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
Saturn’s shepherd moon Daphnis makes waves
NASA's Cassini spacecraft has captured the first close-up view of Daphnis, one of at least 62 moons found orbiting Saturn, plowing a path through the planet's icy rings and raising waves in its wake.
Two asteroid missions get nod from NASA
NASA has selected two robotic missions to visit asteroids in the early 2020s from a field of proposed interplanetary probes, approving projects to explore a metallic relic from the early solar system and a half-dozen so-called Trojan objects left over from the formation of the outer planets.
Planet Earth observed through telescope orbiting Mars
One of NASA's satellites orbiting Mars has looked back home to record a Martians-eye view of the Earth and moon from 127 million miles across the solar system.
Internal debris may be causing problem with Mars rover’s drill
Engineers suspect a piece of foreign object debris may be intermittently stalling a motor needed to place the Curiosity Mars rover's drill bit onto rocks, and the robot's ground team is assessing the source of the potential contamination.
Hunt for water at Ceres goes underground
NASA's Dawn spacecraft has continued its survey of the dwarf planet Ceres this year, discovering rock-bound ice hidden just beneath the airless world's rugged surface and a handful of icy outcrops inside craters in the northern hemisphere, raising hopes that Ceres could have once held a buried habitable ocean of liquid water.
Mars rover’s drill out of action
The rock-coring drill fixed to the end of the Curiosity rover's robot arm has suspended operations to allow engineers on the ground to diagnose, and officials hope correct, a problem traced to the mechanism that pushes the drill bit onto rocks to collect powder samples.
VideoEurope’s new Mars orbiter gives first taste of science data
A first look at the red planet from the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter, now in its second month at Mars, gave scientists a sample of the three-dimensional imagery and detailed atmospheric measurements expected over the spacecraft's five-year mission.
ESA says doomed Mars lander succumbed to bad altitude reading
One second of faulty data led to the destruction of a European spacecraft on final descent to Mars last month, officials said Wednesday.
Study shows Pluto should be counted among solar system’s ocean worlds
Scientists believe they can explain how an ocean of water is lurking beneath an ice sheet inside Pluto's prominent heart-shaped region, an iconic frozen landscape discovered during the New Horizons spacecraft's flyby last year.
Photos: America’s 100th EELV blasts off
The 100th flight of America's Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle program -- a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket -- departed Cape Canaveral on Saturday evening carrying the most advanced U.S. weather satellite ever made.