Mars – Page 10 – Spaceflight Now

ExoMars parachute failures could jeopardize 2020 launch date

August 13, 2019 Stephen Clark

The European Space Agency has confirmed a parachute for the ExoMars rover mission set for launch next July failed during a test over Sweden earlier this month, the project’s second parachute test accident since May.

NASA’s first interplanetary smallsats may struggle to stay under cost caps

August 5, 2019 Stephen Clark

The first set of proposals for a new class of small robotic probes NASA wants to dispatch across the solar system came in with higher cost estimates than agency officials expected, a NASA manager said Sunday.

Mars 2020 rover on track for launch next July

July 31, 2019 Stephen Clark

The launch of NASA’s Mars 2020 rover is less than a year away, and the steady pace of work inside the craft’s pristine assembly hall in California is keeping the mission on schedule for liftoff from Cape Canaveral next July, despite growing costs, according to mission managers.

Mars lander’s ground team begins inspection of stuck instrument

July 2, 2019 Stephen Clark

In a bit of interplanetary troubleshooting, the robot arm on NASA’s InSight Mars lander has lifted a support structure to reveal an underground thermal probe that got stuck soon after it started hammering into the Red Planet’s surface earlier this year.

Scientists call on InSight’s robotic arm to assist stalled heat probe on Mars

June 6, 2019 Stephen Clark

Later this month, ground teams will send commands for the InSight lander on Mars to use its robotic arm in a series of carefully-choreographed movements to help inspect, and potentially assist, one of the mission’s main geologic instruments that stalled as it hammered into the Red Planet’s crust earlier this year.

InSight lander detects first likely ‘quake’ on Mars

April 24, 2019 Stephen Clark

Sensors delivered to Mars by NASA’s InSight lander have detected the first signals suggesting seismic activity on the red planet, a major discovery that extends the field of seismology to a new world beyond the Earth and the moon.

InSight scientists not sure stalled Mars heat probe can be recovered

April 3, 2019 Stephen Clark

Ground teams analyzing data from a heat probe that got stuck soon after it started digging into the Martian crust under NASA’s robotic InSight lander still hope they can free the mole from an obstruction that halted its progress more than a month ago, but the mission’s chief scientist says the chances of completing the heat probe experiment — one of InSight’s two main science instruments — may not look promising.

NASA declares Opportunity rover dead after 15 years on Mars

February 13, 2019 Stephen Clark

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

February 6, 2019 Stephen Clark

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.

JPL still trying to contact Opportunity rover on Mars

January 25, 2019 William Harwood

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.