Articles

A.J.S. Rayl

Last month, the Earth's longest-lived and most traveled robot on another planet drove into a network of fractures the likes of which the scientists had never seen before on Mars and wound up working there through the end of the month – and then something not completely unexpected happened.

Jason Davis

The stage is set for NASA’s Orion spacecraft to launch on a two-orbit, four-hour shakedown cruise tomorrow morning. Patrick Air Force Base’s 45th Weather Squadron changed their forecast of an on-time launch to 70 percent—up from the 40 percent chances that marked the start of the week.

Emily Lakdawalla

Hayabusa2's H-IIA rocket has just reached its launchpad! Japan's next asteroid sample return mission was supposed to launch this weekend, but weather has not been good at the Tanegashima launch site and it has been delayed four days already. If the weather holds, it will launch December 3 at 04:22 UT (13:22 JST, or December 2 at 20:22, PT). UPDATED to add links to live webcasts.

Emily Lakdawalla

It's that time of year again! I have a pile of great space-themed books for kids of all ages to recommend, both fiction and nonfiction.

Jason Davis

With less than two days before Orion's maiden voyage, NASA and United Launch Alliance are cautiously optimistic the flight will launch Thursday as scheduled.

Marc Rayman

This month, Marc Rayman looks ahead to some upcoming activities for Dawn as it approaches the dwarf planet Ceres.

Van Kane

With the release of the official Announcement of Opportunity (AO) early in November, NASA has officially begun the competition to select its next low cost ($450M) Discovery program planetary mission. Because planetary scientists are free to propose missions to any destination in the solar system other than the sun and Earth, these competitions bring out the creativity in the planetary science program.

Jason Davis

NASA’s Orion spacecraft is ready to embark on its maiden voyage this Thursday. Here is a timeline of events.

Mat Kaplan

Mat Kaplan gives his take on the stunningly beautiful short film that's been making the rounds on the internet,

Van Kane

The past few months have brought announcements for new missions from India and China as well as a wealth of creative ideas for future missions.

Jason Davis

When Orion launches next week, you may notice something alarming: The spacecraft's rocket sort of catches itself on fire. But not to worry, says United Launch Alliance.

Ted Stryk

Ted Stryk showcases some of his processed versions of recent Hubble Space Telescope views of Mars.

Larry Crumpler

Larry Crumpler returns with an update on Opportunity's recent activities, and its road ahead.

Dante Lauretta

The OSIRIS-REx project released Bennu’s Journey, a movie describing one possible history of our target asteroid – Bennu. The animation is among the most highly detailed productions created by Goddard’s Conceptual Image Laboratory.

Bruce Betts

I am happy to announce a new call for proposals for The Planetary Society’s Gene Shoemaker Near Earth Object (NEO) grant program. Proposals are due Feb. 2, 2015.

Emily Lakdawalla

Venus Express is nearly out of fuel. Any day could be the last of its long mission to Venus.

Jason Davis

Three more humans are in space today following the launch of Soyuz TMA-15M from the chilly steppes of Kazakhstan.

Deepak Dhingra

Deepak Dhingra gives an exciting update from the recent Lunar Exploration and Analysis Group (LEAG) meeting at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab (JHU-APL) in Baltimore.

The last two weeks have been extraordinary for The Planetary Society. As amazing as this increased traffic is, it has brought to light some issues with our website including latency and missing content that we are still working on fixing.

Casey Dreier

Rep. John Culberson, an outspoken supporter of Europa exploration, will assume leadership of an influential congressional committee that funds NASA.