NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory

The NASA Voyager 1’s mission engineers report continued progress toward restoring the transmission of scientific data to Earth from a distant human-made object.

Our roundup of the main aerospace and defense stories making the news this week.

Northrop Grumman plans to lay off up to 1,000 employees at its Space Park facilities in Redondo Beach, California.

There is a long history of NASA brain power moving on to private industry.

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory plans to cut about 530 staff positions, or about 8% of its workforce, as well as about 40 contractor jobs.

A blade strike on Flight 72 grounded Ingenuity helicopter after almost three years on the planet.

NASA’s Europa Clipper mission spacecraft has been outfitted with all nine of the instruments needed to study the potential habitability of Europa.

NASA’s 2024 Spinoff, the latest edition of the agency’s annual summary of its technical achievements, highlights 20 new technologies.

Scientists suspect a metal asteroid the mission will explore may be the remnant of early planet.

NASA is addressing two issues with its 1970s-era Voyager 1 and 2 deep space probes.

A SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket making a debut mission for NASA sent the Psyche spacecraft on a mission to explore a planetary body made mostly of metal.

After a year’s delay to resolve software issues, NASA’s Psyche spacecraft is poised to explore a namesake asteroid.

NASA says a $1.2 billion mission to learn more about the metal-rich asteroid Psyche is on track for launch on Oct. 5 aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket.

NASA’s Lunar Trailblazer spacecraft is undergoing final assembly and testing at Lockheed Martin facilities in Littleton, Colorado.

NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter has completed its 54th flight on Mars, performing a 25-sec. up-and-down hop on the surface.

The resumption of communications through NASA’s Deep Space Network follows a “shout” command transmitted to the probe by the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Voyager 2, one of NASA’s most distant and longest-lived spacecraft, has lost its ability to transmit data through the agency’s Deep Space Network (DSN).

An audit of NASA's Deep Space Network recommends—among other suggestions—transmitter upgrades as part of the Deep Space Network Aperture Enhancement Project.

Euclid, planned for an early July launch, will be joined by the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope by May 2027.

NASA is progressing toward an October launch of Psyche, an approximately $1 billion science mission to orbit a metal-rich, main-belt asteroid.

NASA has terminated efforts to place its small, propulsively challenged Lunar Flashlight mission spacecraft into a backup orbit around the Earth.

NASA’s Mars Ingenuity helicopter will be repositioned for a new campaign following completion of its 50th sortie.

NASA’s JSC is in line to receive the largest share of the agency’s $27.2 billion fiscal 2024 budget request among NASA’s 10 field centers and Washington HQ.

Lunar Flashlight has experienced a succession of green propellant thruster issues.

A 95-page NASA 2023 Spinoff publication was released Jan. 31.