Articles

A.J.S. Rayl

The Mars Exploration Rovers managed to log another couple of significant milestones this month even as they worked in place, on autopilot, for the last two weeks during superior conjunction, the period that occurs every 2 years when Earth and Mars orbit into positions on opposite sides of the Sun, obscured from each other. With the conjunction now over, the rovers are slated to be back in command operation by tomorrow, All Hallow's Eve or, more popularly, Halloween.

Emily Lakdawalla

A press release just hit my mailbox stating that MESSENGER has been heard from since its Venus flyby, so there are now only four flybys to go before MESSENGER will be in orbit at Mercury!

Emily Lakdawalla

There is a big event taking place tomorrow: the MESSENGER spacecraft flies by Venus for the first time.

A.J.S. Rayl

The Mars Exploration Rovers are reaching new milestones and gaining newfound energy as winter slowly begins to pass on the Red Planet. Once again, Opportunity commanded the spotlight as it pulled up to the rim of the massive Victoria crater this week and began returning images that may redefine the word spellbinding. Twin sister, Spirit, meanwhile, is resigned to stay in its northward-tilted position for another month looking at the same scenery in order to collect the maximum energy supply for its solar panels.

A.J.S. Rayl

The Mars Exploration Rovers, which bounced to landings in January 2004 with 90-day warranties, have survived their second winter solstice on the Red Planet and are still going strong more than two and a half years after landing.

A.J.S. Rayl

The Mars Exploration Rovers (MER) are working right through the depths of the winter at their respective locations in Gusev Crater and Meridiani Planum. Although the twin robot field geologists are putting in short days and taking quality time to recharge, they still have team members marveling over their latest Martian finds.

Emily Lakdawalla

Over time, Cassini's orbit apoapsis—the point on the orbit that is farthest from Saturn—has been shifting slowly toward Saturn's night side. Lately, this point of view has resulted in some truly lovely photos of the planet.

Emily Lakdawalla

Following immediately on the heels of the release of the

Emily Lakdawalla

Cassini's T7 flyby of Titan occurred on September 7, 2005. They've now released the full swath of RADAR image data to the Planetary Data System; here it is for your enjoyment.

A.J.S. Rayl

The Mars Exploration Rovers (MER) are wheel deep in winter, and still faring well, working hard, and sending home interesting new finds despite the below freezing Martian temperatures. The next month or so will bring the season's coldest temperatures to the rover's present habitats, but so far, no one on the team is losing any sleep over whether or not they'll make it through, because these rovers just keep going and going . . .

Emily Lakdawalla

I just received a MESSENGER mission news update stating that the MESSENGER spacecraft, en route to Mercury via two Venus flybys, has passed another milestone on its long journey: it has, for the last time, passed from Earth's environs toward the inner solar system.

Emily Lakdawalla

New Horizons is spending the summer traversing the asteroid belt. I haven't written a lot about New Horizons lately because the mission has been going so uneventfully well. But now I've got something to write about: data!!

Emily Lakdawalla

Today Nature published an article titled

A.J.S. Rayl

The Mars Exploration Rovers are now well into their second Martian winter and, all things considered, both Spirit and Opportunity are faring pretty well for being, essentially, aging Baby Boomers on bitter cold, dusty alien planet some 50 million miles away from home.

Emily Lakdawalla

With the Aurora program under way, the next European mission to Mars will be a rover named ExoMars, to be launched in 2011.

Emily Lakdawalla

This week's releases from the Mars Odyssey THEMIS team included a gorgeous one of the layered interior of Gale crater.

Emily Lakdawalla

OK, I finally got a story written about the latest and greatest of the Cassini RADAR data based upon a conversation I had with with Ralph Lorenz late last week.

Emily Lakdawalla

Since the last Titan flyby on April 30, the Cassini RADAR team has been releasing quite a large number of pieces of the swath to the Web.

Emily Lakdawalla

Last week's Cassini Significant Events Report included a detailed play-by-play of the frightening morning of Mayday. I thought it was a very interesting read on how a mission deals with an

Emily Lakdawalla

After the political discussions of the morning, Mike Brown stood up to give the