First interplanetary CubeSats already setting records in deep space
Two CubeSats developed at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory launched May 5 with the InSight mission to Mars have deployed their miniaturized antennas and captured a distant family portrait of the Earth and the moon.
Water plumes on Europa detected by Galileo spacecraft
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 Europa, providing independent evidence water is being released from a vast sub-surface ocean beneath its frozen crust, scientists said Monday.
VideoHelicopter to accompany NASA’s next Mars rover to Red Planet
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.
Q&A with Mimi Aung, Mars Helicopter project manager at JPL (members only)
Mimi Aung leads a cadre of engineers developing the Mars Helicopter, an aerial drone set to fly to the Red Planet with the Mars 2020 rover.
VideoRocketcam replay of InSight’s launch to Mars
United Launch Alliance has released a replay of the May 5 liftoff of NASA's InSight mission to Mars aboard an Atlas 5 rocket, as viewed by aft- and forward-facing cameras on the two-stage launch vehicle.
Photos: Shrouded in fog, Atlas 5 takes flight from Vandenberg
A layer of fog intruding on Vandenberg Air Force Base in California kept nearby observers from seeing any sign of Saturday's predawn launch of an Atlas 5 rocket carrying a robotic NASA probe to Mars. The only images of the Atlas 5's fiery takeoff came from remote cameras placed at the launch pad, or from distant viewing points away from the poor visibility.