Articles

Jason Davis

The LightSail test spacecraft fell silent for a second time, less than a day after completing what appeared to be a successful solar panel deployment.

Scott Maxwell

Former Mars rover driver Scott Maxwell uses Google Cardboard to take a tour of the Red Planet.

Jason Davis

LightSail didn’t send home pretty pictures of Earth today, but it did relay promising signs that its deployable solar panels swung successfully out into space.

A.J.S. Rayl

Opportunity spent a mostly merry month of May on Mars touring Spirit of St. Louis Crater, stopping at science targets named in honor of Charles Lindbergh and the incredible flight he took 88 years ago.

Casey Dreier

NASA's 2016 budget is up for a major vote in the House of Representatives today, but it's just a step on the long road to a final budget in the fall.

Jason Davis

LightSail Mission Managers have decided to split the spacecraft’s sail deployment sequence into two segments, following an extended checkout period that wrapped up Tuesday.

Emily Lakdawalla

Last week the New Horizons mission released a few new processed versions of their latest and greatest images of Pluto. They're the best images of Pluto that Earth has ever seen, but they're still a long way from what New Horizons will be able to show us, six weeks from now.

Tom Kemp

Global Volunteer Coordinator Tom Kemp pays a heartfelt tribute to The Planetary Society's first Global Volunteer Leader, Lonny Baker.

Jason Davis

A jumbled JPG never looked so pretty. This afternoon, LightSail sent home pieces of two images taken by one of the spacecraft's onboard cameras.

Jason Davis

LightSail is almost ready for its moment in the sun. Mission managers are preparing for a manual solar sail deployment this week.

Jason Davis

The Planetary Society’s LightSail test spacecraft reported for duty this afternoon, heralding the end of an uneasy silence caused by a suspected software glitch.

Marc Rayman

Dawn's Chief Engineer and Mission Director Marc Rayman gives an update as the spacecraft's orbit takes it even closer to the dwarf planet Ceres.

Jason Davis

The Planetary Society's LightSail spacecraft is now entering its second week of silence.

Emily Lakdawalla

2015 has seen few deep-space-craft launches, but 2016 is shaping up to be a banner year with three launches, followed quickly by a fourth in early 2017. All of the missions under development have reported significant milestones recently.

Casey Dreier

NASA has been vague about when the new mission to Europa will launch. There's a reason for that, and it's not just orbital mechanics.

Adam Block

Award-winning astrophotographer Adam Block shares some images of nebulae and a galaxy with some special qualities to each of them.

Casey Dreier

NASA just announced the science instruments that will be used to understand the enigmatic ocean moon of Europa. The mission is planned to launch sometime in the early 2020s.

Jason Davis

The Planetary Society’s LightSail test mission has been paused while engineers wait out a suspected software glitch that has silenced the solar sailing spacecraft.

Emily Lakdawalla

Pause your life for six minutes and watch the Sun set....on Mars. Thank you, Glen Nagle, for this awe-inspiring simulation based on Curiosity's sol 956 sunset images.

Emily Lakdawalla

Fantastic new images of Ceres continue to spill out of the Dawn mission, and armchair scientists all over the world are zooming into them, exploring them, and trying to solve the puzzles that they contain.