Pictures of Spacecraft

Formation flying

The current A-train leader is Aqua, which is always a minimum 10 seconds ahead of CloudSat, the second member. CloudSat stays at least 17.5 seconds ahead of CALIPSO, which maintains a minimum distance of 343 seconds from Aura, the train's "caboose."

Filed under mission status, spacecraft, trajectory diagrams, Earth observing missions

Encouragement for everyone back home

In a cartoon posted by @Akatsuki_JAXA (the Twitter identity of Japan's Venus spacecraft), Japan's spacecraft are offering encouragement to the people in their quake- and tsunami-struck homeland. A literal translation of the text, by @kazenoiro: "Everybody in Japan! Do your best. Help each other," and "We continue to send our heart (cheer and pray) from space." A looser translation, from @hee913758: "Everyone in Japan, pull together! Our hearts go out to you all." In the cartoon are IKAROS and its deployed cameras DCAM-1 and DCAM-2; Hayabusa and its mini-lander MINERVA; Akatsuki; and the Michibiki global positioning satellite.

Filed under pretty pictures, fun, art, spacecraft, Akatsuki (Planet-C), IKAROS, Hayabusa (MUSES-C)

Human mission to an asteroid

Filed under pretty pictures, spacecraft, art, human spaceflight, Future Mission Concepts

The Dragon approaches

A rendering of the SpaceX Dragon capsule approaching the International Space Station.

Filed under pretty pictures, art, spacecraft, private spaceflight

The Dragon Spacecraft, docked at the ISS

Filed under pretty pictures, art, spacecraft, private spaceflight

Double Dragons

Artist's concept of the International Space Station, with two SpaceX Dragon capsules docked.

Filed under pretty pictures, art, spacecraft, private spaceflight

Endeavour flight deck, powered on for almost the last time 2

Filed under pretty pictures, spacecraft, human spaceflight, Space Shuttle program

Galileo

Filed under pretty pictures, spacecraft, Galileo, art

Venus Express

Filed under pretty pictures, spacecraft, art, Venus Express

Opportunity in Endurance Crater

A computer-generated image of Opportunity has been placed in context in an image it captured of Endurance Crater on sol 134 (June 9, 2004).

Filed under pretty pictures, spacecraft, art, Mars Exploration Rovers, Opportunity

NuSTAR

The NuSTAR spacecraft in its final configuration. Incoming X-rays enter the optics package in the foreground, and are reflected 10 meters to the detectors at the rear of the spacecraft. The mast connecting the two sections of the spacecraft is collapsible, and will not deploy until NuSTAR is in orbit.

Filed under pretty pictures, spacecraft, art, astronomy and astrophysics spacecraft

OSIRIS-REx grabs a sample

Screen capture from this video.

Filed under pretty pictures, spacecraft, art, OSIRIS-REx

Opportunity at Cabo Frio

This image superimposes an artist's concept of the Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity atop the 'Cabo Frio' promontory on the rim of 'Victoria Crater' in the Meridiani Planum region of Mars. It is done to give a sense of scale. The underlying image was taken by Opportunity's panoramic camera during sol 952 (Sept. 28, 2006).

Filed under pretty pictures, spacecraft, art, Mars Exploration Rovers, Opportunity