Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Earth to Voyager: NASA detects signal from spacecraft, 2 weeks after losing contact

2:00pm August 02, 2023

by Emily Olson

The Jet Propulsion Lab lost contact with Voyager 2, which is traveling 12.3 billion miles away from Earth, after engineers mistakenly pointed its antenna 2 degrees away from its home planet.

A photo of the mole on NASA's InSight lander trying to drill into the Martian surface.

Science

A 'Mole' Isn't Digging Mars: NASA Engineers Are Trying To Find Out Why

4:25pm November 29, 2019

by Joe Palca

After the InSight lander had trouble drilling a sophisticated thermometer into the Martian surface, a Plan B also didn't work, and the instrument ended up backing itself out of the ground.

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A stripe of red dots shows the risk corridor for a hypothetical asteroid strike, part of an exercise this week held by planetary defense experts in which they analyze data about a fictitious asteroid.

This Week, NASA Is Pretending An Asteroid Is On Its Way To Smack The Earth

5:44pm April 29, 2019

by Nell Greenfieldboyce

A fictitious asteroid is the focus of a realistic exercise, as experts at the Planetary Defense Conference run through how they would respond to news of a looming asteroid strike.

A cubesat, like this briefcase-sized MarCO, was key to relaying telemetry during the recent InSight mission to Mars. It was the first time this kind of mini-spacecraft had flown into deep space.

Science

What's Next For Tiny Satellites?

4:09pm December 26, 2018

by Joe Palca

Two briefcase-sized satellites gave the control room of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in November what scientists had never been able to get before: real-time information about a spacecraft's landing.

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A NASA illustration depicts the positions of both Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 probes, now outside the heliosphere. Voyager 1 left the heliosphere in August 2012, while Voyager 2 left at a different location last month.

Science

Voyager 2 Bids Adieu To The Heliosphere, Entering Interstellar Space

5:05pm December 10, 2018

by Colin Dwyer

The milestone makes the 41-year-old NASA probe just the second human-made object, after Voyager 1, to reach such distant regions. Now, Voyager 2 is over 11 billion miles from the sun — and counting.

NASA engineers on the flight team celebrate the InSight spacecraft's successful landing on Mars at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., on Monday.

NASA Probe Lands Safely On Martian Surface

4:35pm November 26, 2018

by Joe Palca

There's a new probe on Mars. After Monday's tricky landing, NASA's InSight spacecraft is to deploy a sensitive seismometer and temperature probe to let scientists explore the planet's interior.

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NASA's Mars rover Curiosity took photos from the Vera Rubin Ridge showing the interior and rim of Gale Crater. The full image features 16 photos stitched together.

Mars Rover Curiosity's Panoramic Photo Depicts Its Epic Journey

5:43pm February 02, 2018

by Vanessa Romo

It captured images that show some of the key regions NASA's robot has explored since 2012.

Astronomers have known about Ceres for centuries, but they don't really know what to make of it.

Science

NASA Probe Reaches Orbit Around Dwarf Planet

12:38pm March 06, 2015

by Geoff Brumfiel

NASA's Dawn mission has reached its destination and is orbiting the dwarf planet Ceres. It's the end of an odyssey to explore an odd, in-between world.

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