Latest NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory Stories

PASADENA, Calif., Aug. 27, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- NASA's Mars Curiosity has debuted the first recorded human voice that traveled from Earth to another planet and back. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO) In spoken words radioed to the rover on Mars and back to NASA's Deep Space Network (DSN) on Earth, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden noted the difficulty of landing a rover on Mars, congratulated NASA employees and the agency's commercial and...

WASHINGTON, Aug. 24, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- NASA will hold an educational event to share findings about Mars with students and premiere a new song by musician will.i.am that will be broadcast from the surface of the Red Planet via the Curiosity rover. The event will take place at 1 p.m. PDT (4 p.m. EDT) Tuesday, Aug. 28, at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO ) Members of the team that...

WASHINGTON, Aug. 23, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- NASA will host a news teleconference at 1 p.m. EDT, Wednesday, Aug. 29, to announce new discoveries from its Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE). The discoveries are related to the distant universe, including supermassive black holes and rare galaxies. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO ) The briefing participants are: -- Daniel Stern, astronomer, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL),...

PASADENA, Calif., Aug. 22, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- NASA's Mars rover Curiosity has begun driving from its landing site, which scientists announced today they have named for the late author Ray Bradbury. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO ) Making its first movement on the Martian surface, Curiosity's drive combined forward, turn and reverse segments. This placed the rover roughly 20 feet (6 meters) from the spot where it landed 16 days ago....

Children are often mystified by remote control cars and how they can control them with a device while standing several feet away from them. This past week, Chris Tate was mystified by the same power—only he was controlling something 150 million miles away, on another planet. The UT physics doctoral student had the rare opportunity to control one of the science instruments on NASA’s Curiosity rover on Mars. Tate is working with Jeffrey Moersch, associate professor in the Department of...

WASHINGTON, Aug. 20, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- NASA has selected a new mission, set to launch in 2016, that will take the first look into the deep interior of Mars to see why the Red Planet evolved so differently from Earth as one of our solar system's rocky planets. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO) The new mission, named InSight, will place instruments on the Martian surface to investigate whether the core of Mars is solid or liquid like Earth's...

WASHINGTON, Aug. 17, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- NASA's Space Technology Program has selected five technologies that could revolutionize America's space capabilities. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO) In March, NASA issued a call for proposal focused on sudden and unexpected innovations that hold a potential for providing a "game-changing" impact on the efficiency and effectiveness of the agency's space capabilities. NASA has selected the following...

PASADENA, Calif., Aug. 13, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- President Barack Obama this morning told the flight control team for NASA's Curiosity Mars rover, "You made us all proud." (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO) Obama telephoned the mission control room at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Pasadena, Calif., to congratulate JPL Director Charles Elachi and the Mars Science Laboratory team operating the rover, which landed on Mars a week ago....

PASADENA, Calif., Aug. 10, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- NASA's Mars rover Curiosity will spend its first weekend on Mars transitioning to software better suited for tasks ahead, such as driving and using its strong robotic arm. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO) The rover's "brain transplant," which will occur during a series of steps Aug. 10 through Aug. 13, will install a new version of software on both of the rover's redundant main computers. This...

PASADENA, Calif., Aug. 9, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The first images from Curiosity's color Mast Camera (Mastcam) have been received by scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif. The 130 low-resolution thumbnails, which were received Thursday morning, provide scientists and engineers of NASA's newest Mars rover their first color, horizon-to-horizon glimpse of Gale Crater. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO) "After a year...