NASA’s newest solar observatories have released their first images of the Sun, and they’re great. Of course, to really enjoy the pictures, you’ll need 3-D glasses.
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CryoSat Version 2
The loss of CryoSat was a sad day for Earth observation. It was destroyed in October 2005 when an onboard flight-control system failed on a Russian Rockot launch vehicle. But engineers kept their plans, and the development of CryoSat version 2 is well underway. This replacement spacecraft is scheduled for launch in 2009, and will measure the thickness of land and sea ice to determine how quickly it’s melting away.
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Asteroid Sample Return Mission Proposed
A new NASA mission is being proposed to fly out, extract a sample from a nearby asteroid, and return it to Earth. The asteroid is known as 1999 RQ36, and the mission is OSIRIS.
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Chandra and Hubble Imaged Jupiter During New Horizons Flyby
While NASA’s New Horizon spacecraft was making its gravity assisted flyby past Jupiter, some friends back at home were watching to help give the science some perspective. NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and the Chandra X-Ray Observatory gathered images of Jupiter for several days before the flyby, and the combined photographs were released today.
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New Horizons Gets a Gravity Boost From Jupiter
NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft got a big speed boost today, when it used Jupiter’s gravity to give it a slingshot towards its final destination of Pluto. It didn’t exactly skim the planet’s surface, but New Horizons got as close as 2.3 million kilometers (1.4 million miles) to Jupiter.
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Europe Approves its Mercury Mission
Although NASA has its Messenger spacecraft headed towards the planet Mercury, the European Space Agency is planning a mission of its own called BepiColumbo. The agency recently announced that it has “adopted” the BepiColumbo mission, officially greenlighting its development.
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NASA’s THEMIS Mission Blasts Off
NASA’s THEMIS mission was blasted into space on Saturday, February 17 atop a Delta II rocket. THEMIS stands for Time History of Events and Macroscale Interactions during Substorms, and it’s comprised of 5 separate spacecraft.
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Rosetta Approaches its Mars Flyby
If you’re waiting for the Rosetta mission to really pay off, you’re going to need a lot of patience. The ESA spacecraft isn’t due to meet up with its target, Comet 67P Churyumov Gerasimenko, until 2014. But there’s a little science coming on February 25th, when the spacecraft swings by Mars.
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New Views of LCROSS the Moon Smasher
NASA artists have released new images of the Lunar CRater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) mission. This is a secondary payload that will travel to the Moon with the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. Remember the Deep Impact mission, which smashed a probe into an asteroid? Same thing, except this time the target is the Moon.
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NASA Panel Will Investigate Mars Global Surveyor’s Disappearance
Although it lasted years longer than anyone ever expected, the disappearance of NASA’s Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft is still a mystery the agency wants to investigate. The agency has created an internal review board to review the spacecraft’s final days and recommend any new processes or policies that could improve future spacecraft.
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