Atmosphere Checked, One Mars Year Before a Landing

PASADENA, Calif. -- What will the Martian atmosphere be like when the next Mars rover descends through it for landing in August of 2012?An instrument studying the Martian atmosphere from orbit has begun a four-week campaign to characterize daily atmosphere changes, one Mars year before the arrival of...

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Final External Tank Rolled Into VAB

The external tank for space shuttle Endeavour's STS-134 mission was taken off the Pegasus barge this morning and moved to the Vehicle Assembly Building. Technicians there will process and stack the tank for the launch next year. The tank was towed beginning just before 9:30 a.m. at NASA's Kennedy Space...

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Hello, Saturn Summer Solstice: Cassini's New Chapter

Turning a midsummer night's dream into reality, NASA's Cassini spacecraft begins its new mission extension the Cassini Solstice Mission today. The mission extension will take Cassini a few months past Saturn's northern summer solstice (or midsummer) through September 2017. It will enable scientists...

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Dust Models Paint Alien's View of Solar System

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Cassini Gazes at Veiled Titan

NASA's Cassini spacecraft will swing high over Saturn's moon Titan on Friday, Sept. 24, taking a long, sustained look at the hazy moon. At closest approach, Cassini will fly within 8,175 kilometers (5,080 miles) above the hazy moon's surface. This flyby is the first in a series of high-altitude Titan...

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Spring on Titan Brings Sunshine and Patchy Clouds

The northern hemisphere of Saturn's moon Titan is set for mainly fine spring weather, with polar skies clearing since the equinox in August last year. The visual and infrared mapping spectrometer (VIMS) aboard NASA's Cassini spacecraft has been monitoring clouds on Titan regularly since the spacecraft...

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Progress Docking and Desert RATS Top This Week @NASA

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Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Mission Status Report

NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter put itself into a precautionary standby mode after experiencing a spontaneous computer reboot on Sept. 15. The mission's ground team has begun restoring the spacecraft to full operations.Initial analysis of telemetry from the orbiter indicates the "safe mode" status...

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Cosmic Ice Sculptures

Enjoying a frozen treat on a hot summer day can leave a sticky mess as it melts in the Sun and deforms. In the cold vacuum of space, there is no edible ice cream, but there is radiation from massive stars that is carving away at cold molecular clouds, creating bizarre, fantasy-like structures.These...

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Americas From the Moon

As LRO orbits the Moon every two hours sending down a stream of science data, it is easy to forget how close the Moon is to the Earth. The average distance between the two heavenly bodies is just 384,399 km (238,854 miles). Check your airline frequent flyer totals, perhaps you have already flown the...

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Chandra Finds Evidence for Stellar Cannibalism

Evidence that a star has recently engulfed a companion star or a giant planet has been found using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory. The likely existence of such a "cannibal" star provides new insight into how stars and the planets around them may interact as they age.The star in question, known as...

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NASA's Magnetospheric Mission Passes Major Milestone

The universe is still an arcane place that scientists know very little about, but a new NASA Solar Terrestrial Probe mission is going to shed light on one especially mysterious event called magnetic reconnection. It occurs when magnetic lines of force cross, cancel, and reconnect releasing magnetic...

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NASA and ATK Successfully Test Five-Segment Solid Rocket Motor

With a loud roar and mighty column of flame, NASA and ATK Aerospace Systems successfully completed a two-minute, full-scale test of the largest and most powerful solid rocket motor designed for flight. The motor is potentially transferable to future heavy-lift launch vehicle designs.The stationary firing of the first-stage development solid rocket motor, dubbed DM-2, was conducted by ATK, a division...

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