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Stories, updates, insights, and original analysis from The Planetary Society. 

What's Up in the Solar System diagram by Olaf Frohn (updated for July 2019)

Looking ahead to spacecraft activities in 2013

2013 is going to be a busy year in space exploration. Two missions launch to the Moon (LADEE and Chang'E 3), and another two to Mars (MAVEN and India's mission). Curiosity should drive to the Mountain, and Opportunity to the next site on Endeavour's rim. Cassini will be seeing rings and Titan. Others should continue routine operations, except maybe MESSENGER, whose fate after March is not yet decided.

Solar system montage with eight planets

Planetary Society Weekly Hangout, Thu Jan 3 1200PT/2000UT: Jim Bell

Join Emily Lakdawalla and Casey Dreier for a chat with Jim Bell, a scientist who wears many hats. He's the team lead for the Pancam color cameras on the Spirit and Opportunity rovers; he's a member of the Curiosity science team; and he's the esteemed President of the Planetary Society's Board of Directors. We'll talk about the great science being done by both Curiosity and Opportunity, and about what's in store for the future.

56 views of Mars from the Mars Webcam in 2012

Mars Express VMC resumes raw data posting

ESA brought Mars Express' VMC back online in May, but hasn't been posting the images. This week, they launched a new process to release VMC images automatically to a Flickr page.

Solar system montage with eight planets

Chang'E 2 imaging of Toutatis succeeded beyond my expectations!

The Chang'E 2 mission flyby of Toutatis succeeded in acquiring images. Oh my goodness, did they succeed. These, in combination with the incredible radar images still being acquired from Goldstone and innumerable optical observations, make Toutatis one of the best-studied asteroids in the solar system.

The end of GRAIL's mission

How GRAIL will meet its end

The twin GRAIL spacecraft are nearly out of fuel, and are being directed to a controlled impact near the north pole on the near side of the Moon on December 17. Before the end, though, they did some cool things, including flying within 2000 meters of mountaintops, and catching video of Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter in flight.

Curiosity Mastcam-100 panorama of Shaler from Point Lake, sol 110

Curiosity update, sol 117: Progress report from AGU

Monday was the big Curiosity day at the fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union. A morning press briefing was followed by an afternoon science session. I traveled to San Francisco briefly just to attend those two events. Here's my notes on the first science reports from the mission.

Solar system montage with eight planets

Planetary Society Weekly Hangout: present and future rovers

The Planetary Society has a new weekly Google+ Hangout time slot, Thursdays at noon PT / 1800 UT. This week, Casey Dreier and I talked about the Curiosity kerfuffle and NASA's future rover plans. Here's the archived recording.

Solar system montage with eight planets

Rovers are awesome, but where's the science?

Now that Casey has explained the budget implications of yesterday's 2020 rover announcement, and The Planetary Society has issued a formal statement, I thought it was time for me to talk briefly about science.

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