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01 December 2008
Who Listens For Phoenix?
Phoenix isn't merely dead; it's really most sincerely dead. NASA has now stopped listening for any residual beeps sent by the Phoenix lander with the spacecraft orbiting Mars. After nearly a month of daily checks to listen for any last communications from the lander, the Mars Odyssey and the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter have [...]
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01 December 2008
Shuttle Landing: Beautiful; Progress Docking: Last-Minute Excitement
Sunday was a busy day for human spaceflight, as space shuttle Endeavour landed safely at Edwards Air Force Base in California, and a Progress re-supply ship docked at the International Space Station. While the shuttle landing went off without a hitch, problems developed with an automated docking system for the Progress ship, forcing a [...]
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27 November 2008
Chandrayaan-1 Feeling the Heat
India's Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft has successfully sent back some of its first science data and images from the moon, but the spacecraft is also experiencing rising temperatures, and mission managers have decided to use the instruments sparingly to avoid overheating. Chandrayaan-1 is currently orbiting over the sunlit side of the moon, and a rise in temperatures [...]
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26 November 2008
Good News and Great Pictures from STS-126
Seemingly, the current space shuttle mission, STS-126, has been all about two things: recycling and restoring. The crew has been working almost nonstop to get a new system that turns urine into drinking water to work correctly; and spacewalkers spent a majority of four grueling EVAs cleaning and lubricating a jammed solar-wing joint [...]
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24 November 2008
It's Official: Juno is Going to Jupiter
NASA has decided to return to Jupiter with a mission to conduct an unprecedented, in-depth study of the largest planet in our solar system. The mission is called Juno, and it will be the first in which a spacecraft is placed in a highly elliptical polar orbit around the giant planet to understand its formation, [...]
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21 November 2008
Dawn Spacecraft Shuts Down Ion Engine
The Dawn spacecraft's three ion engines have done their work for now, and mission engineers shut down the frugal but powerful ion propulsion system on Thursday as scheduled. The spacecraft is now gliding toward a Mars flyby/gravity assist in February 2009. "Dawn has completed the thrusting it needs to use Mars for a gravity assist [...]
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20 November 2008
MSL News: Landing Sites and Naming Contest
Landing sites for the Mars Science Laboratory have been narrowed down to four intriguing places on the Red Planet. The car-sized rover will have the capability to travel to more scientifically compelling sites, and with its radioisotope power source, it won't need to rely on solar power, allowing for more flexibility in locations say project [...]
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14 November 2008
Moon Impact Probe Hits Paydirt (or pay-regolith…)
The lunar impactor from the Chandrayaan-1 mission today successfully made it to the surface of the moon, impacting inside the Shackleton crater on the moon's south pole. The 34 kg box-shaped MIP (Moon Impact Probe) carried three instruments, and data was successfully transmitted from the 25-minute descent of the probe after it was ejected [...]
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11 November 2008
Spirit Rover in Trouble
Martian dust storms are wreaking havoc with human spacecraft. Not only did a dust storm cut short the Phoenix lander's extended mission, but now, another dust storm around Gusev Crater has cut into the amount of sunlight reaching the solar array on Spirit, one of the Mars Exploration Rovers, leaving the rover in [...]
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08 November 2008
Chandrayaan-1 Now Successfully in Lunar Orbit
Chandrayaan-1, India’s first unmanned spacecraft mission to moon, successfully entered lunar orbit on November 8. The spacecraft fired its engines to reduce velocity and enable the Moon's gravity to capture it; engines were fired for 817 seconds when Chandrayaan-1 was about 500 km away from the moon. Next up for the spacecraft will [...]
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06 November 2008
Chandrayaan-1 Closer to the Moon; Snaps First Lunar Shot
Following the fifth and final orbit raising maneuver which put Chandrayaan-1 closer to the moon, the spacecraft snapped the first picture of its final destination. This clear, crisp image of the moon bodes well for spacecraft's mission to map the entire moon's surface with its Terrain Mapping Camera. And all systems are go [...]
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04 November 2008
5 Years At Mars: The Best of Mars Express
In December, the Mars Express spacecraft will celebrate the fifth anniversary of its arrival at Mars. In observation of this milestone the German Aerospace Center DLR has put together a collection of some of the best images from the High-Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC), the main camera on board the spacecraft. The stunning, high [...]
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03 November 2008
Can Cassini be Used to Detect Life on Enceladus?
Having just returned the most detailed images yet of Saturn's 500km-wide moon Enceladus, it is little wonder scientists are excited about this mysterious natural satellite. However, in new research recently published, the results aren't related to the recent "skeet shot" Cassini carried out above the moon's south pole (although there is some common ground). The [...]
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03 November 2008
Cassini's 'Skeet Shoot' of Enceladus Produces Spectacular Images
The Cassini spacecraft performed another 'skeet shoot' over Enceladus' south pole on Friday, and returned some absolutely stunning images. Or as Carolyn Porco, the imaging team leader for the spacecraft said, "a bounty of positively glorious views of one of the most fabulous places in the solar system." The resolution of the mosaic shown here [...]
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30 October 2008
Phoenix Not Responding to Communications
The Phoenix Lander is not responding to attempts to communicate with it. Earlier today, we reported that Phoenix had gone into safe mode. The lander experienced a low-power fault in the electrical system due to the reduction of solar-electric power to shorter daylight hours and a dust storm, as well as extremely cold [...]
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