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Stories, updates, insights, and original analysis from The Planetary Society.
Back to school: LightSail 2 and Prox-1 provide unique experience for university students
From Cal Poly to Georgia Tech, university students working on SmallSat projects gain critical real-world spaceflight experience, preparing them for promising careers in the space industry.
We’re building the STEAM Team!
We know, as well as you do, that if we want to see a great future – one where humans explore, understand, and benefit from space – we need to invest right now in the people who will be leading the way. To empower the world’s youth, we need to educate them. And to educate them, we need to inspire them.
Mars Exploration Rovers Update: Opportunity Nears End of Marathon Valley Tour, Team Celebrates 40th Anniversary of Viking
Despite the intensifying rancor and ugliness of the U.S. Presidential campaigns on Earth, as the spring Sun shined down on Meridiani Planum in July, all was right with the world at Endeavour Crater.
Hubble Series 1: How to Find Hubble Data
Processing Hubble data presents a host of challenges, and the first of these has nothing to do with processing at all.
On A Mission to Explore! Choosing A Theme for Our Membership Experience
Selecting a theme for our reinvented membership experience involved hundreds of people from staff to members. Here's the process that created the names for the new membership levels.
‘Apollo on steroids’: The rise and fall of NASA’s Constellation moon program
In part 2 of our series on the evolution of NASA's Journey to Mars, Michael Griffin gives the Constellation moon program a new look in an attempt to shorten America's International Space Station access gap after the space shuttles retire. But by 2009, the program is behind schedule and over budget.
Dawn Journal: Staying at Ceres
The official end of Dawn's prime mission was June 30, but the valiant adventurer began its
What's up in the solar system, August 2016 edition: Juno to get Jupiter close-ups, Rosetta descending, road-tripping rovers
This month we'll finally see JunoCam's first high-resolution images of Jupiter. We'll also see OSIRIS-REx making progress toward its September 8 launch. Both rovers are road-tripping at Mars, while ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter has completed a major mid-course correction ahead of its October arrival.
Field Report From Mars: Sol 4410 - June 20, 2016
Opportunity is finishing up its activities in Marathon Valley, getting ready to hit the road again.
Summer 2016 issue of The Planetary Report
The Summer 2016 issue of The Planetary Report is in the mail! Planetary Society members who want a head start on reading can access the electronic version.
What MAVEN Learned and What It Will Do Next
The head of NASA's MAVEN mission, Bruce Jakosky, describes MAVEN's accomplishments during the primary mission, and previews the spacecraft's extended mission.
Rosetta end-of-mission plans: Landing site, time selected
ESA's comet-chasing Rosetta spacecraft is nearing the end of its mission. Last week, ESA announced when and where Rosetta is going to touch down. And tomorrow, it will forever shut down the radio system intended for communicating with the silent Philae lander.
We’re Building a Movement!
Today we launch a new expedition to engage our members in more ways than ever before. Since our inception, our members have supported The Planetary Society as we forge new paths in space science and exploration. You have always been at the center of our success and we want the structure of our membership program to reflect that by offering new benefits, premiums and payment options.
The Planetary Society at San Diego Comic-Con (UPDATED with video!)
Whether or not you're attending San Diego Comic-Con, you can enjoy a discussion panel with Emily Lakdawalla and five science fiction authors about the future of science fiction in the context of today's amazing scientific advances.
Multimedia recap: Two launches, a landing, a docking, and a berthing
Four days of cargo craft mania came to a close at the International Space Station this morning, as astronauts Kate Rubins and Jeff Williams snagged an approaching SpaceX Dragon vehicle and berthed it to the laboratory's Harmony module.
Horizon Goal: A new reporting series on NASA’s Journey to Mars
We're embarking on a multi-part series with the Huffington Post about the world's largest human spaceflight program. In part 1, we look at how the Columbia accident prompted NASA and the George W. Bush administration to create a new vision for space exploration.
Listen Up! Microphones to Fly to Mars
The Mars 2020 mission will carry microphones in its EDL package and its SuperCam instrument, which will enable us to finally hear the sounds of Mars. The Planetary Society has been trying to get microphones to Mars for 20 years and is ecstatic that these will fly.
Cargo craft mania! A quick guide to four days of Dragon and Progress at the ISS
Two cargo spacecraft are heading to the International Space Station as part of a choreographed, four-day dance that begins this weekend. Here's a quick guide.
Mars 2020 rover rolls into final design and fabrication phase
NASA's next Mars rover is rolling off the drawing board and into its final design and fabrication phase, the agency announced today, during a televised event at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory that highlighted some of the mission's technology.
Pluto is not the end
One year after the New Horizons Pluto flyby, Emily reflects on its significance.



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