planetary science
Committee praises NASA’s planetary science program but raises some concerns
NASA has done a good job implementing the recommendations of its latest planetary science decadal survey despite past budget problems, but needs to improve some programs, a recent report concluded.
Planetary Science Caucus Launch Event
Members of Congress and their staff are invited to attend the launch event of the new Planetary Science Caucus, featuring opportunities to engage with the scientists, engineers, and experts involved in U.S. leadership in planetary exploration.
NASA examines effects of 2017 spending bill on science programs
As members of Congress took credit for NASA funding levels in a fiscal year 2017 omnibus spending bill, the agency’s science leadership is examining how those funds will affect its programs.
NASA hails planetary science funding while scientists worry about other cuts
NASA officials praised “historic” funding levels for its planetary science programs in the administration’s fiscal year 2018 budget request at a conference March 20, even as some scientists in attendance worried about how that budget would affect other agency programs.
Full-scale production of plutonium-238 still years away
The United States has begun manufacturing nuclear spacecraft fuel for the first time in a generation, but full production of the stuff is still seven years or so away.
JWST’s Top Astronomer to Planetary Scientists: Start Your Engines
The James Webb Space Telescope’s Nobel Prize-winning head astronomer advised planetary scientists to get started on proposals for focusing JWST’s 6.5-meter mirror on objects most closer to home than its usual cosmic quarry.
Two Discovery Missions Now Means Fewer Later, NASA Official Says
The agency has said it could select two of the five finalists for the latest of its Discovery-class planetary missions — including two Venus concepts and three asteroid concepts — next year for full-scale development.
Venus, Asteroid Proposals Advance in NASA Discovery Competition
Five robotic mission concepts — two for Venus, three for asteroids — will duke it out to become NASA's next Discovery-class small planetary science mission. The winner would launch in 2021.
Ohio Senators Call for Plutonium Power Report with New Bill
Ohio’s U.S. Senate delegation ordered up an extensive report on the federal infrastructure required to produce both the nuclear batteries that power NASA missions to dark and distant corners of the solar system, and the plutonium isotope that fuels those batteries.
Icy Pluto Reignites Debate about NASA Planetary Funding
Two weeks after New Horizons’ Pluto flyby, NASA planetary science funding took center stage during a July 28 House Science Committee hearing.
Extended Timetable for Decision on New Horizons Extended Mission
A final decision on an extended mission for NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft, one that would take it past a small Kuiper Belt object (KBO), won’t come for more than a year, although the project will be taking steps in the coming months to prepare for such a flyby.
Airbus To Build ESA’s Jupiter-bound Juice Orbiter
The European Space Agency on July 16 selected Airbus Defence and Space to build Europe’s Juice orbiter, to be launched in 2022 aboard a European Ariane 5 rocket and to arrive at the Jupiter system in 2030.
SpaceGeeks Ep. 2: There Is No ‘Dwarf Planetary Science’
In this episode of the SpaceGeeks podcast, Dan Leone catches up with New Horizons Principal Investigator Alan Stern days ahead of the historic Pluto flyby. The former NASA science boss explains what it's like to fill in one of the last blank spaces on the map: the never-before-seen-up-close planet/dwarf planet/ice dwarf at the edge of the mysterious and enormous Kuiper belt.
Lunar Sample-return Team Eyes Another New Frontiers Run
A lunar sample-return mission that was among the three finalists in the 2011 NASA competition that punched Osiris-Rex’s ticket to an asteroid will make another bid for $1 billion in funding in the agency’s next New Frontiers competition, the mission’s principal investigator said.
Exploring Jupiter’s Volcanic Moon Io on Just $615,000 a Day
The principal investigator behind a proposal to explore Jupiter’s moon Io is in such a hurry to get there that he is content to develop the robotic mission for about half the money the planetary science community said NASA should spend to explore the volcano-laden Jovian satellite.
NASA Selects 9 Instruments for Europa Mission
NASA announced the selection of nine instruments it plans to fly on a mission to Jupiter’s moon Europa May 26, but agency officials were vague about whether the instruments, or the overall mission, could meet an aggressive schedule sought by some in Congress.
