Planetary Science – Page 14

NASA’s InSight mission shows Mars is a seismically active world

February 26, 2020 Stephen Clark

While one of its two science instruments remains sidelined, NASA’s InSight probe has proven Mars is seismically active through the detection of hundreds of quakes, some of which can be traced to a volcanic region nearly 1,000 miles away.

Phobos sample return mission enters development for 2024 launch

February 20, 2020 Stephen Clark

Japan’s space agency has approved a robotic mission to retrieve a sample from the Martian moon Phobos for return to Earth to begin full development for a planned launch in 2024, officials said Thursday.

Mars 2020 rover arrives at Kennedy Space Center for July launch

February 14, 2020 Stephen Clark

Two U.S. Air Force cargo planes delivered the Mars 2020 rover, cruise stage, descent module and the Mars Helicopter to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida this week for final assembly, fueling and mounting atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket in preparation for liftoff in July.

NASA to assess proposals for probes to Venus, moons of Jupiter and Neptune

February 13, 2020 Stephen Clark

NASA announced Thursday it will fund four concept studies for potential robotic missions to Venus, Jupiter’s moon Io and Neptune’s moon Triton ahead of a decision next year to approve up to two of the projects for launch in the mid-to-late 2020s.

Discoveries at solar system’s distant frontier shed light on how planets form

February 13, 2020 Stephen Clark

Data from the encounter of NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft with a frozen reddish snowman-shaped object a billion miles beyond Pluto last year suggest the building blocks of planets may have formed less violently than many scientists expected, officials said Thursday.

NASA invites public to vote on name for Mars 2020 rover

January 22, 2020 Stephen Clark

NASA has announced the nine finalists for the name of the space agency’s next Mars rover — scheduled for launch in July — and invited the public to vote on the candidates before making a final selection in the coming months.

ESA’s Huygens probe landed on Saturn’s moon Titan 15 years ago

January 14, 2020 Stephen Clark

Fifteen years after accomplishing the first-ever landing on Saturn’s moon Titan, lessons learned from the European Space Agency’s Huygens spacecraft continue aiding designers of future planetary probes, according to new results from a study looking at why the landing craft spun the wrong way as it descended through Titan’s thick, hazy atmosphere.

China publishes Chang’e 4 data one year after first landing on far side of the moon

January 6, 2020 Stephen Clark

Chinese officials marked the one-year anniversary of the Chang’e 4 mission’s historic first soft landing on the far side of the moon Friday with the public release of data collected by scientific instruments and cameras on the lunar lander and rover.

NASA’s next Mars rover will soon ship to Cape Canaveral launch site

January 2, 2020 Stephen Clark

Fresh off its first terrestrial test drive, NASA’s Mars 2020 rover was displayed to media last week at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California before it’s packed up and flown across the country to Cape Canaveral in February to begin final launch preparations for liftoff in July.

NASA selects site for OSIRIS-REx to collect asteroid samples

December 12, 2019 Stephen Clark

Using precise autonomous navigation algorithms, NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft will descend to the surface of an asteroid next year, aiming to retrieve rock specimens for return to Earth from a gravelly pit flanked by hazardous boulders, scientists said Thursday.