Latest Unmanned spacecraft Stories

NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory A new study of images from NASA's Dawn mission examines remarkable, dark-as-coal material that speckles the surface of the giant asteroid Vesta. Scientists are using the images, taken by Dawn's framing camera, to understand the impact environment early in Vesta's evolution. In the most comprehensive analysis of the dark material to date, Dawn scientists describe how this carbon-rich material tends to appear around the edges of two giant impact basins in...

redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports – Your Universe Online The Mars rover Curiosity will ring in the new year drilling into its first rock before moving on to the base of Mount Sharp, where its search for carbon-based molecules begins in earnest, NASA officials told the media on Saturday. First up in 2013, the rover, which spent the holiday measuring the planet's atmosphere, will begin the process of selecting a rock, drilling into it, and then determining what chemicals it is...

WASHINGTON, Dec. 27, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- NASA and the mobile application Foursquare have teamed up to help the public unlock its scientific curiosity with a new rover-themed Curiosity Explorer badge. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO) Users of the Foursquare social media platform can earn the badge by following NASA and checking in at a NASA visitor center or venue categorized as a science museum or planetarium. Upon earning the badge, users...

Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online NASA's Curiosity rover began exploring "Yellowknife Bay" on Mars this week, helping to provide information to researchers about which rock to drill. Researchers will use Curiosity's percussive drill to collect a sample from the interior of a rock, which is another new feat for the Martian rover. After the powdered-rock sample is sieved and portioned by a sample processing mechanism on the rover's arm, it will be analyzed by...

NASA Science NASA has named the site where twin gravity probes hit the Moon yesterday in honor of the late astronaut, Sally K. Ride, who was America's first woman in space and a member of the probes' mission team. On Dec. 14th, Ebb and Flow, the two spacecraft of NASA's GRAIL (Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory) mission, were commanded to descend into a lower orbit and target a mountain near the Moon's north pole. The formation-flying duo hit the lunar surface as planned at...

Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online The GRAIL lunar mission came to a crashing halt today after the twin probes (Ebb and Flow) smashed into the Moon in a blaze of glory. The twin probes have had a successful run, and the mission ending burn-out into the lunar surface was planned out by NASA from the beginning. NASA said its GRAIL probes found their way towards the lunar surface at about 2:28 p.m. pacific time on Monday. The mission ended successfully, closing...

[ Watch the Video: Curiosity Rover's Arm Movements for Taking a Self-Portrait ] Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online NASA has released an image that the talented Mars Curiosity rover has taken, featuring itself with a Martian background. The self-portrait was taken with Curiosity's Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI), which captured dozens of high-resolution images to create the picture. The image shows the rover at "Rocknest," which is the spot in Gale Crater where...

Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online The Air Force's mysterious robotic space plane X-37B launched successfully on Tuesday afternoon, kickstarting another one of its secretive missions. The mini-space shuttle spacecraft, also referred to as the OTV-3, flew aboard an Atlas V craft, rocketing towards its orbit from Cape Canaveral in Florida just after 1:00 p.m. local time. X-37B is now officially on its third mission which is sure to bring much speculation as to what...

CHARLOTTE, N.C., Dec. 11, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- UTC Aerospace Systems developed and manufactured the space flight actuation system and remote interface unit supporting the recent successful flight of the X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle (OTV). The X-37B is a new space vehicle designed by Boeing, in conjunction with the U.S. Air Force, to help make access to space more routine, affordable and responsive. UTC Aerospace Systems is a unit of United Technologies Corp. (NYSE: UTX). The X-37B OTV...

Peter Suciu for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online Our modern society is typically removing dust; including dust in the air, dust on surfaces and of course dust in our electronics. While most dust is considered just something that gathers on old books and other flat surfaces, some dust is apparently worth preserving and even restoring. On Thursday NASA announced that 40 years after the last Apollo spacecraft launched and headed to the moon the scientific research from those...