Curation team members at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston have successfully removed the two fasteners from the sampler head that had prevented the remainder of OSIRIS-REx's asteroid Bennu sample material from being accessed. Steps now are underway to complete the disassembly of the Touch-and-Go Sample Acquisition Mechanism, or TAGSAM, head to reveal the rest …
NASA's Parker Solar Probe completed its 18th close approach to the Sun on Dec. 28, 2023.
Editor's note: A previous version of this post identified the TMU as the telecommunications unit. It is the telemetry modulation unit. Engineers are working to resolve an issue with one of Voyager 1's three onboard computers, called the flight data system (FDS). The spacecraft is receiving and executing commands sent from Earth; however, the FDS …
Engineers are working to resolve an issue with one of Voyager 1’s three onboard computers, called the flight data system (FDS). The spacecraft is receiving and executing commands sent from Earth; however, the FDS is not communicating properly with one of the probe’s subsystems, called the telemetry modulation unit (TMU).
Announcing HelioCloud – a new, collaborative, cloud-based tool for heliophysics scientists and students to rapidly access and analyze high-volume datasets from a web browser. With an easy-to-navigate interface and generous data storage, HelioCloud offers a streamlined approach to conduct research. Work in the Cloud, Download Results This free and open-source platform offers a virtual software …
NASA's Atmospheric Waves Experiment (AWE) has captured initial images of the mesosphere from its perch on the International Space Station. AWE was installed on the Space Station on Nov. 18, and initial commands were sent to the instrument on Nov. 20.
NASA's OSIRIS-REx sample return capsule landed under parachute in the Utah desert on Sept. 24, 2023, and safely delivered a cannister of rocks and dust collected from near-Earth asteroid Bennu. Although the delivery was successful, the landing sequence did not go entirely according to plan, with a small parachute called a drogue not deploying as …
UPDATE AS OF JAN. 4, 2024: NASA's OSIRIS-APEX spacecraft continues to transmit a telemetry signal and operate normally in its new configuration. Once OSIRIS-APEX is farther from the Sun in March, the mission team will re-orient the spacecraft to point its high-gain antenna toward Earth to allow for high-speed communication. At that point, the team …
The Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP) has successfully completed Key Decision Point D (KDP-D). This milestone allows the mission to move from development and design to the assembly, testing, and integration phase.
The satellite discovered during the first asteroid encounter of NASA's Lucy mission has an official name. On Nov. 27, 2023, the International Astronomical Union approved the name "Selam" or ሰላም, which means "peace" in the Ethiopian language Amharic, for Dinkinesh's moon. "Dinkinesh is the Ethiopian name for the fossil nicknamed ‘Lucy,'", says Raphael Marshall of …