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
597 articles
Juno orbiter races by Jupiter on fourth science pass
NASA's Juno spacecraft sailed over Jupiter's cloud tops early Monday, the fourth time the solar-powered probe has approached the giant planet and collected science data since its arrival last July 4.
Scientists say thinning atmosphere drove the drying and cooling of Mars
Data collected by NASA's MAVEN spacecraft in its first two years at Mars confirm suspicions that the solar wind is blasting away the planet's atmosphere and helped transform the world from a warmer, wetter and potentially habitable world into the barren landscape seen today, scientists said.
Rosetta’s comet shows scars from swing through inner solar system
Scientists examining imagery from Europe's Rosetta spacecraft have logged numerous changes to the face of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, from collapsing cliffs to a growing crack through the comet's neck that could foretell the eventual unraveling of the city-sized icy world.
Europe’s ExoMars spacecraft begins lowering its orbit
The ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter, a Russian-launched, European-built spacecraft that arrived at Mars in October, is starting to dip into the upper reaches of the red planet's atmosphere in a year-long "aerobraking" campaign place the observatory in the right position to hunt for methane, an indicator of potential biological activity.
Trump budget blueprint focuses on deep space exploration, commercial partnerships
The Trump administration is proposing $19.1 billion for NASA in its fiscal 2018 budget blueprint, a 0.8 percent decrease from 2017 funding levels, focusing on deep space exploration, both human and robotic, and increased public-private partnerships to lower costs and encourage private sector innovation.
Perils and discoveries lie ahead for long-lived Saturn orbiter
Scientists are bracing for a blitz of discoveries in the last six months of Cassini's mission at Saturn, when the plutonium-powered robot will repeatedly ram through an unexplored gap in the planet's famous rings, then make a destructive plunge into the atmosphere in September.
Cassini glimpses saucer-shaped moon plowing through Saturn’s rings
Saturn's moon Pan, embedded in a gap in Saturn's icy rings, has drawn comparisons to a walnut or ravioli in new images from NASA's Cassini spacecraft.
Q&A with Earl Maize, Cassini project manager (members only)
Earl Maize, who leads the Cassini mission at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, started working on the Saturn orbiter project in 1992. In September, the spacecraft will take an intentional plunge into Saturn's atmosphere, gaining unprecedented up-close measurements and ending a 13-year odyssey round the ringed planet.
VideoLightning mapper beams back first views from space
A sensitive infrared camera mounted on NOAA's new GOES-16 weather satellite has captured its first astounding images of lightning flashes from a perch more than 22,000 miles out in space.
NASA spacecraft steers clear of Martian moon Phobos
NASA's MAVEN spacecraft in orbit around Mars maneuvered out of the path of Phobos earlier this week after navigators predicted the spacecraft could run into the Martian moon in the near future, highlighting the challenge of tracking an international fleet of Mars probes set to double in size by 2021.