Missions Archives

May 19, 2020May 19, 2020 by Matt Williams

NASA Proposes the Artemis Accords. The New Rules for Lunar Exploration

Illustration of Artemis astronauts on the Moon. Credits: NASA

As part of Project Artemis, which was announced in May of 2019, NASA will be sending the first woman and the next man to the Moon for the first time since the Apollo Era. To make this happen, NASA has partnered with the private aerospace industry to develop all the necessary systems. At the same time, NASA has entered into collaborative agreements with other space agencies to ensure that lunar exploration is open to all.

To formalize these agreements and ensure that all parties are committed to the same goals, NASA recently drafted a framework for cooperative lunar exploration and development. Known as the Artemis Accords, this series of bilateral agreements (which are grounded in the Outer Space Treaty of 1967) establish common principles for international partners who want to become part of humanity’s long-awaited return to the Moon.

May 19, 2020May 19, 2020 by Evan Gough

This Laser Powered Rover Could Stay in the Shadows on the Moon and Continue to Explore

The ESA's Rover Autonomy Testbed being tested at Tenerife. Image Credit: Fernando Gandía/GMV

The craters on the Moon’s poles are in permanent shadow. But they’re also intriguing locations, due to deposits of water ice and other materials. The ESA is developing the idea for a rover that can explore these areas with power provided by lasers.

May 15, 2020May 15, 2020 by Matt Williams

China’s New Crew Capsule Just Landed, and so Did Parts of their New Rocket!

China’s next-generation crewed spacecraft, which will replace the venerable Shenzou spacecraft in the coming years, recently returned to Earth after spending almost three days in space. The purpose of this mission was to test the deep space capabilities of the spacecraft that will be sending Chinese astronauts (taikonauts) to orbit, to the Moon, and beyond in the coming years.

In addition, this mission also saw China’s new Long March 5B (CZ-5B) heavy-lift rocket launch a payload to space for the first time. This rocket is the latest installment in the Long March family and will be vital to the creation of the third and largest Chinese space station. These two milestones have brought China a step closer to becoming a full-fledged superpower in space.

May 13, 2020May 13, 2020 by Evan Gough

Finally! InSight’s Mole is Making Slow and Steady Progress

Engineers are using the scoop at the end of InSight's robotic arm to gently push on the Mole as it works its way into the ground. Image Credit: NASA/JPL/DLR

Personnel at NASA and the DLR have been working for months to get InSight’s Mole working. They’re at a disadvantage, since the average distance between Earth and Mars is about 225 million km (140 million miles.) They’ve tried a number of things to get the Mole into the ground, and they may finally be making some progress.

April 30, 2020April 30, 2020 by Nancy Atkinson

Mars Helicopter gets a Name: Ingenuity

Artist's concept of the Mars Helicopter on the Martian surface. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Flying low over the surface of Mars. Don’t tell me you haven’t dreamed about it, especially with some of the ‘Mars flyover’ videos that have been produced over the years using data from the orbital missions. And if all goes well – global pandemic not withstanding — a helicopter will be on its way to the Red Planet in just a few months.

April 29, 2020April 29, 2020 by Evan Gough

China’s First Mars Lander is Going to be Called “Tianwen”

Picture released on Aug 23, 2016 by the lunar probe and space project center of Chinese State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defence shows the concept portraying what the Mars rover and lander would look like. [Photo/Xinhua]

Friday April 24th was China’s “Space Day,” celebrated on the 50 year anniversary of their first satellite launch. This past Friday, China marked the occasion with the announcement of the name for their first Mars Lander: Tianwen.

According to China’s National Space Administration (CNSA), Tianwen translates to “Quest for Heavenly Truth.”

April 17, 2020April 18, 2020 by Nancy Atkinson

Even More Things That Saved Apollo 13: The Nail-biting Re-entry Sequence

A water level view of the Apollo 13 recovery operations in the South Pacific Ocean. Credit: NASA

50 years ago today, on April 17, 1970, the crew of Apollo 13 came home. Safely. Successfully.

