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Mercury-bound spacecraft gets an assist from Venus
The European-Japanese BepiColombo spacecraft flew by Venus late Wednesday, using the planet's gravity to help redirect the probe toward its ultimate destination of Mercury.
Juno team planning close flybys of Jupiter’s moons
NASA's Juno spacecraft could perform the first close flybys since the early 2000s of three of Jupiter's largest moons, including Europa, if the space agency grants the mission an extension, Juno's lead scientist said recently.
China’s Mars-bound probe returns self-portrait from deep space
China's space agency has released images captured by a small camera ejected from the country's first Mars-bound spacecraft, showing the probe in deep space as it nears the halfway point of its seven-month journey from Earth to the Red Planet.
NASA selects SpaceX to launch mission studying interstellar space
NASA has awarded SpaceX a $109 million contract to launch the Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe, a NOAA space weather observatory, a robotic scout to map water on the moon, and two other ridealong payloads on a single Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral in 2024.
NASA lays out $28 billion plan to return astronauts to the moon in 2024
NASA officials released a nearly five-year, $28 billion plan Monday to return astronauts to the surface of the moon before the end of 2024, but the agency's administrator said the "aggressive" timeline set by the Trump administration last year hinges on Congress approving $3.2 billion in the next few months to kick-start development of new human-rated lunar landers.
Jupiter looms large in spectacular Hubble image
The Hubble Space Telescope turned toward Jupiter last month, capturing colorful views of the giant planet and its icy moon Europa more than 400 million miles from Earth.
Hints of life renew interest in Venus, and a private mission could lead the way
The announcement Monday of the discovery of phosphine gas in the clouds of Venus -- an indicator of possible life -- has raised hopes among scientists for new robotic missions to renew exploration of Earth’s planetary neighbor. If Rocket Lab founder Peter Beck gets his way, a privately-funded mission could get the next crack at probing Venus's soupy atmosphere.
NOAA weather satellite transitions to new role for U.S. military
A weather satellite built and launched for NOAA in 2006 to help track hurricanes approaching the United States has been repositioned to monitor weather conditions in the Middle East to support U.S. military operations in the region.
Mars missions complete first course corrections on journey to Red Planet
Three robotic Mars missions launched from Earth last month have begun fine-tuning their trajectories through the solar system with the first in a series mid-course corrections to take aim on the Red Planet for arrival next February.
VideoNASA asteroid explorer aces final rehearsal before sampling run
NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft moved within about 131 feet, or 40 meters, of asteroid Bennu this week in the $1 billion mission's final practice run before a touch-and-go landing on the asteroid in October to collect samples for return to Earth.