Explore Worlds
Find Life
Defend Earth
All
All
Sun
Mercury
Venus
Earth
Mars
Jupiter
Saturn
Uranus
Neptune
Small BodiesStories, updates, insights, and original analysis from The Planetary Society.
LightSail 2 Successfully Deploys Solar Sail
Images from The Planetary Society's spacecraft confirm the solar sails deployed on 23 July 2019 at 11:47 PDT (18:47 UTC).
Chandrayaan-2 Launches for the Moon
Liftoff atop the country’s GSLV Mk III rocket occurred on 22 July at 14:43 IST (09:13 UTC).
Live Coverage: LightSail 2 Sail Deployment
Visit planetary.org/live for video and audio from mission control, located at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo in California.
LightSail 2 Sail Deployment Scheduled for Tuesday
The target ground station pass for deployment starts 23 July 2019 at roughly 11:22 PDT (18:22 UTC).
LightSail 2 Team Continues Tweaks and Tests for Sail Deployment
Spare bandwidth during ground station passes has allowed flight controllers to downlink 2 new high-resolution images.
What the Shoemaker-Levy 9 Impact Taught Us
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.
Hayabusa2 makes second touchdown on asteroid Ryugu
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.
Planetary Society-funded Technology Picked by NASA for Possible Moon Flight
PlanetVac, a technology that simplifies the process of collecting samples from other worlds, may fly to the Moon.
LightSail 2 Team to Conduct More Testing before Sail Deployment
Sail deployment is now scheduled for no earlier than 21 July 2019.
What to Expect when Chandrayaan-2 Launches to and Lands on the Moon
A preview guide for India's upcoming Moon mission.
Here are the First Pictures of Earth from LightSail 2
Pictures taken by the spacecraft's cameras Friday evening show a crescent Earth, as LightSail 2 heads into orbital sunset.
See the Latest Data from LightSail 2 on Our New Mission Control Dashboard
Would you like to see the latest data from The Planetary Society's LightSail 2 spacecraft—possibly before flight controllers have even seen it? Now you can!
Emily's Recommended Kids' Space Books: Special Apollo 11 Anniversary Edition for July 2019
So many Apollo-related books have come out in the first half of 2019 that I decided to cover them in a special summer book-recommendation blog. I have 5 brand-new Apollo-related books to recommend for kids, and include others I've recommended in past years.
LightSail 2 Healthy as Mission Team Continues Spacecraft Checkouts
The mission team is working through a 73-step checklist to check out the spacecraft’s systems and perform various tests.
InSight Update: A Couple More Tiny Quakes and Heat Probe Progress
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.
First Contact! LightSail 2 Phones Home to Mission Control
The mission team received LightSail 2's first signals on 2 July at 01:34 PDT (08:34 UTC), as the spacecraft passed over Cal Poly San Luis Obispo in California.
Orion Completes Critical In-Flight Abort Test
The test showed Orion can blast itself away from the Space Launch System if the big rocket fails while attempting to fly to orbit.
NASA Greenlights Dragonfly, a Quadcopter Mission to Titan
Sporting 8 rotors and a nuclear power source like the Mars Curiosity rover, Dragonfly will launch in 2026 and arrive at Titan in 2034.
LightSail 2 Has Launched!
The Planetary Society's solar sail CubeSat lifted off from Kennedy Space Center, Florida on 25 June at 02:30 EDT (06:30 UTC).
LightSail 2 is Ready for Launch
The Planetary Society's solar sailing spacecraft is ready to take flight. We got an up-close look at its ride to orbit.