Latest New Frontiers program Stories

NASA's Juno spacecraft is 30 days before its first launch window opens."The launch window is the length of time allotted every day for an attempt to launch the spacecraft," said Jan Chodas, Juno project manager from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "The launch period is the period of time in days when everything is in the right place to get your mission off to the right start."For a mission like Juno, getting everything in the right place includes...

Unmanned missions to Mars and one of Jupiter's moons should be the top priorities for the American space program starting in 2013, a team of experts said on Monday.The National Research Council (NRC) released what Associated Press (AP) reporters have dubbed a "wish list" of missions that NASA should prioritize in the decade running 2013 through 2022.The study, which was sponsored by NASA and the National Science Foundation (NSF), polled experts and asked them to recommend possible...

Magnetometers developed at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., for the Juno mission to Jupiter were delivered recently to Lockheed Martin in Denver. Designed and built by an in-house team of Goddard scientists, engineers and technicians, these instruments will map the planet's magnetic field with great accuracy and observe its variations over time. Each of the two vector magnetometers carries with it a pair of non-magnetic star cameras to determine its orientation in space...

GREENBELT, Md., Oct. 27 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The magnetometers developed at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., for the Juno mission to Jupiter were delivered recently to Lockheed Martin in Denver, Colo. Designed and built by an in-house team of Goddard scientists, engineers and technicians, this instrument will map the planet's magnetic field with great accuracy and observe its variations over time. Each of the two vector magnetometers carries with it a pair of...

NASA has selected three proposals as candidates for the agency's next space venture to another celestial body in our solar system. The final project selected in mid-2011 may provide a better understanding of Earth's formation or perhaps the origin of life on our planet.The proposed missions would probe the atmosphere and crust of Venus; return a piece of a near-Earth asteroid for analysis; or drop a robotic lander into a basin at the moon's south pole to return lunar rocks back to Earth for...

WASHINGTON, Dec. 29 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- NASA has selected three proposals as candidates for the agency's next space venture to another celestial body in our solar system. The final project selected in mid-2011 may provide a better understanding of Earth's formation or perhaps the origin of life on our planet. (Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO) The proposed missions would probe the atmosphere and crust of Venus; return a piece of a near-Earth asteroid for...

NASA is officially moving forward on a mission to conduct an unprecedented, in-depth study of Jupiter.Called Juno, the mission will be the first in which a spacecraft is placed in a highly elliptical polar orbit around the giant planet to understand its formation, evolution and structure. Underneath its dense cloud cover, Jupiter safeguards secrets to the fundamental processes and conditions that governed our early solar system."Jupiter is the archetype of giant planets in our solar...

WASHINGTON -- NASA is preparing to send a small spacecraft to the moon in 2011 to assess the lunar atmosphere and the nature of dust lofted above the surface.Called the Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE), the mission will launch before the agency's moon exploration activities accelerate during the next decade. LADEE will gather detailed information about conditions near the surface and environmental influences on lunar dust. A thorough understanding of these influences...

WASHINGTON - NASA's New Horizons spacecraft is on the doorstep of the solar system's largest planet. The spacecraft will study and swing past Jupiter, increasing speed on its voyage toward Pluto, the Kuiper Belt and beyond. The fastest spacecraft ever launched, New Horizons will make its closest pass to Jupiter on Feb. 28, 2007. Jupiter's gravity will accelerate New Horizons away from the sun by an additional 9,000 miles per hour, pushing it past 52,000 mph and hurling it toward a pass...