Today's post is written by Alex Parker, a research scientist at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado, working on NASA's New Horizons mission. It's approaching dusk on an alien world, and the only eyes to witness the scene belong to a machine that has traveled billions of miles to be here at just this …
I'm Stuart Robbins, a research scientist at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado. NASA's New Horizons spacecraft made hundreds of individual observations during its flyby of the Pluto system in mid-July. The spacecraft is now sending back lots of image and composition data; over the past two weeks, New Horizons has returned to Earth …
Hi, I'm Carly Howett, a senior research scientist at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado. I've been working on NASA's New Horizons mission since 2012, focusing on an instrument named Ralph, which among other things provides the color "eyes" for the spacecraft. When I started looking at Ralph images of Pluto and its largest …
An exhilarating, pioneering journey came to fruition on July 14, 2015, as NASA's New Horizons spacecraft made its successful flight through the Pluto system, recording 60 gigabits of data that it is beginning to send to Earth. I'm Stuart Robbins, a research scientist at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado. While I only came onto …
Hi, I'm Kelsi Singer, a postdoctoral researcher at the Southwest Research Institute, working on NASA's New Horizons mission and specializing in geology and geophysics. One of my areas of expertise is impact cratering. That subject may not seem related to Pluto's atmosphere or nitrogen at first, but let me tell you about research that …
Take a look at our launch photos this evening from today's liftoff of NOAA's DSCOVR spacecraft that was sent aloft to observe the sun and the Earth from a million miles away. The DSCOVR gallery on Flickr can be found here. One of the gems:
Photo credit: NASA/Frankie Martin
DSCOVR's twin solar wings have opened to provide power to the spacecraft's systems and instruments as it observes the sun and our home planet to show the changing conditions on Earth. The mission is a partnership of NOAA, NASA and the U.S. Air Force.
The Falcon 9 sprung the DSCOVR spacecraft free on schedule to coast toward the L1 point on its own. Data shows that the spacecraft is healthy and getting ready to deploy its solar panels.
Confirmation of a second burn as planned. DSCOVR will separate from the second stage shortly.