NASA's Interplanetary Missions

InSight

InSight is a robotic Mars lander designed and operated by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory as the first mission dedicated to a comprehensive study of the interior and subsurface of Mars through a suite of instruments including a high-fidelity seismometer and a burrowing heat probe. It is the first outer space mission designed for an in-depth study of the interior of another rocky planet and will deliver valuable knowledge on the internal structure of Mars

OSIRIS-REx

OSIRIS-REx is a NASA asteroid exploration and sample return mission launching on an Atlas V rocket in September 2016 before arriving at asteroid Bennu in 2018 for an exploration mission of two and half years ahead of a return launch in 2021 and a landing on Earth in September 2023 with up to two Kilograms of sample material from the asteroid.

New Horizons

NASA's New Horizons spacecraft traveled through the solar system for nearly one decade to be the first to get an up-close look at Pluto, one of the last large unexplored worlds in the solar system. Arriving at Pluto in July 2015, New Horizons delivered a truly unprecedented data set and gave Pluto a face - collecting the first high resolution images of the Dwarf Planet.

MSL - Curiosity

Curiosity, NASA's flagship Mars Rover, is completing an ambitious mission of discovery on the surface of Mars. Spending several years on Mars, Curiosity has mad a number of key discoveries with regards to the Planet's past habitability.

MAVEN

MAVEN, the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution spacecraft, is orbiting the red planet for an in-depth look at the Martian Atmosphere - peering deep into the past to find out how and why Mars lost almost all of its atmosphere, turning the planet from the warm, hospitable place to a deserted world.

Dawn

NASA's Dawn mission sets out to study two of the Asteroid Belt's protoplanets, Vesta and Ceres, in order to look into the early stages of the solar system by examining the detailed historic record held by these two asteroids.

Juno

Juno is en-route to the largest planet in our solar system to conduct the most detailed of Jupiter to date - exploring the structure of its atmosphere, looking for a solid planetary core and studying other aspects of the gas giant such as its magnetosphere.

LADEE

LADEE, the Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer, explored the Moon’s thin exosphere and dust environment to answer long standing questions on the formation and evolution of exospheres which will also help understand planetary bodies with exospheres. The spacecraft also demonstrated high-speed laser communications as a pathfinder for future missions, including human flights to distant targets.

GRAIL

The GRAIL spacecraft twins spent one and a half years in orbit around the Moon, keeping a precise formation to be able to look deeply beneath the surface of the Moon. GRAIL solved long-standing mysteries of lunar gravity and revealed previously unknown surface features.

Interplanetary Mission Updates

Atlas V Pierces into Vandenberg Fog on first West Coast Interplanetary Mission
Atlas V Commercial Space Featured Interplanetary Mars NASA News Newsfeed Science United Launch Alliance 

Atlas V Pierces into Vandenberg Fog on first West Coast Interplanetary Mission

Patrick Blau Comments Off on Atlas V Pierces into Vandenberg Fog on first West Coast Interplanetary Mission

A United Launch Alliance Atlas V 401 rocket (AV-078) launched from Space Launch Complex 3E at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, at 11:05 UTC on May 5, 2018 with NASA’s InSight Mars Lander and two MarCO CubeSats

NASA Delays James Webb Space Telescope to 2020, cites Technical Challenges, Overly Optimistic Schedules
Interplanetary NASA News Newsfeed 

NASA Delays James Webb Space Telescope to 2020, cites Technical Challenges, Overly Optimistic Schedules

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NASA’s next flagship space telescope and Hubble successor is facing another significant launch delay and potential budget overruns after testing on the spacecraft fell behind schedule and a number of unforeseen problems

Eyes on Target: Japan’s Hayabusa 2 Takes First Images of Asteroid Ryugu
Interplanetary Japan JAXA News Newsfeed 

Eyes on Target: Japan’s Hayabusa 2 Takes First Images of Asteroid Ryugu

Patrick Blau Comments Off on Eyes on Target: Japan’s Hayabusa 2 Takes First Images of Asteroid Ryugu

Japan’s Hayabusa 2 spacecraft – on a quest to touch an asteroid – has set its sight on its destination in late February via the first detection of asteroid Ryugu by the craft’s Telescopic Optical Navigation Camera that will be used to guide it into close proximity to the distant world later this year.

Trace Gas Orbiter Concludes Aerobraking ahead of Final Orbit Trimming, Science Operations
ESA Featured Interplanetary Mars News Newsfeed Roscosmos Russia 

Trace Gas Orbiter Concludes Aerobraking ahead of Final Orbit Trimming, Science Operations

Patrick Blau Comments Off on Trace Gas Orbiter Concludes Aerobraking ahead of Final Orbit Trimming, Science Operations

ESA’s Trace Gas Orbiter circling Mars since October 2016 this week finished a delicate aero-braking campaign of nearly one year that moved the spacecraft from a highly elliptical orbit into a nearly circular Low Mars Orbit in preparation for a final set of trimming maneuvers and the start of a highly anticipated science mission.

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