NASA held a press conference at the Marshall Space Flight Center today to announce the selection of a seven cubesats which will catch a ride to deep space on the maiden flight of the Space Launch system in 2018. Altogether the space agency plans on filling 13 slots out of a total possible number of […]
Image Credit NASA/JPL While much of the space science community is anxiously awaiting the July 14th flyby of the New Horizons probe at the system headlined by former planet Pluto, a much more accessible dwarf planet, Ceres seems determined to keep its own place in the spotlight. In addition to the growing number of mysterious […]
Latest image of Ceres, taken from 29,000 miles miles away. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA Ceres just keeps getting more interesting. From NASA.gov: “Dwarf planet Ceres continues to puzzle scientists as NASA’s Dawn spacecraft gets closer to being captured into orbit around the object. The latest images from Dawn, taken nearly 29,000 miles (46,000 kilometers) from Ceres, […]
JAXA, the Japanese space agency successfully launched the Hayabusa2 spacecraft on its way to an asteroid sample return mission overnight. Liftoff, which took place aboard a Mitsubishi Heavy Industries H-IIA rocket, designated #26, took place at 1:22:04 PM Japan Standard Time on Wednesday. December 3rd from the Tanegashima Space Center. According to JAXA, the launch […]
NASA reports that a small asteroid will harmlessly pass relatively close to Earth on September. As is often the case, it was not detected until just a few days ago. On a vaguely related note, when Congress returns to session next week, there will be a sub-committee hearing on H.R. 5603 (pdf), the American Space […]
Artist’s impression of cosmic billiards around NGC 2547-ID. Credit: NASA JPL-CalTech NASA/JPL News Story: August 28, 2014 NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope has spotted an eruption of dust around a young star, possibly the result of a smashup between large asteroids. This type of collision can eventually lead to the formation of planets. Scientists had been […]
A series of reports highlight the challenges NASA faces in making progress with its plans for the Space Launch System over the next ten years. Only days days before SLS program manager Todd May told an audience at the annual Mars Society convention that the mega booster is still on track for a late 2017 […]
JPL News Release February 25, 2014 A collage of radar images of near-Earth asteroid 2006 DP14 was generated by NASA scientists using the 230-foot (70-meter) Deep Space Network antenna at Goldstone, Calif., on the night of Feb. 11, 2014. Delay-Doppler radar imaging revealed that the asteroid is about 1,300 feet (400 meters) long, 660 feet […]
With most of NASA having gone dark through the government shutdown, the normally steady flow of information released by the agency’s diverse array of ongoing space probes, as well as ongoing interpretation of data from spacecraft which are no longer active, trickled to a near halt. On the bright side, as the agency begins to […]
A Future in Space Operations presentation earlier this week by Dan Adamo, which can be found here, highlights a potential serious problem with NASA’s proposed asteroid capture mission. The presentation focuses on a “V” plot which shows a range of Near Earth Asteroids grouped into three different classes by their orbital characteristics. Some NEAs falling within […]
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