The world breathed a collective sigh of relief as they watched NASA turn a disaster into one of the most dramatic happy-endings ever.

The flight of Apollo 13 was unlike any other Apollo mission, and the final hours of the flight – preparing for and implementing the reentry to Earth – was unlike any other, as well.

April 13, 2020April 20, 2020 by Nancy Atkinson

Even More Things That Saved Apollo 13, part 1: The Barbecue Roll

The crew of Apollo 13 after landing safely. Credit: NASA.

Apollo 13 was supposed to be the third mission to land humans on the Moon. But on the night of April 13th, 1970, an oxygen tank in Apollo 13’s Service Module exploded. And so began the most perilous but eventually triumphant situation ever encountered in human spaceflight.

The explosion crippled the Apollo 13 Command Module and endangered the lives of astronauts Jim Lovell, Fred Haise, and Jack Swigert. During the four days that followed, thousands of people back on Earth worked around the clock to ensure the astronauts’ safe return.

March 25, 2020March 25, 2020 by Evan Gough

This Powerful Ion Engine Will Be Flying on NASA’s DART Mission to Try and Redirect an Asteroid

The NEXT-C ion thruster in a vacuum chamber at NASA's Glenn Research Center. Image Credit: NASA/Bridget Caswell

Despite humanity’s current struggle against the novel coronavirus, and despite it taking up most of our attention, other threats still exist. The very real threat of a possible asteroid strike on Earth in the future is taking a backseat for now, but it’s still there.

Though an asteroid strike seems kind of ephemeral right now, it’s a real threat, and one that—unlike a coronavirus—has the potential to end humanity. Agencies like NASA and the ESA are still working on their plans to protect us from that threat.

March 23, 2020 by Matt Williams

NASA Chooses 4 New Astronomy Space Missions for Additional Study

Hot stars burn brightly in this image from NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer, showing the ultraviolet side of a familiar face. At approximately 2.5 million light-years away, the Andromeda galaxy, or M31, is our Milky Way's largest galactic neighbor. The entire galaxy spans 260,000 light-years across -- a distance so large, it took 11 different image segments stitched together to produce this view of the galaxy next door. The bands of blue-white making up the galaxy's striking rings are neighborhoods that harbor hot, young, massive stars. Dark blue-grey lanes of cooler dust show up starkly against these bright rings, tracing the regions where star formation is currently taking place in dense cloudy cocoons. Eventually, these dusty lanes will be blown away by strong stellar winds, as the forming stars ignite nuclear fusion in their cores. Meanwhile, the central orange-white ball reveals a congregation of cooler, old stars that formed long ago. When observed in visible light, Andromeda's rings look more like spiral arms. The ultraviolet view shows that these arms more closely resemble the ring-like structure previously observed in infrared wavelengths with NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. Astronomers using Spitzer interpreted these rings as evidence that the galaxy was involved in a direct collision with its neighbor, M32, more than 200 million years ago. Andromeda is so bright and close to us that it is one of only ten galaxies that can be spotted from Earth with the naked eye. This view is two-color composite, where blue represents far-ultraviolet light, and orange is near-ultraviolet light.

Since 1958, the NASA Explorer Program has conducted low-cost missions that were deemed relevant to the goals of the Science Mission Directorate (SMD), particularly where the study of our Sun and the deeper cosmic mysteries are concerned. Recently, the Explorer Program selected four missions that they considered to be well-suited to these goals, two of which will be selected for launch in the coming years.

Consisting of two astrophysics Small Explorer (SMEX) and two Missions of Opportunity (MO) proposals, these missions are designed to study cosmic explosions and the debris they leave behind, as well as monitor how nearby stellar flares may affect the atmospheres of orbiting planets. After detailed evaluations, two of these missions will be selected next year and will take to space sometime in 2025.