Articles

Jason Davis

NASA has only flown astronauts aboard a rocket's first flight once, when John Young and Bob Crippen took space shuttle Columbia on the boldest test flight in history. What are the risks of repeating the feat for SLS?

Joel Davis

Arabia Terra has always been a bit of a martian enigma. Planetary scientist Joel Davis takes us on a tour of its valley networks and their significance in telling the story of water on Mars.

Jason Davis

Following a pre-ship review at Planetary Society headquarters, LightSail 2 is ready to be integrated with its Prox-1 partner spacecraft. The final shipping schedule, however, has yet to be determined.

Wayne Hall

In Kentucky, some very driven people are writing their own chapter of space exploration based on vision, entrepreneurial risk, and scientific and engineering know-how. Wayne Hall shares their stories.

Jason Davis

NASA escaped a large-scale budget slash, and planetary science fared well. ARM is canceled, the Moon-versus-Mars debate is not mentioned, and Earth science stands to lose some missions.

Mark Showalter

Planetary astronomer Mark Showalter tells the story of when he became the first human to ever set eyes on Saturn's strange moon Pan in 1990.

Larry Crumpler

Opportunity has begun driving down a long southward slope in Endeavour, heading toward Perseverance Valley.

Larry Crumpler

For nearly two years, Opportunity's world has been tilted 10–25 degrees as it drove down to the lower slopes of the wall of Endeavour Crater. Toward the end of last week, Opportunity pulled itself up and over the lip of the crater.

Anatoly Zak

Could NASA and its international partners construct a space station in orbit around the Moon? Possible designs are being finalized, but the Trump administration has yet to weigh in on the agency's human spaceflight program.

Jason Davis

Our latest roundup of Cassini goodies from Saturn includes Pan, a ravioli-shaped moon that orbits inside the planet's ring system.

Jason Davis

World View, a self-described “stratospheric exploration” company, recently unveiled its new headquarters in Tucson, Arizona.

Emily Lakdawalla

This week MAVEN had to execute a short rocket burn in order to prevent a future collision with Phobos. Curiosity (and other rovers) may have played a role in those trajectory predictions.

Jason Davis

Two private citizens are paying SpaceX for a 2018 flight around the Moon. Is that timeline realistic?

A.J.S. Rayl

Driving the Mars Exploration Rovers (MER) mission further into its fourteenth year of surface operations, Opportunity continued hiking the slopes of Cape Tribulation in February and finally reached the crest of Endeavour Crater’s western rim.

Marc Rayman

The Dawn mission is executing an ambitious bonus goal recently devised for its extended mission. Mission Manager and Chief Engineer Marc Rayman brings us his monthly update.

Marco Parigi

Citizen scientist and self-described

Heather Hunter

Heather Hunter explains how radar works and what it's used for on Earth and beyond.

Franck Marchis

Scientists have found seven, Earth-size planets orbiting a star just 40 light years away. Three lie in the habitable zone and could have water on their surfaces.

Ted Stryk

Amateur image processor Ted Stryk revisited Voyager 1 data of Enceladus and came across a surprise.

Jason Davis

Today, NASA announced progress on a spacecraft that would assess whether Jupiter's Moon Europa is habitable, and earlier this month, an agency-sponsored science team released a report on a separate lander mission that would directly search for signs of life.