Articles

Emily Lakdawalla

What a dramatic and cool photo! An asteroid with two lobes like Borrelly, lumpy and bouldery like Itokawa, with gorgeous active jets, dramatically lit. Well done, Deep Impact team!

Emily Lakdawalla

Just a very brief update to congratulate the Deep Impact team on what was apparently a successful flyby of Hartley 2!

Mat Kaplan

Discovery has suffered an electrical problem related to one of the main engines. Thanks to delays related to that, and to weather concerns, the launch was scrubbed until Friday at 3:04pm.

Emily Lakdawalla

Here's the five close-approach images of Hartley 2 captured today, November 4, 2010, by the Deep Impact spacecraft, collected into one file. Boy, do these images reward close examination!

Emily Lakdawalla

According to the mission timeline, the Deep Impact high-resolution observations of Hartley 2 are beginning in just a few minutes, at 20:50 according to the clock on the spacecraft.

Emily Lakdawalla

Travel to Kentucky for the 176th Carnival of Space -- bet you didn't know Kentucky had space industry!

Marc Rayman

Continuing its journey to collect treats in the main asteroid belt, Dawn is making excellent progress toward its July 2011 rendezvous with protoplanet Vesta.

Mat Kaplan

Mat Kaplan is at the Kennedy Space Center, 22 hours before shuttle Discovery is due to launch. Parts of the KSC are old and uncared for, while others are at the bleeding edge of space-flight technology.

Mat Kaplan

A brief musing on the public opinion of the shuttle when it was first unveiled, and now, as it's about to be retired.

Emily Lakdawalla

Just a linky post here.

Mat Kaplan

Mat Kaplan relays his experiences and thoughts as he makes his way to the Kennedy Space Center to witness the launch of the shuttle Discovery.

Emily Lakdawalla

The week is finally here: Deep Impact flies past Hartley 2, the smallest comet yet to be visited by a spacecraft, on Thursday, November 4 at 13:50 UTC.

Emily Lakdawalla

Since comet Hartley 2 -- the target of Deep Impact's November 4 flyby -- is near its perihelion, it's no surprise that it's an active comet with lots of outbursts.

A.J.S. Rayl

For the Mars Exploration Rovers, October was a lot like September, which was a lot like August: Spirit continued hibernating at Gusev Crater or so it appears since the rover didn't phone home; and Opportunity picked up the pace to Endeavour Crater again, setting new driving records and marking more milestones along the way.

Emily Lakdawalla

Comet Hartley 2, the target for Deep Impact's close flyby (now just six days away!) made its closest approach to Earth on October 20, at a distance of 17.7 million kilometers.

Emily Lakdawalla

The Cassini Raw Images Website always offers rewards to the browser. This evening I found the raw images necessary to create this color composite, showing the hazy orange moon Titan, the mid-sized icy moon Dione, and the tiny rock Prometheus all at the same time.

Emily Lakdawalla

(I promise that this post will get around to the subject of space exploration in a couple of paragraphs.)

Emily Lakdawalla

The major event of the month will be, of course, Deep Impact's flyby of small comet Hartley 2, which happens at 13:50 UTC on November 4. But there's some other things to take note of.

Emily Lakdawalla

Where's the Cassini Saturn orbiter going to be in the next week -- or hundred weeks? It's all already planned out.

Louis D. Friedman

In mid-October, I attended the First Moscow Solar System Symposium. Its focus was mostly on Phobos science and plans for next year's launch of the Phobos Sample Return Mission (also known as Phobos-Grunt), on which The Planetary Society will be flying the Living Interplanetary Flight Experiment.