Articles

Jason Davis

At 02:21 IST (20:51 UTC), the spacecraft fired its main engine, changing its orbit to intersect with the Moon.

Justin Cowart

The current strategy includes the Mars 2020 rover, a lander carrying a rover and ascent vehicle, and an Earth return orbiter.

Jason Davis

JAXA's sample collection spacecraft touched down just 60 centimeters away from its aimpoint.

Andrew Jones

Don’t worry, this was a planned end for a tiny satellite that has been a huge success.

Jatan Mehta

Liftoff atop the country’s GSLV Mk III rocket occurred on 22 July at 14:43 IST (09:13 UTC).

Heidi Hammel

Twenty-five years ago, multiple fragments of comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 crashed into Jupiter, changing the face of the planet and the course of planetary science.

Andrew Jones

Japan's Hayabusa2 spacecraft has touched down on Ryugu for a second time, bagging samples which hopefully contain material from the subsurface of the asteroid.

Sridhar Narayanan

A preview guide for India's upcoming Moon mission.

Emily Lakdawalla

InSight has detected a couple more small Marsquakes, and the team has lifted the housing of the heat probe off the ground, exposing the top of the mole in a surprisingly wide hole.

Emily Lakdawalla

With Comet Interceptor, ESA plans to meet a comet on its first trip into the inner solar system. The mission was selected yesterday after a fast-track proposal process and will be developed on a rapid (for ESA) timeline, with a launch planned for 2028.

Emily Lakdawalla

Last week, NASA’s OSIRIS-REx asteroid sample-return mission announced that they had achieved an orbit above asteroid Bennu with an altitude of only 680 meters. Now they are surveying for landing sites and have invited the public's help.

Justin Foley

LightSail 2 is launching on the next SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. It is one payload of many on the mission known collectively as STP-2. Space Test Program (STP) is a crucial part of the US Air Force’s development of advanced technologies in space.

Emily Lakdawalla

Two feature articles bring you the excitement and science of exploring two very different representatives of the solar system's smaller worlds.

Martin Rubin

Rosetta is a European Space Agency mission with contributions from its member states and NASA. Operating such a complex mission with its 11 instruments and Philae lander is a success story in itself, but Rosetta’s greatest success is the science it delivered.

Makoto Yoshikawa

IN THE EARLY hours of 22 February, light was just beginning to brighten the campus of JAXA’s Institute of Space and Astronautical Sciences (ISAS) in Kanagawa, Japan. It should have been a quiet time, but the Hayabusa2 control room was packed with people. We were about to land on an asteroid.

Jason Davis

The reflective softball-sized sphere will give the spacecraft a visual guide during a second potential sample collection.

Emily Lakdawalla

Wispy clouds of stunning beauty fly over Curiosity every evening.

Richard Chute

LightSail 2’s launch window opens on June 22, and we are finalizing plans for our launch viewing celebrations. Once we have finished coordinating the details with the Air Force’s STP-2 mission team and the Kennedy Space Center, we will share them with all of our members and backers so that you can join us in person or remotely via the internet.

Jason Davis

The spacecraft is healthy and safe, but time is running out to collect a second sample from asteroid Ryugu.

Emily Lakdawalla

Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has successfully imaged the impact site of the Beresheet lander, which made a really good run at performing the first privately funded Moon landing on 11 April, but crashed after the failure of its main engine.