Latest Lander Stories

Revising and revisiting the Giant Impact Theory Scientists are revisiting the age-old question of how Earth's moon formed with the development of two new models that work out the complicated physics of planetary collisions. The idea of a moon-forming collision is not new: The Giant Impact Theory put forth in the 1970s suggested that the moon resulted from a collision with a protoplanet approximately half the size of ancient Earth. But the physics underlying such a collision implied that...

redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports - Your Universe Online European researchers are in the process of building an unmanned probe that would travel to the moon, where it would search for subsurface ice on the lunar surface, within the next six years. The $800 million (£500 million) project, which is detailed in an October 21 article by Telegraph Science Correspondent Richard Gray, is currently being planned by the European Space Agency (ESA) and is on pace to take place sometime in 2018....

KAMUELA, Hawaii, Sept. 7, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- The International Lunar Observatory Association signs historic MOU with NAOC - National Astronomical Observatories, Chinese Academy of Sciences. In the first such USA / China collaboration, the parties agree to establish a cooperative program to conduct Galaxy, Astronomical Imaging for Global 21st Century Education using the Lunar Telescope of China's Chang'e-3 Moon Lander (scheduled for launch in 2013). With an exchange in kind, NAOC...

Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online Following the success of its Hayabusa mission, the Japanese space agency JAXA is shooting for another asteroid in 2018. Dennis Normille wrote in a report in Physics World that JAXA is planning to land another spacecraft on an asteroid in 2018 to search for clues as to how life on Earth began. Hayabusa 2 will be the sequel to its previous mission, which was the first to collect material from an asteroid and return it back to Earth...

Michael Harper for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online Every year around this time, hurricanes and tropical storms churn out from the Atlantic ocean, striking the Caribbean Islands and the East and Gulf Coasts of the U.S. As such, every year, this season provides meteorologists the opportunity to monitor and study these deadly and destructive storms, working to better understand these storms and improve their tracking technologies. Using a combination of on-the-ground tools and...

DENVER, Aug. 20, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- An exciting and novel mission to Mars has been selected as NASA's next Discovery mission. The Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport (InSight) mission, led by principal investigator Bruce Banerdt of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and managed by JPL, will make the first ever measurements of the interior of Mars, providing insight into the evolution of the terrestrial planets. Lockheed Martin [NYSE: LMT]...

[ Watch the Video: Morpheus Flight Test Failure ] Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online It took plenty of failures to lead to the success of NASA landing Curiosity on Mars, and while the Jet Propulsion Laboratory team is still all grins over the recent rover mission, a new NASA prototype has taken a step towards eventual success by finding failure this week. The prototype lunar lander Morpheus experienced a malfunction this week during testing, leading the future NASA...

John Neumann for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online If you were one of the millions watching the livestream and television coverage of the successful Curiosity Mars landing, you may have noticed one strange looking gentleman standing out among the others, the one with a mohawk. A carefully coiffed, red and black dyed mohawk adorned with yellow stars along the sides of the wearer’s head, writes Damon Poeter for PC Mag. The rockin’ rocket scientist turns out to be Bobak Ferdowsi, a...

[ Watch the Video "Seven Minutes of Terror" ] Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online The European Space Agency's Mars Express has adjusted its sites, and is targeting the spot for Curiosity's landing this Sunday night. Mars Express will assist NASA in monitoring the delivery of Curiosity to the Red Planet in its "seven minutes of terror" descent. The ESA spacecraft has already helped out NASA in providing information to refine its landing target. The Mars Science...

[ Watch the Video "Seven Minutes of Terror" ] On August 5th at 10:31 p.m. Pacific Time, NASA will gently deposit their new, 2000-pound Curiosity rover on the surface of Mars, wheels-first and ready to roll. Quite a feat – because it will come screaming through the Martian atmosphere at 13,000 mph. Curiosity, aka the Mars Science Laboratory, will be the largest mission ever to land on another planet. It's big because it has a big mystery to solve: was Mars ever or is it still capable...