News Archive
Browse every article published on Spaceflight Now, from launch reports and mission previews to spacecraft development coverage. Use the filters to narrow by topic or search by keyword.
Matching Articles
717 articles
Q&A with Marc Rayman, chief engineer on NASA’s Dawn mission (members only)
Marc Rayman is chief engineer on NASA's Dawn mission, which has run out of fuel after a 11-year interplanetary journey that explored Vesta and Ceres, the two largest objects in the asteroid belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.
New Horizons on track for historic New Year’s Day flyby of Ultima Thule
Thirteen years outbound from Earth and a billion miles past Pluto, NASA's New Horizons probe is healthy and on course for a historic New Year's Day flyby of its next target, a frozen remnant left over from the birth of the solar system 4.6 billion years ago, project scientists say.
Ariane 5 launches two satellites on 7-year voyage to Mercury
A powerful European Ariane 5 rocket blasted off from French Guiana late Friday and boosted a pair of satellites into space for a seven-year plunge into the inner solar system, a voyage requiring seven planetary flybys to slow down enough in the sun's gravitational clutches to slip into orbit around hellish Mercury.
Photos: BepiColombo stacked for launch to Mercury
Ground crews at the Guiana Space Center in South America have spent the last few months preparing the BepiColombo spacecraft, a tandem mission with European and Japanese science orbiters bound for Mercury, for launch aboard an Ariane 5 rocket.
VideoLive coverage: Probe heading to Mercury blasts off from French Guiana
The nearly $1.9 billion BepiColombo mission to Mercury jointly developed by the European Space Agency and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency lifted off Friday night from French Guiana aboard an Ariane 5 rocket. Launch occurred at 9:45 p.m. EDT Friday (0145 GMT Saturday).
MASCOT lander hops around asteroid, exceeding scientists’ expectations
The MASCOT lander released from Japan's Hayabusa 2 spacecraft this week made three hops to different locations on asteroid Ryugu before draining its battery, outliving its design life and sending back data from all four of its instruments, according to German and French officials who developed the surface robot.
VideoLive coverage: MASCOT lander begins exploring asteroid Ryugu
Track the progress of the MASCOT lander, a tiny robot developed in Germany and France, as it explores asteroid Ryugu for a daring mission to hop across the austere world’s boulder-strewn landscape, taking pictures and collecting scientific data along the way. The robotic probe was released from the Hayabusa 2 spacecraft around 0200 GMT Wednesday (10 p.m. EDT Tuesday), and touched down a few minutes later.
VideoDescent begins for European asteroid lander
A German-built landing probe the size of a microwave oven carrying a camera and a suite of scientific instruments was closing in on an asteroid Tuesday, riding aboard Japan's Hayabusa 2 spacecraft to join two other robots deployed to the asteroid's surface last month.
Japanese robots land on asteroid, send back pictures
A pair of tiny automated robots touched down on asteroid Ryugu on Friday after separating from Japan's Hayabusa 2 spacecraft, sending back pictures as the probes bounced across the asteroid's alien landscape nearly 200 million miles from Earth.
Photos: Final Delta 2 launch shines before dawn in California
Flying for the 155th and final time, a United Launch Alliance Delta 2 rocket took off from California on Sept. 15 with NASA's ICESat 2 satellite.