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Small BodiesStories, updates, insights, and original analysis from The Planetary Society.
The best Jupiter pictures from NASA’s Juno mission
As the spacecraft prepares to embark on its extended mission, here are some of the most captivating images of Jupiter from NASA's Juno probe so far.
A Tiny Spacecraft Makes a Huge Leap with a Short Flight
Ingenuity flies on Mars and a NASA-SpaceX partnership paves the way for humans to get there too.
Martian Ingenuity and Venusian imagination
Get a peek at the Martian moon and catch up on what the newest Mars explorer has been up to.
When Phobos hits your eye like a big pizza pie...
Get a peek at the Martian moon and catch up on what the newest Mars explorer has been up to.
Why do we need NASA when we have SpaceX?
Watching SpaceX's incredible feats, you might wonder whether we need NASA. But in reality the organizations do very different things and rely on each other for success.
Dive deep into the history of planetary exploration funding
This unique, comprehensive dataset includes the full budget history, by year, of every NASA planetary science mission and related activities.
Two Mars Missions Are Gutted Despite Near-Record Funding for Planetary Science
A new budget submission from the White House would continue record-high funding for planetary science, but proposes deep cuts to 2 productive Mars missions and defers funding for deep space telescope dedicated to finding hazardous near-Earth objects.
NASA Rings in the New Year with $22.6 billion
NASA's final 2020 budget rejected every major cut proposed by the Trump Administration, increased funding for popular congressional projects such as the Space Launch System, and underfunded several key administration proposals, including a human-qualified lunar lander and low-Earth orbit commercialization projects.
What the recent budget deal means for NASA
A bigger budgetary pie allows the space agency's budget to grow—for one year at least.
Reconstructing the Cost of the One Giant Leap
How much did Project Apollo cost? Planetary Society experts answered that question by revisiting primary sources and reconstructing Apollo's entire cost history from 1960 - 1973.
A Crash Program or Modest Proposal?
The White House released a long-awaited supplemental budget request for NASA today. It proposes an additional $1.6 billion for an accelerated human spaceflight effort to land on the Moon in 2024. This boosts the President's budget request for NASA to $22.6 billion in fiscal year 2020, which is approximately $1.1 billion or 5% more than the amount provided by Congress last year.
Hearing Recap: Keeping Our Sights on Mars
Highlights from the hearing, 'Keeping our Sights on Mars: A Review of NASA's Deep Space Plans' held on May 8th in the House of Representatives.
Hearing Recap: NASA’s FY 2020 Budget Request
On March 27, 2019, the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies held a hearing titled, “NASA’s FY 2020 Budget Request.”
Amidst Cuts to NASA, Mars Sample Return May Finally Happen
The President's Budget Request for NASA in 2020 would start a Mars Sample Return mission and ramp up efforts to send humans to the Moon. But it would still kick off the first year of a new decade with a half-billion dollar cut to the space agency.
NASA just got its best budget in a decade
After months of unrelated political turmoil, multiple stop-gap spending bills, and an unprecedented government shutdown, NASA's 2019 budget was finally signed into law.
NASA Gets a Three Week Reprieve
If ever there was an example of how quickly political winds can shift, look no further than the sudden end to a seemingly endless government shutdown on January 25th.
Miseries mount as shutdown drags on
The partial government shutdown that shuttered NASA continues with no end in sight. The U.S. space program sits idle, the vast majority of its workforce sent home. Space science and exploration projects are disrupted. Paychecks are absent. And an unsettling realization has dawned on hundreds of thousands of public employees and contractors affected by the shutdown: this time is different.
Happy Holidays. NASA is Shut Down.
A partial government shutdown has shuttered NASA's operations for at least a week. Critical programs like the International Space Station will continue. This is the third shutdown of 2018 and another pointless disruption for the hardworking men and women at the U.S. space agency.
The NASA programs most impacted by the budget delay
Fiscal year 2019 is here, but NASA doesn't have a new budget. Which programs could suffer the most as a consequence?
NASA's 2019 Budget Takes Shape
The Senate and House have now released details of how they would fund NASA in 2019. Check out the good, bad, and ugly in these proposals and learn what happens next.