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VideoIsrael’s Beresheet lander heads for make-or-break lunar capture maneuver
An Israeli spacecraft has one shot Thursday to swing into orbit around the moon with a six-minute engine firing, a critical maneuver that will set up for the privately-funded probe's historic landing attempt April 11.
InSight scientists not sure stalled Mars heat probe can be recovered
Ground teams analyzing data from a heat probe that got stuck soon after it started digging into the Martian crust under NASA's robotic InSight lander still hope they can free the mole from an obstruction that halted its progress more than a month ago, but the mission's chief scientist says the chances of completing the heat probe experiment -- one of InSight's two main science instruments -- may not look promising.
Beresheet lander on course for the moon
The privately-funded Israeli Bersesheet lander is on course to enter orbit around the moon April 4 after another boost from its main engine Tuesday.
NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft finds particles flying off asteroid Bennu
The early months of NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission's exploration of asteroid Bennu have revealed big surprises, scientists said Tuesday, including plumes of particles streaming away from the asteroid, sometimes with enough velocity for rocks to break out of Bennu's tenuous gravitational grip and escape into space.
VideoHayabusa 2’s asteroid touch-and-go comes to life in dramatic new video
A camera riding on Japan's Hayabusa 2 spacecraft recorded stunning views of the probe's final descent to asteroid Ryugu last month, showing the rocky debris kicked up by the robot explorer's touch-and-go landing to collect a sample for return to Earth.
Computer reset cancels orbit-raising burn on Israel’s moon lander
A computer reset on the Israeli Beresheet lunar lander forced has the postponement of the mission's first engine firing to begin maneuvering closer to the moon, officials said Tuesday.
Japanese probe lands on asteroid to capture sample
Japan's Hayabusa 2 spacecraft briefly landed on an asteroid Thursday more than 200 million miles from Earth and fired a bullet to scoop up a rocky sample, successfully accomplishing one of the mission's most challenging maneuvers before returning the asteroid specimen to scientists on the ground in December 2020.
Photos: Beresheet lander tested for historic moon mission
The Beresheet moon lander will attempt to become the first privately-funded spacecraft to reach the moon, and these photos show the robotic probe's journey through testing inside a clean room at Israel Aerospace Industries, followed by its attachment to a multi-satellite stack for launch on a Falcon 9 rocket.
Israeli moon lander prepared for launch
The privately-funded Israeli Beresheet lunar lander is ready for its historic mission to the moon, aiming to become the first space probe to land on another planetary body without government funding.
New Horizons finds Ultima Thule has an unexpected, flattened shape
Images taken by NASA's New Horizons spacecraft when it flew by an object the size of a large metropolitan area at the frontier of the solar system Jan. 1 have revealed the miniature world has a more flattened shape than the flyby's initial pictures suggested.