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Planetary Radio Episodes
Since 2002, Planetary Radio has visited with a scientist, engineer, project manager, advocate, or writer who provides a unique perspective on the quest for knowledge about our Solar System and beyond. The full show archive is available for free.
Making oxygen from the Martian atmosphere will be essential if humans are ever to visit and work on the Red Planet, and the MOXIE experiment will soon show us how.
Bill Nye helps us welcome the Planetary Society’s new president who also leads a new Moon mission, while China’s lunar sample return spacecraft is headed home.
Host Mat Kaplan talked with the Arecibo Observatory director just hours before the giant radio telescope came crashing down.
Two pioneering Mars orbiters are still doing great work above the Red Planet, while the first operational Crew Dragon spaceship has delivered four astronauts to the International Space Station.
The leader of the OSIRIS REx asteroid sample return mission shares more details of last week’s encounter in an exclusive interview, while we also learn about the proposed mission to look for life on Saturn’s moon Enceladus.
Astronomer and planetary scientist Heidi Hammel’s AURA shines bright across our solar system and beyond.
The National Space Council’s Scott Pace talks with Casey Dreier about the current administration’s sweeping new strategy that integrates all elements of space development and exploration.
How will the universe end? That’s the question explored by cosmologist Katie Mack in her very entertaining new book.
SuperCam principal investigator Roger Wiens shares how his new and improved laser-based spectrometer will help look for past life in Jezero Crater, while its microphone lets us listen to the Red Planet.
Our special guests are the leaders of the Emirates Mars Mission whose Hope spacecraft is now headed for the Red Planet.
The United Arab Emirates is headed for Mars as comet NEOWISE speeds back to the outer reaches of the solar system, and three white papers address the future of planetary science and defense.
Join the mission’s deputy project scientist as the Perseverance rover prepares to search for life on the Red Planet.
Principal Investigator Alan Stern returns on the 5th anniversary of the New Horizons encounter with Pluto to tell us about the wealth of knowledge the spacecraft is still sending home from across the solar system.
The leader of the Mastcam-Z team talks about how the best cameras ever on the surface of Mars will help us explore a region that could once have supported life.
China has big plans for a space station, exploration of the Moon and Mars, and possibly a mission that will follow Voyager beyond the edge of the solar system.
Are we learning how to keep men and women alive on a 3-year round trip to Mars?
Astrophysicist and former astronaut John “Hubble Repairman” Grunsfeld looks back over three decades of beautiful science and inspiration delivered by the Hubble Space Telescope.
JPL scientist Kevin Hand is endlessly fascinated by the possibility of life in the hidden oceans of the outer solar system’s moons, and now he has written a great book about the quest to discover it.
The U.S. space agency’s leader describes how NASA is responding to the pandemic crisis as it works to keep projects and missions on track.
Our look ahead at the near-future of solar system exploration continues with Mars, the giant outer worlds, and the smaller bodies that can be found throughout the neighborhood.