Articles

Dante Lauretta

The OSIRIS-REx project released Bennu’s Journey, a movie describing one possible history of our target asteroid – Bennu. The animation is among the most highly detailed productions created by Goddard’s Conceptual Image Laboratory.

Larry Crumpler

Larry Crumpler returns with an update on Opportunity's recent activities, and its road ahead.

Bruce Betts

I am happy to announce a new call for proposals for The Planetary Society’s Gene Shoemaker Near Earth Object (NEO) grant program. Proposals are due Feb. 2, 2015.

Emily Lakdawalla

Venus Express is nearly out of fuel. Any day could be the last of its long mission to Venus.

Jason Davis

Three more humans are in space today following the launch of Soyuz TMA-15M from the chilly steppes of Kazakhstan.

Deepak Dhingra

Deepak Dhingra gives an exciting update from the recent Lunar Exploration and Analysis Group (LEAG) meeting at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab (JHU-APL) in Baltimore.

The last two weeks have been extraordinary for The Planetary Society. As amazing as this increased traffic is, it has brought to light some issues with our website including latency and missing content that we are still working on fixing.

Casey Dreier

Rep. John Culberson, an outspoken supporter of Europa exploration, will assume leadership of an influential congressional committee that funds NASA.

Jason Davis

On the surface, NASA's humans to Mars plans seem vague and disjointed. But that's because the agency is playing the long game. Right now, it may be the only game they can play.

Emily Lakdawalla

At Pahrump Hills, Curiosity is becoming the field geologist she was intended to be.

Emily Lakdawalla

A set of photos released by Mars Orbiter Mission last week completes the set of Mars spacecraft observations of the comet. Now we wait for science results!

Emily Lakdawalla

This morning ESA released a set of images of the Philae lander taken by the Rosetta orbiter during -- and after -- the lander's first touchdown. The images contain evidence for the spot Philae first touched the comet, and a crucial photo of Philae's position several minutes into its first long bounce.

Emily Lakdawalla

My last post on the drama in Darmstadt, where ground controllers believe Philae may have fell asleep for good.

Emily Lakdawalla

Emily Lakdawalla gives a status report on Philae from the European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) in Darmstadt.

Jason Callahan

On Monday, Jason Callahan published an article in The Space Review discussing the importance of aligning the goals of federally funded scientific communities with national priorities. This post highlights some of the main points of the article and suggests a possible role for The Planetary Society.

Jason Davis

When New Horizons wakes up for the final time on Dec. 6, scientists will spend six weeks preparing for the start of the spacecraft's Pluto encounter.

Emily Lakdawalla

I'm just getting up to speed on the news from overnight, which is mostly good: Philae remained in contact with the orbiter (which means the CONSERT radar sounding experiment was working), and it's sitting stably on the surface, although it's not anchored in any way. And they released the first ÇIVA image from the ground!

Emily Lakdawalla

The Philae team scrambled all morning to comprehend the initially confusing status of the lander, and the picture is much clearer today. Speaking of which, there are lots more pictures!

Jason Davis

The Planetary Society's LightSail-A spacecraft is less than three weeks away from an expected go/no-go decision on whether the CubeSat will be launched into space for a shakedown cruise next year.

Emily Lakdawalla

Philae is