Latest Unmanned spacecraft Stories

WASHINGTON, May 9, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Two prominent aerospace industry organizations are recognizing the contributions of NASA, especially the achievements of the team that landed NASA's Curiosity rover on Mars in August, with coveted awards. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO ) The National Aeronautic Association (NAA) will present its Robert J. Collier Trophy to the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) Team of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL)...

Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online Scientists at Princeton University and the Caltech believe that Mount Sharp on Mars was formed by wind, not water. NASA's Curiosity rover is sitting on Mars right now looking for signs of past life. The space agency chose Mount Sharp at the massive Gale Crater for its primary mission because of how eclectic the area is, potentially providing answers to questions regarding Mars' past. Mount Sharp is a roughly 3.5-mile high Martian...

KENTFIELD, Calif., May 2, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Adam Steltzner, NASA JPL lead engineer and College of Marin alumnus, led the Entry, Descent and Landing (EDL) Team for the NASA Mars Curiosity Rover. He has been a featured guest in variety of print stories, and on television and radio broadcasts, including the New Yorker, NPR, CNN and Nova. WHO: Dr. Adam Steltzner, lead mechanical engineer of the NASA Mars Rover Landing Project, guest lecturer WHAT: College of Marin Grand Opening,...

Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online NASA said its Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity placed itself in standby mode during April when the sun was blocking out communication with the Red Planet and Earth. The space agency said mission controllers learned of the changed status on April 27, when they first heard from Opportunity after the blocked communication period. Engineers pumped "fresh commands" into the rover on Monday to get it to resume operations. According to...

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory The team in charge of successfully landing NASA's Mars rover Curiosity, managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., received the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum's highest group honor at a dinner in Washington on Wednesday night, April 24. The 2013 Trophy for Current Achievement honors outstanding achievements in the fields of aerospace science and technology. The Mars Science Laboratory Project built and operates the rover...

ESA Without hi-tech magnetic sensors, rovers wouldn’t be able to roam around Mars. These same sensors will soon boost terrestrial travel by improving the machinery that molds parts for cars and aircraft here on Earth. These devices will ‘feel’ parts in exquisite detail, noting features like the width and depth of drilled holes, helping to create perfect 3D pictures of each highly complex piece. It takes up to 20 minutes to beam information from Mars to Earth – more than...

April Flowers for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter may have captured images of hardware from a Soviet era spacecraft that landed on Mars in 1971. Russian citizen enthusiasts were following news about NASA's Curiosity rover and Mars when they found four features in a five-year old image from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The features resemble four pieces of hardware from the Soviet Mars 3 mission: the parachute, heat shield, terminal retrorocket...

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory Photos from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter show how the parachute that helped NASA's Curiosity rover land on Mars last summer has subsequently changed its shape on the ground. The images were obtained by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Seven images taken by HiRISE between Aug. 12, 2012, and Jan. 13, 2013, show the used parachute shifting its shape at least twice in response to wind....

April Flowers for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online Large impacts on the Moon produce unimaginable amounts of energy; however, they may not wipe the mineralogical slate clean. New research, led by Brown University geoscientists, has discovered a rock body with a distinct mineralogy snaking 18 miles across the floor of Copernicus crater – a 60-mile-wide feature on the Moon's near side. Mineralogical signatures of rock present before the impact that created the crater appear to make...

redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports - Your Universe Online Using instruments on board the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), NASA officials were able to detect mercury and hydrogen in the gas plumes that arose following the impact of the twin Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) spacecraft last December, the US space agency announced on Tuesday. The LRO’s Lyman Alpha Mapping Project (LAMP) also measured the time evolution of those gases as they rapidly expanded into the...