NASA’s Juno spacecraft, which launched in 2011 to investigate Jupiter’s origin and evolution, travels through the solar system’s most intense planetary radiation fields. When the spacecraft’s JunoCam—a color, visible-light camera—began to suffer the consequences in December 2023, the mission team back on Earth had to think of a remote fix before they lost their chance […]
NASA Pulls the Plug on Europa Lander, but Scientists Propose a Plan B
NASA engineers have spent the past decade developing a rugged, partially autonomous lander designed to explore Europa, one of Jupiter’s most intriguing moons. The space agency got cold feet over the project, but engineers are now targeting a new destination for the probe: Enceladus. Europa has long been a prime target in the search for […]
NASA Is Still Trying to Squeeze Some Life From Doomed Lunar Orbiter
NASA is not one to let a good spacecraft go to waste. For nearly two weeks, the space agency has been trying to reestablish communications with a recently launched satellite that was originally headed toward the Moon. Lunar Trailblazer launched on February 26 on board a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with the aim of entering […]
Meet Trailblazer: A Spunky NASA Probe on a Mission to Map the Moon’s Water
NASA’s Lunar Trailblazer is officially in Florida and integrated with a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket in anticipation of its launch into space later this month. The petite satellite is set to launch no earlier than February 26 from Kennedy Space Center, with the ultimate objective of getting into lunar orbit and taking a full assessment […]