Latest Explorer program Stories

[ Watch the Video ] People still talk about the launch. It was the first – and so far, only – time NASA has launched five satellites at one time. Carefully balanced inside a Delta II rocket, the five THEMIS (short for Timed History of Events and Macroscale Interactions during Substorms) spacecraft were launched into space from Cape Canaveral at 6:01 p.m. ET on February 17, 2007. The spacecraft were nestled in a ring shape, four around the outside and one on a middle pedestal. A...

[ Watch the Video ] On February 5, 2002, NASA launched what was then called the High Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager (HESSI) into orbit. Renamed within months as the Ramaty High Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager (RHESSI) after Reuven Ramaty, a deceased NASA scientist who had long championed the mission, the spacecraft's job was to observe giant explosions on the sun called solar flares. During a solar flare, the gas soars to over 20 million degrees Fahrenheit, and emits X-rays that...

NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer, or Galex, was placed in standby mode today as engineers prepare to end mission operations, nearly nine years after the telescope's launch. The spacecraft is scheduled to be decommissioned -- taken out of service -- later this year. The mission extensively mapped large portions of the sky with sharp ultraviolet vision, cataloguing millions of galaxies spanning 10 billion years of cosmic time. The Galaxy Evolution Explorer launched into space from a Pegasus...

WASHINGTON, Jan. 31, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- NASA's Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) has captured the best and most complete glimpse yet of what lies beyond the solar system. The new measurements give clues about how and where our solar system formed, the forces that physically shape our solar system, and the history of other stars in the Milky Way. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO) The Earth-orbiting spacecraft observed four...

WASHINGTON, Jan. 26, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- NASA will host a Science Update at 1 p.m. EST, Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2012, to discuss new analysis from NASA's Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) spacecraft of material from outside our solar system and the interstellar boundary region that surrounds our home in space. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO) The interstellar boundary region shields our solar system from most of the dangerous galactic cosmic...

NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR, shipped to Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., on Tuesday, to be mated to its Pegasus launch vehicle. The observatory will detect X-rays from objects ranging from our sun to giant black holes billions of light-years away. It is scheduled to launch March 14 from an aircraft operating out of Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands. "The NuSTAR mission is unique because it will be the first NASA mission to focus X-rays in the high-energy...

WASHINGTON, Jan. 25, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR, shipped to Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., on Tuesday to be mated to its Pegasus launch vehicle. The observatory will detect X-rays from objects ranging from our sun to giant black holes billions of light-years away. It is scheduled to launch March 14 from an aircraft operating out of Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands. (Logo:...

WASHINGTON, Jan. 10, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Using observations from NASA's Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE) satellite and the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) radio telescope, an international team of astronomers has identified the moment when a black hole in our galaxy launched superfast knots of gas into space. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO ) Racing outward at about one-quarter the speed of light,...

After 16 years in space, NASA's Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE) has made its last observation. The satellite provided unprecedented views into the extreme environments around white dwarfs, neutron stars and black holes. RXTE sent data from its last science observation to the ground early on Jan. 4. After performing engineering tests, controllers at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., successfully decommissioned the satellite on Jan. 5. RXTE far exceeded its original...

WASHINGTON, Jan. 9, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- After 16 years in space, NASA's Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE) has made its last observation. The satellite provided unprecedented views into the extreme environments around white dwarfs, neutron stars and black holes. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO) RXTE sent data from its last science observation to the ground early on Jan. 4. After performing engineering tests, controllers at NASA's Goddard Space Flight...