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Cool stuff brewing at Honeybee Robotics
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2012/03/15 03:05 CDT
Yesterday I was treated to a little tour (little, because it's a little building) of Honeybee Robotics' office here in Pasadena. They were putting on a show for a state visit by the new NASA Chief Technology Officer Mason Peck, and had invited media. I was one of only two media who showed up, and I have to say that people who stayed away missed a cool show. Honeybee is developing some great technology for future space missions for Earth, Mars, and beyond.
Infographic: Viewing our universe's colors
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2012/02/14 03:08 CST
An infographic explains in what "colors" of electromagnetic radiation we been able to observe our universe, over the length of the space age.
Planetary Radio: A Modest Plea For Both Big and Not-So-Big Space Science Funding
Posted by Mat Kaplan on 2012/02/06 09:46 CST
This weeks Planetary Radio features updates on the James Webb Space Telescope, from Deputy Project Director Eric Smith. The discussion centers around the budget controversy, and why the JWST is worth the money.
The state of Earth observation, January 2012
Posted by Jason Davis on 2012/01/09 05:54 CST
As of November 2011, the Earth Observing Handbook counts 109 active missions to study the Earth as a planet, with 112 more approved and planned for the future. Jason Davis provides an overview of key current and upcoming earth-observing missions.
How did they make the nuclear power source for the Curiosity rover?
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2011/11/28 03:07 CST
Maybe it's because I was a kid during the Cold War; I always assume that information about anything nuclear only comes out on that "need-to-know basis."
The fish that sent us to the moon
Posted by Jason Davis on 2011/10/20 06:16 CDT
The tale of NASA's Super Guppy aircraft, which ferried parts of America's space program to their launch pads.
Decoding SpaceX's re-usable spacecraft concept
Posted by Jason Davis on 2011/10/07 10:45 CDT
Breaking down the futuristic technologies for SpaceX's reusable Grasshopper spacecraft, as shown in a recent promotional video.
Weekend watching: 3D Movie from Mars
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2011/09/09 07:07 CDT
Weekend watching: 3D Movie from Mars
Your guide to a shuttle landing
Posted by Jason Davis on 2011/07/19 11:58 CDT | 1 comments
The final installment of my three-part series on the basics of shuttle launches and landings. Part III: de-orbiting, re-entering and landing.
Posted by Meg Schwamb on 2011/06/08 02:43 CDT
On May 5 and 6, I had a run on the WIYN (Wisconsin-Indiana-Yale-NOAO) telescope, a 3.5 m telescope, the second largest telescope on Kitt Peak in Arizona.
Posted by Ryan Anderson on 2011/05/27 09:01 CDT
Laser beams and space exploration are perfect for each other, and not just because all self-respecting starship captains know their way around a blaster. It turns out that zapping rocks with a laser is not only fun, it also can tell you what they're made of!
Neat video of Curiosity drive testing (plus a code-cracking challenge)
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2011/03/21 01:37 CDT
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory has posted a short video showing some recent testing of an engineering model of the Mars Science Laboratory in their outdoor Mars Yard; they're testing the performance of the rover's driving capability over slopes of varying steepness and covered with bedrock, compacted sand, and very loose sand.
What about the non-imaging data from spacecraft?
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2010/01/18 10:48 CST
Data from all science instruments on all of NASA's and ESA's space missions, not just cameras, is archived in the Planetary Data System and Planetary Science Archive, and almost all of that data is available online.
Hayabusa's still coming home: JAXA engineers come up with yet another creative solution
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2009/11/19 11:16 CST
Posted by Timothy Reed on 2009/06/15 03:56 CDT
Timothy Reed explains how optical telescopes are tested for gravity sag, and the methods used to counteract or compensate for it.
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.
Looking at Mars with the MRO CTX
Posted by Ken Edgett on 2009/05/29 12:21 CDT
Looking at Mars with the MRO CTX
Europlanet : CoRoT - Preliminary Results
Posted by Doug Ellison on 2007/08/20 03:48 CDT
ESA's planet-hunting satellite COROT bagged its first exoplanet in observations of the star COROT-Exo-1.
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2005/07/04 01:45 CDT
Live blog from the press room at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory as Deep Impact's Impactor meets its fate at the comet....
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