Articles

Emily Lakdawalla

On August 2, 2005, MESSENGER flew by Earth at an altitude of a mere 2,347 kilometers above Mongolia.

Emily Lakdawalla

Hayabusa (formerly known as MUSES-C) is getting very, very close to its target asteroid Itokawa, and should be arriving soon!

Emily Lakdawalla

I had very much hoped to be able to post an update about the Deep Impact mission this week, but it looks like my various sources are keeping very very quiet (or maybe they are just tired of me pestering them :)

Emily Lakdawalla

First, here's a nice shot of Epimetheus, which was taken about a month ago.

Emily Lakdawalla

Checking the Cassini raw images website, I found quite a few more images of Hyperion this morning. It looks like Cassini had a leisurely flyby of the little moon from roughly 700,000 kilometers' distance.

Bruce Betts

Following last year's Potentially Hazardous Asteroid and a few other non-main-belt discoveries, I looked into what improvements I could make to more efficiently image the sky. The major advance involved the design of a 3-lens corrector comprising 2 stock lenses and a custom lens I made myself.

Bruce Betts

In 2005, The Planetary Society awarded $32,500 as part of its Gene Shoemaker Near Earth Object (NEO) Grant Program. The grants were made to a group of international researchers to find, track, and characterize potentially hazardous NEOs.

Emily Lakdawalla

The Space Shuttle couldn't land at Kennedy Space Center today because of concerns about weather, so I have been expecting a launch delay to be announced for Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Indeed, a 24-hour delay has just been announced; the new launch date is Thursday, August 11 from 7:50 to 9:35 a.m. EDT (11:50 to 13:35 UTC).

Emily Lakdawalla

I didn't watch the Shuttle land -- but I sure noticed when it did!

Emily Lakdawalla

I was browsing the MESSENGER website just now, and found a neat photo. It's a picture of MESSENGER as seen from Earth when it flew by yesterday.

Emily Lakdawalla

MESSENGER is now returning images as it is bearing down on Earth.

Emily Lakdawalla

Cassini mission planner Dave Seal just gave me the latest reference trajectory for Cassini, so I've gone through and updated the flyby altitudes on the Cassini tour page.

Emily Lakdawalla

It's official: Enceladus has joined the rarefied community of Solar System objects that have been caught in the act of making new geology.

Emily Lakdawalla

We haven't forgotten about Deep Impact, but there's still no word on the crater size.

Emily Lakdawalla

The MESSENGER Mercury orbiter, which launched a year ago next week, is on target for its Earth flyby on August 2.

Emily Lakdawalla

Emily Lakdawalla

With its mission at Tempel 1 over, the Deep Impact spacecraft has altered its course in order to allow a future mission at another comet.

Louis D. Friedman

The Volna Failure Review Board convened by the Makeev Rocket Design Bureau, manufacturers of the Volna launch vehicle, has made its final report to the Russian space agency, Roskosmos, concerning the attempted June 21 launch of our Cosmos 1 spacecraft.

Emily Lakdawalla

I monitor the Cassini website to keep my eye out for cool pictures, and it's usually relatively easy to figure out what the spacecraft is looking at (rings, moon, Saturn, whatever). Sometimes, though, the images can be very confusing.

Emily Lakdawalla

The June 15 Cassini Project Update includes a note about a difficult decision -- they are raising the altitude of an upcoming Titan flyby,