DLR – Page 3 – Spaceflight Now

InSight’s entry, descent and landing timeline

November 26, 2018 Stephen Clark

NASA’s InSight lander will fly from the outer edge of the Martian atmosphere at a speed of more than 12,000 mph to a controlled descent rate of 5 mph just above the red planet’s surface in less than seven minutes.

Video: JPL’s Rob Manning explains InSight’s entry, descent and landing

November 26, 2018 Stephen Clark

JPL chief engineer Rob Manning, a veteran of Mars mission teams dating back to Mars Pathfinder more than two decades ago, describes how the InSight spacecraft will enter the Martian atmosphere and touch down on the red planet.

Mars lander on course for Monday touchdown

November 25, 2018 William Harwood

After a six-month voyage from Earth, NASA’s InSight Mars lander, streaking through space at at some 12,300 mph, will slam into the thin martian atmosphere Monday afternoon to begin a nail-biting six-and-a-half-minute descent to the surface, kicking off a billion-dollar mission to probe the red planet’s hidden interior.

MASCOT lander hops around asteroid, exceeding scientists’ expectations

October 5, 2018 Stephen Clark

The MASCOT lander released from Japan’s Hayabusa 2 spacecraft this week made three hops to different locations on asteroid Ryugu before draining its battery, outliving its design life and sending back data from all four of its instruments, according to German and French officials who developed the surface robot.

Live coverage: MASCOT lander begins exploring asteroid Ryugu

October 2, 2018 Stephen Clark

Track the progress of the MASCOT lander, a tiny robot developed in Germany and France, as it explores asteroid Ryugu for a daring mission to hop across the austere world’s boulder-strewn landscape, taking pictures and collecting scientific data along the way. The robotic probe was released from the Hayabusa 2 spacecraft around 0200 GMT Wednesday (10 p.m. EDT Tuesday), and touched down a few minutes later.

Descent begins for European asteroid lander

October 2, 2018 Stephen Clark

A German-built landing probe the size of a microwave oven carrying a camera and a suite of scientific instruments was closing in on an asteroid Tuesday, riding aboard Japan’s Hayabusa 2 spacecraft to join two other robots deployed to the asteroid’s surface last month.

Hayabusa 2 team sets dates for asteroid landings

September 6, 2018 Stephen Clark

Japan’s Hayabusa 2 spacecraft is preparing to release three hopping robots to land on asteroid Ryugu in the coming month, with tiny instruments scientists hope will explore the airless world’s boulder-strewn landscape and return the first images from the surface of an asteroid.

Hayabusa 2 probe gets a closer look at asteroid amid landing preps

August 15, 2018 Stephen Clark

The Japanese Hayabusa 2 spacecraft dropped within a half-mile of asteroid Ryugu last week, probing its gravity field ahead of key decisions in the coming days to settle on a target site for the robotic mission’s first sample collection attempt, and the best touchdown location for a European lander stowed on the mothership.

Spacewalkers toss nanosatellites into orbit, hook up bird migration monitor

August 15, 2018 Stephen Clark

Clad in pressurized spacesuits, two Russian cosmonauts headed outside the International Space Station on Wednesday and hand-released four tiny CubeSats and installed hardware for a German experiment to track animal migration.

Dragon capsule reaches space station with three tons of cargo

July 2, 2018 Stephen Clark

A commercial cargo carrier owned and operated by SpaceX pulled into port at the International Space Station on Monday, three days after launching from Cape Canaveral with a NASA Earth science instrument, a spare hand for the lab’s Canadian robotic arm, and an AI-powered helper bot for the research lab’s six-person crew.