Articles

Jason Davis

Pics of Ryugu's surface show loose piles of gravel strewn with larger rocks and boulders.

Jason Davis

The two small spacecraft are the size and shape of cheese wheels, and can autonomously hop around the surface.

Jason Davis

On Jan. 1, NASA's New Horizons will perform a high-risk, high-reward flyby of an ancient world on the outskirts of the solar system.

Emily Lakdawalla

With my first issue of The Planetary Report as editor, I am taking the magazine open-access. Return to Mercury features articles by Elsa Montagnon on BepiColombo and by Long Xiao on the Chang'e-4 and -5 landers.

Elsa Montagnon

Elsa Montagnon details the challenges of delivering BepiColombo’s two spacecraft from Earth to Mercury.

Long Xiao

Long Xiao previews two ambitious Chinese lunar missions, one of which will make the first-ever landing on the far side of the Moon.

Sriram Bhiravarasu

Sriram Bhiravarasu anticipates India’s 2019 lunar venture with an orbiter, lander, and rover.

Mattias Malmer

Mattias Malmer made it a little easier to figure out what Philae really saw in 2014.

Emily Lakdawalla

Hayabusa2 didn’t quite make it down to its intended 60-meter distance from asteroid Ryugu yesterday. There is nothing wrong with the spacecraft; it’s healthy and returning to its home position. The team will adjust parameters and give it another try in the future.

A.J.S. Rayl

The dust raising power of the storms that wrapped Mars in a cloud in June and July diminished in August. Meanwhile, on Earth, the Opportunity team at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory reviewed recovery plans, conducted additional simulations, and began wrapping the month with newfound reasons to believe Opportunity can emerge from her hibernation.

Emily Lakdawalla

Heedless of the (now-dissipating) dust storm, Curiosity has achieved its first successful drill into rocks that form the Vera Rubin ridge, and is hopefully on the way to a second. It took three attempts for Curiosity to find a soft enough spot, with Voyageurs and Ailsa Craig being too tough, but Stoer proved obligingly soft on sol 2136.

Marc Rayman

Like its human colleagues, Dawn started out on Earth, but now its permanent residence in the solar system, Ceres, is far, far away. Let's bring this cosmic landscape into perspective.

Marc Rayman

A fantastic story of adventure, exploration and discovery is reaching its denouement. In the final phase of its long and productive deep-space mission, Dawn is operating flawlessly in orbit around dwarf planet Ceres.

Emily Lakdawalla

Both OSIRIS-REx and New Horizons achieved first light on their still-distant targets this week. Between now and the end of 2018, Bennu and 2014 MU69 will turn from points of light into places.

Emily Lakdawalla

Two months after arrival, the team has reported some preliminary facts about Ryugu. They also announced the selection of candidate landing sites for the spacecraft sample collection, for the German-built MASCOT hopper, and for the MINERVA-II microrovers

Jason Davis

It was a signal from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, not Opportunity, that showed up on a Deep Space Network dashboard last week.

Casey Dreier

Though progress is being made on Mars Sample Return, a new report from the National Academies recommends NASA have a long-term plan for robotic Mars exploration, and work to ensure communications infrastructure is maintained at the Red Planet. These recommendations largely align with those made by The Planetary Society in a report released in 2017.

Jason Davis

Let's check in on NASA's Juno spacecraft, which completed its 14th close flyby of Jupiter last month.

Adeene Denton

A lack of new missions keeps scientists guessing on what shaped the planet’s surface.

Emily Lakdawalla

Chandrayaan-2, expected to launch in October, will now be launching no earlier than 3 January 2019, with its lander and rover touching down in February.