Explore Worlds
Find Life
Defend Earth
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.
Search Planetary Radio
Relive the most dramatic and awe-inspiring moments from NASA’s Perseverance rover landing on Mars.
Author of The Martian Andy Weir and the leader of the United Arab Emirates’ successful Hope Mars orbiter mission joined other Mars all-stars at Planetfest ’21.
JPL engineer Gregory Villar prepares us for the perilous descent and landing of the 2020 Mars rover on February 18th.
In spite of everything, 2020 was a good year for space exploration according to five of The Planetary Society’s experts.
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.
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.
Join the mission’s deputy project scientist as the Perseverance rover prepares to search for life on the Red Planet.
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.
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.
Host Mat Kaplan and Planetary Society solar system specialist Emily Lakdawalla go inside NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory clean room to see the Mars 2020 rover.
As the 2010s come to a close, Marcia Smith, the founder of Space Policy Online, rejoins the show to explore the most significant and impactful space policy decisions of the 2010s.
First we return to JPL for an update on the Mars Helicopter that has just been attached to the belly of the 2020 Mars Rover. Then it’s across the pond for a review of the amazing science coming from the Rosetta mission that spent years exploring comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. We wrap things up with another What’s Up view across the solar system and beyond.
NASA announced on November 19th that the multi-billion dollar 2020 Mars rover will land in Jezero crater, where it will begin the search for the signature of past life.
Mat Kaplan attended a meeting of the science team for the zoom lens camera that will be atop the Mars 2020 rover mast. Planetary Scientist Jim Bell tells us how this new system will show us the Red Planet as we’ve never seen it before.
Back to the annual meeting of the AAS Division for Planetary Sciences this week, where Mat Kaplan visited with experts on worlds of ice including Titan and Pluto, with a side trip to the dunes of Iran.
In our third episode, we debate the risks and rewards of tying the future of a Europa mission to the fate of NASA's massive Space Launch System rocket. Also, NASA just announced that the next Mars rover will cost $2.4 billion—$900 million more than initially thought. But the mission is not considered over budget. Why not? Lastly, the U.S. just generated 50 grams of Plutonium-238, the largest amount in nearly thirty years. We celebrate the successful effort to create this critically important, though highly toxic, power source for deep space spacecraft.
It takes a lot of terrific components to create a successful spacecraft like Curiosity, the Mars Science Laboratory. We’ll visit JPL to learn about the Terminal Descent Sensor radar that will once again help land a rover on the Red Planet.
We celebrate the 47th anniversary of the first moon landing with the reprise of a conversation with author and NBC space reporter Jay Barbree about his trusted friend Neil Armstrong.