Jet Propulsion Laboratory

NASA developing a robotic snake to slither on – and into – icy moons

11 May 2023 Astronomy Now

To explore hard-to-reach places on other worlds, NASA is developing a slithering snake-like robot to boldly go where traditional rovers cannot.

NASA’s Mars 2020 rover passes first driving test on road to red planet

21 December 2019 Astronomy Now

In another major milestone on the road to launch next year, NASA’s Mars 2020 rover passed its first weight-on-wheels driving test with flying colours.

Mars 2020 rover on track for launch next July

31 July 2019 Stephen Clark

The launch of NASA’s Mars 2020 rover is less than a year away, and the steady pace of work inside the craft’s pristine assembly hall in California is keeping the mission on schedule for liftoff from Cape Canaveral next July, despite growing costs, according to mission managers.

Perfecting the technology needed for ‘starshades’

14 June 2019 Astronomy Now

Engineers are studying plans for a future “starshade” that would block out a star’s light, allowing a distant telescope to directly image smaller exoplanets.

NASA to shut down Spitzer Space Telescope early next year

1 June 2019 Stephen Clark

After a search for an outside funding source turned up empty, NASA plans to end observations with the Spitzer Space Telescope in January to conclude a 16-year mission that discovered exoplanets, studied galaxies in the ancient universe, and peered at planets and asteroids in our own Solar System.

NASA’s InSight mission lands on Mars to study planet’s hidden interior

26 November 2018 Stephen Clark

NASA’s InSight spacecraft plunged into the rarefied atmosphere of Mars at a speed of more than 12,000 mph Monday and braked to a gentle touchdown, setting the stage for a two-year surface mission to probe the planet’s deep interior.

Managers clear InSight for launch after heat shield review

3 May 2018 Stephen Clark

NASA officials have determined that the robotic InSight lander is ready for its mission to Mars after concluding that the probe should not suffer the same flaw that led to a crack in a heat shield undergoing tests for the space agency’s Mars 2020 rover.

Saturn’s clouds run deep, rings may rain organics

6 April 2018 Stephen Clark

Saturn’s clouds have roots deeper inside the planet’s atmosphere than scientists previously thought, and Saturn’s rings — now believed to have formed in the last 200 million years — appear to be raining organic molecules down on the planet, according to observations made by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft last year in the final weeks of its mission.

Voyager 1 probe fires long-dormant thrusters in interstellar space

3 December 2017 Stephen Clark

NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft has fired a set of four control thrusters for the first time in 37 years, giving the long-lived probe a new way to point itself on its cruise into interstellar space 13 billion miles from Earth.

Cassini’s farewell to Saturn

26 November 2017 Stephen Clark

Two days before its final plunge into Saturn, the Cassini spacecraft turned its camera toward the ringed world to take a series of images for a colour mosaic, capturing a last evocative close-up until a new mission reaches the planet.