NASA’s Lucy spacecraft is less than one month away from its next asteroid encounter. As it approaches, Lucy is keeping an eye on its target, the small main belt asteroid Donaldjohanson, using its high-resolution imager, L’LORRI, for optical navigation. At its closest point, Lucy will fly 600 miles (960 km) from Donaldjohanson, a distance carefully...
Since near-Earth asteroid 2024 YR4 was first discovered in December 2024, NASA and the worldwide planetary defense community have continued to observe the asteroid, which was ruled out as a significant impact risk to Earth. New infrared observations from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope have decreased the uncertainty of the asteroid’s size and 2024 YR4...
Work on NASA’s purpose-built asteroid hunter, Near-Earth Object (NEO) Surveyor, is progressing toward a targeted late 2027 launch. A major component of the mission, the spacecraft’s instrument enclosure journeyed back to the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California in early March after completing environmental testing at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. Built at JPL, the angular 12-foot-long...
NASA’s EZIE (Electrojet Zeeman Imaging Explorer) spacecraft are scheduled to launch as part of the Transporter-13 rideshare mission with SpaceX via launch integrator Maverick Space Systems at 2:39 a.m. EDT on Saturday, March 15 (11:39 p.m. PDT on Friday, March 14).
Efforts to reestablish communications with NASA’s Lunar Trailblazer have continued since mission operators at Caltech’s IPAC lost contact with the small satellite Feb. 27, one day after launch.
Mission controllers for NASA’s PUNCH (Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere) have received full acquisition of signal from the four small satellites, indicating that they are functioning normally and at full power.
NASA’s SPHEREx (Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer) mission controllers on Earth have received full acquisition of signal from the observatory, indicating the spacecraft is functioning nominally and is power positive.
Deployment of the PUNCH (Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere) mission’s four satellites has occurred.
NASA’s SPHEREx (Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer) observatory has separated from the Falcon 9 rocket’s second stage, on its way to begin its science mission from a sun-synchronous orbit about 404 miles (650 kilometers) above the Earth’s surface.
The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket’s first stage has successfully landed at Vandenberg Space Force Base’s Landing Zone 4 in California.