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The Planetary Society Blog

Archive

Archived posts are listed in reverse chronological order.


  • Oct. 29, 2008 | 12:28 PDT | 19:28 UTC
    Chandrayaan-1 update: Still in Earth orbit, closer to the Moon
    According to an update posted to the Chandrayaan-1 website this morning, the Indian lunar orbiter has now performed four orbit-raising maneuvers, and is now (after a maneuver at 02:08 UTC today) on an orbit with an apogee of 267,000 kilometers. ... More»
  • Oct. 28, 2008 | 16:27 PDT | 23:27 UTC
    Schedule notes for tomorrow: Constellation and MESSENGER
    Some sharp-eyed folks have noticed that there are two colliding press briefings being held by NASA tomorrow at 1:00 Eastern time (17:00 UTC). One is a long-planned, probably triumphant science update on early results from MESSENGER's second flyby... More»
  • Oct. 28, 2008 | 15:33 PDT | 22:33 UTC
    The beginning of the end for Phoenix: No more robotic arm operations
    NASA and JPL issued a statement today that marks the beginning of Phoenix' descent into death. But by taking the steps outlined in today's statement, the mission hopes to put off that death as long as possible. With less and less sunlight each... More»
  • Oct. 28, 2008 | 11:10 PDT | 18:10 UTC
    Opportunity is really hitting the highway
    Opportunity's drivers are not messing around! Victoria crater, the site of a Mars year's worth of study, is now far over the horizon, as Opportunity has lately completed a series of very long drives. Opportunity is once again sailing the sand seas... More»
  • Oct. 27, 2008 | 14:59 PDT | 21:59 UTC
    One Hubble camera ready for business
    Just a quick update on Hubble here: As you may recall, a glitch within a computer system on September 27 caused it to quit most science operations, and an earlier attempt to revive it didn't work as expected. But the news is getting better: a few... More»
  • Oct. 24, 2008 | 07:21 PDT | 14:21 UTC
    Why is only half of Mars magnetized?
    I'm working my way through a horrendously high pile of magazines that I haven't had time to read, and came across an article in the September 26 issue of Science that is really cool: it neatly explains why only the southern half of Mars is strongly... More»
  • Oct. 23, 2008 | 11:49 PDT | 18:49 UTC
    Chandrayaan-1 raises its orbit
    Chandrayaan-1's journey to the Moon is going smoothly. A press release issued today by the Indian Space Research Organisation stated that Chandrayaan-1 has completed the first of many maneuvers that will transfer it to lunar orbit over the coming... More»
  • Oct. 22, 2008 | 15:18 PDT | 22:18 UTC
    Mimas, Prometheus, and rings in motion
    Here's an entry from the "just plain cool" department: an animation of 20 recent Cassini images, watching Mimas occult Prometheus as the shadowed face of the rings moves across the background. Cassini takes these "mutual event" movies mostly to... More»
  • Oct. 21, 2008 | 18:17 PDT | Oct. 22 01:17 UTC
    Chandrayaan-1 launch was nominal
    A very helpful person who's sitting in India and clearly has a better feed from the webcast than I do has reported that all went well with Chandrayaan-1's launch, and that it'll be "5.5 days" to reach the Moon. (I had previously heard eight.) I... More»
  • Oct. 21, 2008 | 17:53 PDT | Oct. 22 00:53 UTC
    LIFTOFF of Chandrayaan-1! India is on its way to the Moon!
    It's rising amid a huge flare of smoke... It seems to have disappeared immediately into cloud....wait, it shot back out... Everyone in mission control looks so calm! "Nominal"... Plus one minute... Something about tracking...sounded OK... Was... More»