New Frontiers – Page 4 – Spaceflight Now

New Horizons on track for historic New Year’s Day flyby of Ultima Thule

October 28, 2018 William Harwood

Thirteen years outbound from Earth and a billion miles past Pluto, NASA’s New Horizons probe is healthy and on course for a historic New Year’s Day flyby of its next target, a frozen remnant left over from the birth of the solar system 4.6 billion years ago, project scientists say.

NASA approves three-year extension for Juno mission orbiting Jupiter

June 8, 2018 Stephen Clark

NASA’s robotic Juno spacecraft wil spend another three years probing the inside of Jupiter, giving the mission more time to meet its primary science objectives after concerns over the health of the probe’s engine prevented it from dropping into a lower, shorter orbit around the solar system’s biggest planet.

NASA’s New Horizons probe wakes up for New Year’s Day flyby

June 5, 2018 Stephen Clark

Speeding through the outer reaches of the solar system nearly 3.8 billion miles from Earth, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft has awakened from a five-and-a-half month slumber, ready for a second act after its 2015 flyby of Pluto with a New Year’s Day encounter with a primordial world set to become the most distant object ever explored.

Juno’s latest imagery from Jupiter

January 30, 2018 Stephen Clark

NASA’s Juno spacecraft, now on its 11th orbit around Jupiter, continues to return jaw-dropping views of the solar systems’s biggest planet from previously-unseen up-close perspectives of its colorful clouds and raging storms.

Asteroid missions on track to reach their destinations in 2018

January 18, 2018 Stephen Clark

Pioneering spacecraft from NASA and the Japanese space agency promise to reveal two unexplored asteroids later this year, officials said Wednesday, beginning surveys that will culminate in daring descents to capture samples for return to Earth, where eager scientists await a hands-on look at the specimens.

Titan drone, comet sampler picked as finalists for NASA mission

December 20, 2017 Stephen Clark

NASA has narrowed its choices for a new billion-dollar robotic space mission: A plutonium-powered quadcopter to explore the hazy landscape of Saturn’s largest moon Titan, or a probe to scoop up a piece of a comet and return it to Earth.

NASA’s Juno spacecraft to remain in current orbit around Jupiter

February 21, 2017 Stephen Clark

Concerns about the health of the Juno spacecraft’s main engine have compelled NASA managers to keep the research probe in its current arcing, high-altitude orbit around Jupiter, a decision that will delay the full science return from the $1.1 billion mission but should still allow it to meet all predetermined objectives.

Juno dives over Jupiter’s cloud tops with main engine still offline

February 2, 2017 Stephen Clark

NASA’s Juno spacecraft made a high-speed pass less than 3,000 miles over Jupiter’s turbulent clouds Thursday, taking dozens of pictures, measuring radiation and plasma waves, and peering deep inside the planet’s atmosphere, but officials still have not cleared the orbiter’s main engine for a planned maneuver to position the probe in its intended science orbit.

NASA’s OSIRIS-REx probe moonlights as asteroid sleuth

February 1, 2017 Stephen Clark

On course to collect specimens from asteroid Bennu after its launch last year, NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft will search this month for objects locked in orbits near Earth, a bonus science opportunity to locate possible fragments of the primordial building blocks that formed our home planet.

Juno recovers from reboot, but propulsion problem lingers

October 28, 2016 Stephen Clark

NASA’s Juno spacecraft will stay in its current long-period orbit around Jupiter until at least February, and perhaps longer, as engineers study balky valves inside the science probe’s propulsion system and an unexpected computer reboot that interrupted key functions of the orbiter earlier this month.