Days after the New Horizons flyby of Pluto, our editors discuss the mission’s surprises and discoveries. With the spacecraft sending back just 1% of data it is supposed to collect, scientists are already learning new insights about the dwarf planet, its moons and environs.
Pluto has previously unsuspected mountains of water ice as high as the Rockies, while its moon Charon features spectacular canyons as much as 6 mi. deep.
LAUREL, Maryland — Pluto’s nitrogen-rich atmosphere appears to be leaking across open space to collect on at least one of the poles of the dwarf planet’s large moon Charon, according to scientists processing data the New Horizons probe sent to Earth shortly before its closest approach to the two bodies.
Mission managers now have settled in to wait for a brief signal Tuesday night that will let them know how the spacecraft fared in its intricately choreographed flyby.
The U.S. Air Force might need to continue using Russian-made RD-180 engines for the time being, despite congressional wishes otherwise, crimping Aerojet Rocketdyne’s EELV ambitions.
Glen Fountain, New Horizons project manager at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, said Monday the spacecraft will hit its 60 x 90-mi. box “almost at the center of it” and right on time.
Planetary scientists are getting their first detailed look at the terrain on Pluto, as the New Horizons spacecraft closes in for a fast flyby on July 14.
The importance of satellite and space technology for environmental monitoring purposes was highlighted by the UAE Space Agency at the Eye of Earth Summit 2015 in Abu Dhabi.
Four NASA astronauts, all veterans with experience aboard the International Space Station, space shuttle or Russian Soyuz spacecraft, have been named to train to fly aboard the first U.S. commercial crew missions, tentatively planned for 2016-17.
Details of the critical technology at the core of an innovative hybrid hypersonic propulsion system for air and space systems have been unveiled for the first time by its British-based developer, Reaction Engines.
How to get to Mars is only part of the question. NASA calls for ideas on the best places to actually land, optimal also for living, mining resources and conducting scientific exploration.
Russia’s Progress 60 resupply vehicle delivered supplies to ISS crew, along with a sense of relief to space handlers worldwide in the aftermath of a spate of resupply mission launch failures.
