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Q&A with Opher Doron, general manager of IAI’s space division (members only)
Opher Doron leads the space division at Israel Aerospace Industries, a satellite and aviation contractor that led the industrial team behind the privately-funded Beresheet lander heading to the moon.
NASA orbiter spots Chinese lander on the moon
NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has spotted China's Chang'e 4 lander and rover on the far side of the moon in new images, as the Chinese robots explore the floor of Von Kármán crater.
SpaceX files protest of NASA’s Lucy launch contract awarded to ULA
SpaceX has filed a protest challenging a nearly $150 million NASA contract awarded to United Launch Alliance last month to send a robotic asteroid probe into space.
NASA declares Opportunity rover dead after 15 years on Mars
Eight months after last hearing from the Opportunity rover, NASA officials announced the end of the craft's 15-year mission Wednesday, closing out an ambitious chapter of Mars exploration that proved the Red Planet once harbored running water and demonstrated the promise of mobile robotic scouts to survey other worlds.
NASA’s first interplanetary CubeSats fall silent beyond Mars
After a successful mission that pushed the limits of small satellite technology, ground controllers have lost contact with two briefcase-sized CubeSats beyond Mars, NASA said Tuesday.
InSight lander completes seismometer deployment on Mars
NASA’s InSight lander has placed a protective enclosure over a French-developed seismometer designed to detect tremors on Mars, completing the deployment of the first of two science instruments delivered to the Red Planet in November.
ULA wins contract to launch NASA’s Lucy mission to visit unexplored asteroids
NASA has selected United Launch Alliance's Atlas 5 rocket to dispatch the Lucy spacecraft on a mission from Cape Canaveral in October 2021 to fly by seven unexplored asteroids, including six objects locked in orbits leading and trailing Jupiter, where scientists expect swarms of miniature worlds could hold clues about the formation of the solar system.
OSIRIS-REx finds rugged terrain on asteroid Bennu
Some time next year, NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft will descend to the boulder-strewn surface of asteroid Bennu, reach out with a robotic arm, and fetch a sample for return to Earth, but an initial survey of the space rock millions of miles from Earth suggests the robotic mission may have few suitable targets for the touch-and-go maneuver.
JPL still trying to contact Opportunity rover on Mars
NASA's Mars Opportunity rover landed on Mars 15 years ago this week, but the long-lived robot remains out of action in the wake of a global dust storm last summer that caused it to lose power. Engineers are still trying to contact the spacecraft, sending commands and listening for any sort of response, but hopes are fading, a senior manager said Friday.
Ultima Thule revealed in new detail with fresh flyby image
A new image captured minutes before NASA’s New Horizons probe zipped by a rocky object in the Kuiper Belt on New Year’s Day shows the dual-lobed world — nicknamed Ultima Thule — is covered with intriguing fractures and a large crater-like depression that could provide clues about the early history of the solar system.