Tag Archives: mission

The latest mission out of the China National Space Administration (CNSA) will examine not one, but two space bodies. After Tianwen-2 launches Wednesday afternoon, it will rendezvous with a near-Earth asteroid, then send samples to Earth before setting out to meet with a distant comet.If all goes according to plan, …

It’s only a matter of time before a large asteroid hits Earth—it’s happened before, and it will happen again. The more we know about asteroids, the more likely it is that humanity could do something about it, though. The European Space Agency (ESA) has just kicked off a new project …

In just the last few years, humanity has landed spacecraft on asteroids and comets, exploring environments we could only speculate about before. But the asteroid 16 Psyche is something different—instead of rock and ice, this object is composed mostly of metal. NASA’s Psyche spacecraft was supposed to launch last year …

(Photo: ActionVance/Unsplash)NASA’s Geostationary Carbon Observatory (GeoCarb) mission would have placed a satellite in geostationary orbit with the sole purpose of tracking Earth’s greenhouse gas emissions. It would have clocked the atmosphere’s carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, and methane levels no less than 10 million times each day. This information would have …

NASA has announced preliminary results from the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission, which successfully smashed into the asteroid Dimorphos several weeks ago. Now, the mission is successful in more ways than one — NASA would have been happy with altering the space rock’s orbit by a few seconds, but …

NASA’s InSight lander arrived on the surface of Mars in late 2018, designed to explore the interior of the red planet for the first time. While some aspects of the mission have not gone to plan, the lander has lasted longer in the harsh conditions than expected. However, nothing can …

Ingenuity’s mission on Mars has been a resounding success, but it is not without its emergent challenges; reports have returned from the space copter’s latest exploits, and things are getting tough out there. This fall, we experienced solar conjunction with Mars, where the two planets line up on exactly opposite …

NASA’s Dragonfly mission will send a rotorcraft lander to the surface of Titan in the mid-2030s. Dragonfly was officially selected for flight by NASA as the fourth New Frontiers mission on 2019 June 27. Launch is planned for 2027, with Titan arrival in the mid-2030s, during the local northern hemisphere …

  NASA has sent numerous robotic explorers to Mars over the years, examining samples and surveying the fascinating geology of the red planet. Still, we could learn much more with Mars samples to examine in detail here on Earth. The recently launched Perseverance rover will lay the groundwork by collecting …

  Japan’s Hayabusa2 mission wrapped up last week when the sample container parachuted down in Australia. The mission certainly looked like a success at every step along the way, but the true test is whether or not it collected the sample it flew out there to get. Today, the Japanese …