Articles

Marc Rayman

After the remarkably successful initial checkout phase, Dawn is now in the interplanetary cruise phase.

Emily Lakdawalla

Dust from the sky has settled on both the rover deck and the surrounding landscape. The dust-covered solar cells will not be able to generate as much power as when they were clean. Unless a puff of wind dusts off the solar panels, Spirit may have difficulty surviving the approaching Martian winter.

A.J.S. Rayl

Nail-biting drama and the inevitable signs of aging marked the month of November for the Mars Exploration Rovers, with Spirit accidentally encountering Tartarus, a dust-filled crater, on its way to its winter haven and having to thrash for its life, and Opportunity spending a lot of its time conducting tests on its RAT (rock abrasion tool), which lost another encoder.

Emily Lakdawalla

JAXA has released a 30-minute video of the Hayabusa mission,

Emily Lakdawalla

A couple of days ago Malin Space Science Systems (MSSS) issued a news notice that explains some of the horse-trading that went on behind the scenes to rescue MARDI, the descent imaging camera that they are building for the Mars Science Laboratory rover.

Marc Rayman

Now more than halfway through its 80-day initial checkout phase, the Dawn spacecraft continues to please its fans in mission control and throughout much of the rest of the universe.

A.J.S. Rayl

The Mars Exploration Rovers (MER) logged another major milestone in October as they completed a second Martian year of field geology and now may rove on through 2009.

Emily Lakdawalla

After three days of presentations, voting, and extended discussions, the

Marc Rayman

Dawn's checkout phase continues to go very well. The spacecraft is healthy as it and Earth travel their separate ways, separating at almost 1 light second per day.

Emily Lakdawalla

The latest on MSL landing sites, a look at comet outbursts, and links to other stuff.

Emily Lakdawalla

Unlike the Mars Exploration Rover mission, which featured two golf-cart-sized landers, this time we have only one giant, Volkswagen beetle-size. So at the end of this process we have to pick our favorite place on Mars, not our favorite two places.

Emily Lakdawalla

The Mars Exploration Rovers have left wheel tracks all over their landing sites, but for some reason this pair of wheel tracks, left in the sand ripple on the rim of Victoria crater and now viewed from below, tickled my fancy. Thanks to James Canvin for the lovely panorama.

Emily Lakdawalla

Lakes have been spotted near the south pole of Titan before, in this image by the ISS team, which was considered compelling but not conclusive at the time.

Marc Rayman

Joining an elite club among spacecraft, Dawn successfully fired up its xenon ion propulsion system on October 6.

Marc Rayman

The Dawn project welcomes you to deep space! Dawn is operating smoothly on the fourth day of its eight-year adventure.

A.J.S. Rayl

It might not be the stuff of Broadway musicals, but the Sun and did

Ken Kremer

At 7:34 a.m. EDT the Delta II Heavy roared off launch pad 17 B at Cape Canaveral with a brilliant flash of glowing orange light and billowing white smoke.

Emily Lakdawalla

This afternoon Alan Stern posted to unmannedspaceflight.com that New Horizons has successfully completed the trajectory correction maneuver that lines the spacecraft up for its July 14, 2015 encounter with Pluto.

Marc Rayman

The countdown is underway for Dawn's liftoff on September 26 at 7:25:00 am EDT. This is the second time our hero has been within a few days of launch.

Marc Rayman

Now less than two weeks from its planned September 26 launch, Dawn is eagerly awaiting the beginning of its fantastic adventure.