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 …
Kirk Knobelspiesse is an atmospheric scientist and the project science team polarimeter lead for PACE at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. He is also the polarimeter instrument scientist for the Atmosphere Observing System (AOS) constellation. What is your favorite atmospheric or ocean related book or movie? There was a series on Netflix …
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 …
Just south of the Arctic Circle, a research range sits comfortably in the snowy foothills of Alaska's White Mountains. Known for its sparse population, preponderance of auroral activity, and leagues of undeveloped natural beauty, this spot is ideal for certain kinds of research – specifically ones that roar high into the sky.
Corrine Rojas is a scientific programmer in the ocean ecology lab at NASA's Goddard Spaceflight Center. Before we dive into your work with PACE, what is your favorite ocean- or atmosphere-related book or movie? I'm a big fan of ridiculous sci-fi/horror movies, and when it comes to the depths of the ocean, Sphere (1998) is …
On Saturday, Nov. 18, at 2 p.m. EST, installation of NASA's Atmospheric Waves Experiment (AWE) was completed on the International Space Station.
NASA's James Webb Space Telescope observed the exoplanet WASP-80 b as it passed in front of and behind its host star, revealing spectra indicative of an atmosphere containing methane gas and water vapor. While water vapor has been detected in over a dozen planets to date, until recently methane – a molecule found in abundance …
NASA's PACE spacecraft completed its journey Tuesday, Nov. 14, from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, to the Astrotech Spacecraft Operations facility near the agency's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Engineers and technicians arrived ahead of the spacecraft to prepare ground equipment for offloading and processing before fueling and final encapsulation. PACE, which …