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The Planetary Society Blog
Archive
Archived posts are listed in reverse chronological order.
Feb. 13, 2009 | 08:34 PST | 16:34 UTC
Dawn Journal: Mars encounter
Here's a special pre-Mars update on the Dawn mission, contributed by Marc Rayman, the mission's Project System Engineer. Thanks Marc! --ESL
by Dr. Marc D. Rayman
Dear Charles Dawnwins,
Dawn continues to close in on Mars, ready for the... More»
Feb. 13, 2009 | 07:34 PST | 15:34 UTC
Lunar missions: the start of an ending for one, the start of a beginning for another
JAXA reported today that "The relay satellite 'OKINA (RSTAR)' made an impact on the lunar surface on February 12, 2009 (JST), and the four-way Doppler measurement mission was successfully completed." Okina was just a tiny subsatellite deployed by... More»
Feb. 12, 2009 | 13:52 PST | 21:52 UTC
Jupiter may have a "super-Earth" at its center
This story has been lying in my inbox since Thanksgiving, but that doesn't make it any less interesting. The results of a new computer model developed by Burkhard Militzer and four coauthors suggest that deep inside the solar system's largest... More»
Feb. 12, 2009 | 06:17 PST | 14:17 UTC
Diagram of on-orbit satellite collision
Via spaceweather.com comes this diagram showing the orbits of the two satellites that collided on the 10th. They were in nearly perpendicular polar orbits. Space around Earth may be "crowded" but still this was a low-probability event by any... More»
Feb. 11, 2009 | 19:51 PST | Feb. 12 03:51 UTC
Two Earth-orbiting satellites collide
This is a big deal. It doesn't have any immediate ramifications for space science, but it's still a big deal. Two spacecraft -- one of them a functioning Iridium communications satellite, part of their satellite phone network, and the other one a... More»
Feb. 11, 2009 | 17:39 PST | Feb. 12 01:39 UTC
Dawn's really feeling Mars now
Dawn is scheduled to fly past Mars on February 18 at 00:29:06 UTC, a little under a week from now. In a few hours it'll be close enough to Mars that the force that Dawn feels from Mars' gravity is stronger than the force it feels from the Sun; that... More»
Feb. 10, 2009 | 14:51 PST | 22:51 UTC
Extensions for ESA's missions to Venus and Mars
ESA's Science Programme Committee has seen fit to extend the funding for both Mars Express and Venus Express until at least December 31, 2009; this is a seven-month extension to both missions. This is the third mission extension for Mars Express,... More»
Feb. 9, 2009 | 14:00 PST | 22:00 UTC
Catching up on some news: LPSC, MESSENGER at perihelion, Google Mars, Okina impact
Due to the now-completed home move I've been really out of it for more than a week; it's time to catch up. Without further ado, here's some neglected news...there's much more where this came from...
The program for the 40th Lunar and Planetary... More»
Feb. 9, 2009 | 11:35 PST | 19:35 UTC
New names for gaps in Saturn's rings
According to a bulletin today from the USGS, there are nine new formal names for many gaps in the Saturnian ring system: Bond, Dawes, Herschel, Russell, Jeffreys, Kuiper, Laplace, Bessel, and Barnard. Here's a table, again copied from the USGS,... More»
Feb. 7, 2009 | 16:09 PST | Feb. 8 00:09 UTC
There's more to the Hayabusa story
After posting my brief "Hooray for Hayabusa" note on Thursday I got an email from the Japanese blogger "5thstar," telling me that there was more to Hayabusa's story and pointing me to his translation to English of a lengthier Hayabusa update written... More»
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