Articles

The Downlink

With 3 spacecraft en route to Mars, we’re sharing mission news, Martian maps, and a chance to meet Bill Nye.

Casey Dreier

Disney’s global box office revenue for Avengers. The amount of money Google makes in 6 days. The cost of NASA's Perseverance rover is less than you might think.

The Downlink

Everything you need to know about two missions en route to Mars and another gearing up for launch, plus the rest of the week’s space news.

Nancy Atkinson

The first Mars microphone, sponsored by The Planetary Society, flew aboard NASA's Polar Lander spacecraft, which crashed on the Red Planet in 1999.

The Downlink

Learn about The Planetary Society’s vision for the next decade of exploration and get up to speed on space news.

Emily Lakdawalla

It's a banner year for sample return missions. In 2020, China, Japan, and the United States are all scheduled to have sample return missions in flight, seeking to retrieve material from near-Earth asteroids, the Moon, and eventually Mars.

Emily Lakdawalla

Two maps by The Planetary Society show all the places we've landed or crashed on Mars as of June 2020.

Jess Mollerup

An undergraduate physics research student describes her visit to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory to see the Perseverance rover before it shipped to Florida for launch.

Corrine Rojas

The maps will help plan scientific field trips for the rover as it explores an ancient river delta.

Casey Dreier

A new budget submission from the White House would continue record-high funding for planetary science, but proposes deep cuts to 2 productive Mars missions and defers funding for deep space telescope dedicated to finding hazardous near-Earth objects.

Abigail Fraeman

Abigail Fraeman examines how the Mars Exploration Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, changed our view of Mars.

Javier Gómez-Elvira

Javier Gómez-Elvira anticipates the next phase of the search for life on the Red Planet.

Jason Davis

Last week, technicians installed the carousel that holds the tools and drill bits that will be used to collect samples for future return to Earth.

Justin Cowart

The current strategy includes the Mars 2020 rover, a lander carrying a rover and ascent vehicle, and an Earth return orbiter.

Emily Lakdawalla

InSight has detected a couple more small Marsquakes, and the team has lifted the housing of the heat probe off the ground, exposing the top of the mole in a surprisingly wide hole.

Emily Lakdawalla

Wispy clouds of stunning beauty fly over Curiosity every evening.

A.J.S. Rayl

It’s a fall afternoon at Endeavour Crater. The summer winds finally lost their energy and the dust storm season is over. But there are no more signals coming from Earth. No more comm sessions with the orbiters. Nothing like it used to be.

Emily Lakdawalla

The Curiosity team is touring Glen Torridon, the Valley of Clay, south of Vera Rubin Ridge, happily photographing everything and zapping rocks. It’s clearly a delight for the team to be in a place they’ve been hoping to reach for 7 years.

Emily Lakdawalla

InSight has finally detected its first Marsquakes, but so far, none have been large enough to produce good science. Still, it’s great news that the seismometer is producing sensible data.

Alfred McEwen

Blurred images and battery issues are no longer an immediate problem.