MarCO
5 articles
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.
First interplanetary CubeSats already setting records in deep space
Two CubeSats developed at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory launched May 5 with the InSight mission to Mars have deployed their miniaturized antennas and captured a distant family portrait of the Earth and the moon.
Photos: Shrouded in fog, Atlas 5 takes flight from Vandenberg
A layer of fog intruding on Vandenberg Air Force Base in California kept nearby observers from seeing any sign of Saturday's predawn launch of an Atlas 5 rocket carrying a robotic NASA probe to Mars. The only images of the Atlas 5's fiery takeoff came from remote cameras placed at the launch pad, or from distant viewing points away from the poor visibility.
After foggy departure, it’s clear sailing to Mars for InSight lander
Making a fiery climb into a foggy sky Saturday over California's Central Coast, a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket dispatched NASA's InSight lander on a 301-million-mile voyage to Mars with a package of European-built instruments to probe the inside of the Red Planet.
Two ‘microprobes’ to accompany InSight lander to Mars
NASA managers have formally approved the launch of two small CubeSat-based satellites with the InSight Mars lander next year, adding an experimental data relay capability to give ground controllers news about the landing's outcome.