Articles

Larry Crumpler

Opportunity is continuing its drive down Perseverance Valley, a possible channel that was cut in the inner wall of the 22 km-diameter Endeavour impact crater on ancient Mars.

Phil Stooke

How were the Chang'e 5 and 4 landing sites chosen? Space exploration historian Phil Stooke explains.

Emily Lakdawalla

OSIRIS-REx launched on September 8, 2016. Now, a year later, it's returning to its home to get a second boost on to its destination, the asteroid Bennu. It'll test all its cameras on Earth and the Moon in the 10 days after the flyby.

Emily Lakdawalla

Cassini is no more. At 10:31 according to its own clock, its thrusters could no longer hold its radio antenna pointed at Earth, and it turned away. A minute later, it vaporized in Saturn’s atmosphere. Its atoms are part of Saturn now.

Emily Lakdawalla

Curiosity had a productive three months driving along the front of Vera Rubin Ridge, gathering photos and data with its arm instruments, finally driving up on to the ridge on sol 1809.

Emily Lakdawalla

A timeline of what to expect from the great mission during its final hours.

Jason Davis

The end of the Cassini mission is a harbinger for a looming gap in outer planets exploration missions.

Paul Schenk

Planetary scientist Paul Schenk shares his story of working on the Voyager missions as a JPL intern back in 1979.

Emily Lakdawalla

Since December 1, 2016, Curiosity has been unable to drill into rocks because of a serious problem with one of the drill's motors. Emily Lakdawalla thoroughly explains the issues and the path forward for Curiosity.

Emily Lakdawalla

Today is the 40th anniversary of the launch of Voyager 1. Four decades later, both spacecraft survive, still producing science, still working on their interstellar missions. On the occasion of the anniversary, we revisit Carl Sagan's reflections on the significance of the Voyager missions.

Emily Lakdawalla

Emily Lakdawalla's first book is now available for pre-order.

A.J.S. Rayl

Along the western rim of Endeavour Crater, Opportunity forged onward in August vicariously taking the Mars Exploration Rovers team – along with a global contingent of mission observers all around Earth – downhill into Perseverance Valley and deeper into a new chapter in this legendary expedition of the Red Planet.

Casey Dreier

Casey Dreier says NASA's decision to pursue a Mars sample return mission is good news for Mars fans, Mars scientists and supporters of the decadal survey process.

Björn Jónsson

Björn Jónsson argues that even now, 40 years after Voyager 1 and 2 were launched, a lot of the data they returned is still of high interest.

Ian Regan

In 1979, both Voyager missions captured thousands of photos of Jupiter as frames of movies of the giant planet spinning among its moons. In honor of the mission's 40th launch anniversary, Ian Regan has reprocessed the data to produce stunning new movies.

Jason Davis

Thus far, no plan has solidified on how to get soil and rock samples from the upcoming Mars 2020 rover back to Earth. That is starting to change.

Emily Lakdawalla

In honor of the 40th anniversary of the Voyager missions, we're making publicly available seven back issues of The Planetary Report that chronicled the grand tour of the giant planets.

Ted Stryk

The Voyager missions transformed most of the large worlds of the solar system from points of light into places to be explored.

Jason Davis

Is the quest for flight by light approaching a tipping point? Representatives from the NEA Scout, CubeSail and StarChip missions discuss how their spacecraft are advancing the art of solar sailing.

Emily Lakdawalla

Sunday, August 20 marks the 40th anniversary of the launch of Voyager 2. Tuesday, September 5, will be the 40th anniversary for Voyager 1. Throughout the next three weeks, we'll be posting new and classic material in honor of the Voyagers. Here's a preview.