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What does decommissioning a spacecraft entail?
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2011/03/03 12:47 CST
In my last couple of posts about the Stardust spacecraft, which is now basically out of fuel after a remarkably successful extended mission to comet Tempel 1, I've mentioned that it's soon to be decommissioned. A reader asked me: what does it mean to decommission a spacecraft?
How much is Vesta's geology controlled by its one huge impact feature?
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2011/02/07 02:09 CST
Here's a neat paper just published in Geophysical Research Letters: "Mega-ejecta on asteroid Vesta." In it, Martin Jutzi and Erik Asphaug consider Vesta's shape -- which appears to be dominated by a very large impact crater centered at its south pole -- and ask how much of the great big asteroid Vesta's global appearance is likely to be dominated by the effects of that one large impact.
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2011/01/27 05:32 CST
I've spent the day noodling around in the current issue of Icarus, following up some of the more interesting stories within its table of contents, and came across a picture of this very cool crater -- actually, set of craters -- on Mars.
Scientific clarification: "inverted topography" is more general than "esker-like features"
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2011/01/14 10:50 CST
In the past couple of months I've received several emails from scientists offering clarifications, corrections, or alternative points of view to previous posts, which is awesome and something that I enthusiastically encourage. Here's one of them.
Bill Nye Connects with Space People at IAC
Posted by Susan Lendroth on 2010/09/30 12:23 CDT
The 61st International Astronautical Congress (IAC)is being held in Prague in the Czech Republic, and Bill Nye is attending on behalf of the Planetary Society.
Posted by Emily Martin on 2010/08/16 01:42 CDT
In response to Emily's entry about finally getting her hands on a subscription to the planetary science journal Icarus, I thought I would report on an article from the most recent issue: Geology of the Selk crater region on Titan from Cassini VIMS observations, by Jason Soderblom and 11 other scientists.
Critical partnerships for the future of human space exploration
Posted by Andre Bormanis on 2010/07/21 07:05 CDT
Exploring the current debate in the context of these three partnerships might help illuminate how future human expeditions beyond LEO will be carried out.tical partnerships for the future of human space exploration
Jupiter's faded belt: It's happened before, and it'll happen again
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2010/06/16 05:07 CDT
When I wrote a post about Jupiter's missing South Equatorial Belt in May, I had three main questions: how long did it take for the belt to go away, has this happened before, and how can a planet as big as Jupiter change its appearance so quickly?
2010 AL30: Watch out for low-flying asteroids
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2010/01/12 11:52 CST
In less than 24 hours, a newly discovered asteroid known as 2010 AL30 will be zipping past Earth at an altitude of approximately a third the Earth-Moon distance. There's no chance it'll hit us, but it's generating a lot of excitement in the community of amateur and professional near-Earth asteroid observers.
Bruce Betts: Kepler discovers its first five exoplanets
Posted by Bruce Betts on 2010/01/04 12:06 CST
Congratulations to NASA's Kepler mission team on their announcement of the discovery of its first five exoplanets (planets around other stars). All five are "hot Jupiters," meaning that they are the sizes of the gas giants in our solar system, but are extremely close to their parent stars.
Reports from the 2009 arctic Mars analogue Svalbard expedition
Posted by Juan Diego Rodriguez-Blanco on 2009/10/06 12:10 CDT
The expedition's goals were to integrate and test two new instruments for NASA's Mars Science Laboratory rover and four for ESA's ExoMars rover.
Dunes in the Outback Red Center
Posted by Jani Radebaugh on 2009/07/29 12:12 CDT
Jani talks about the importance of understanding analogs we can easily visit on Earth to processes happening across the solar system.
Cassini RADAR continues to gaze at Titan
Posted by Jani Radebaugh on 2009/07/27 07:08 CDT
The Cassini spacecraft made its 59th flyby of Titan, Saturn's largest moon, on Friday, July 24, and in the last few hours we have received images from the RADAR instrument in SAR (Synthetic Aperture Radar) mode.
Posted by John Smith on 2009/06/07 12:01 CDT
Each Titan flyby is not a fork in the road, but rather a Los Angeles style cloverleaf in terms of the dizzying number of possible destinations. So how did our current and future plans for the path of the Cassini spacecraft come to be? That's the question Dave Seal put to me since that's my job -- I am a tour designer.
Canto II: Titan's Atmosphere and the Solar Cycle
Posted by David Seal on 2009/06/03 04:44 CDT
David Seal explains the complications for Cassini coming from Titan's atmosphere and Solar Cycle.
Posted by David Seal on 2009/06/02 01:58 CDT
David Seal muses on his time as the mission planner for Cassini, and the history behind its name, and astronomy in Rome.
Water and the Curiosity Landing Site Candidates
Posted by Ken Edgett on 2009/05/28 10:09 CDT | 2 comments
Water and the Curiosity Landing Site Candidates
Mars: "Follow the Water" Is Not Dead
Posted by Ken Edgett on 2009/05/26 11:53 CDT
Mars: "Follow the Water" Is Not Dead
Ever Plan Ahead? How About Six Years Ahead?
Posted by Alan Stern on 2009/05/19 07:05 CDT
Despite still being more than six years and just over 18 Astronomical Units from the Pluto system, the project team for New Horizons is conducting the second and final portion of our Pluto Encounter Preliminary Design Review (EPDR) tomorrow and the next day.
Posted by Jim Bell on 2009/05/04 12:46 CDT
Jim Bell describes his proposal to join the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Cameras science team.
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