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Rosetta spacecraft heads for comet crash landing
The European Space Agency's $1.6 billion Rosetta spacecraft closed in Thursday for a deliberate crash landing on the surface of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko early Friday, a slow-motion kamikaze plunge to bring the enormously successful mission to an end after more than two years of unprecedented close-range observations.
China developing mission to return samples from far side of the moon
If China's lunar exploration program goes according to plan, scientists could send a robotic lander to pick up samples from the far side of the moon and return them to Earth by the early 2020s, a top Chinese space official said.
Possible water plumes spotted above Europa
The Hubble Space Telescope has again spotted what appear to be towering plumes of water vapor erupting from Jupiter's moon Europa, hinting that future spacecraft may be able to sample the hidden sea, a possible abode of life, without having to drill through miles of rock-hard ice, researchers said Monday.
NASA to have limited role in SpaceX’s planned Mars campaign
Expertise, input and advice from seasoned NASA engineers will improve SpaceX's chances of nailing the first commercial landing on Mars as soon as late 2018, a senior space agency official said Wednesday, but Elon Musk's space transport company will likely seek more independence from U.S. government support on later expeditions to the red planet.
NASA official says new mission selections on track despite InSight woes
A $150 million cost overrun and two-year launch delay for NASA's InSight Mars mission could mean fewer opportunities for new planetary science missions in the next few years, but the head of the agency's science division said this week NASA will still approve development of at least one new solar system probe in December.
OSIRIS-REx reaches launch pad with money to spare
The scientist in charge of NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission hopes to apply more than $30 million in leftover funding toward reducing the risk of the probe's touch-and-go maneuver to snag a piece of asteroid Bennu, then eventually hire more experts to analyze the primordial specimens when they return to Earth in 2023.
Lost Philae lander found on comet
Scientists culling through images taken last week by the Rosetta spacecraft's sharp-eyed science camera have finally pinpointed the exact spot the Philae lander settled on comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko after a daring descent nearly two years ago, the European Space Agency announced Monday.
Juno beams back dramatic new pictures of Jupiter
NASA's Juno spacecraft, making its first scientific run over Jupiter's poles Aug. 27, captured remarkable images of Jupiter's atmosphere, showing that the equatorial bands and zones familiar to even amateur astronomers completely disappear at high latitudes.
Juno gets its closest look at Jupiter
Nearly two months after NASA's Juno spacecraft slipped into orbit around Jupiter, the solar-powered probe made a passage 2,600 miles over the giant planet's colorful banded clouds Saturday, the closest planned encounter during its 20-month exploration of the solar system's largest world.
Video: Walk around NASA’s new asteroid sample probe
Take a walk around NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft less than three weeks before its Sept. 8 launch on top of an Atlas 5 rocket. Rich Kuhns, the mission's program manager from Lockheed Martin, points out some of the major features on the probe.