On February 18, 2021, NASA’s Perseverance rover successfully landed on Mars, becoming the fifth robotic rover to do so and the third operational exploration robot currently on the planet’s surface. Today during a press conference NASA released stunning high-definition video from Perseverance’s entry, descent, and landing (EDL) sequence to the anticipation and excitement of scientists…
Tag: landing
Success! There’s a New Rover on Mars!
Today’s Perseverance rover landing on Mars was a success! There are now two new robots on Mars—Perseverance and the Ingenuity helicopter it brought along—which touched down in Jezero Crater at 3:44 p.m. EST / 20:44 UTC today, February 18. The confirmation signal was received here on Earth, 127 million miles away, 11 minutes and 21…
Watch Today’s Mars Landing Live
Today’s the red planet day! NASA’s Perseverance rover is arriving at Mars and will soon enter its atmosphere at over 12,000 mph and, using a combination of ablative heat shield, enormous parachute, a sky-crane with retrorockets, and eventually a series of cables, carefully touch down onto the surface near the western edge of a 28-mile-wide…
Two Days to Mars!
It’s almost time! In just two days—or “sols,” if you’re counting in Mars time—NASA’s newest, biggest and most advanced rover ever, named Perseverance, will touch down on Mars, making it the fifth mobile wheeled robot ever to explore the surface of the Red Planet and the third robot currently in operation on Mars. And if…
This Day in Space History: One Small Step
Note: This is an updated article from 2012. “That’s one small step for a man… one giant leap for mankind.” I’m not sure what else need be said about the significance of what happened on this day in 1969 other than it was a shining moment in human history, and will be — should be…
Here’s What It Would Look Like to Land on Pluto’s Heart
What would it look like to approach Pluto for a landing? Perhaps some day in the future a robotic mission will do exactly that and we’ll know for sure, but for now we have to use our imaginations…luckily we do have some incredible images of Pluto to help with the details, thanks to NASA’s New…
SpaceX Nails Another Landing at Sea—This Time in the Pacific!
Today, January 14, 2017, SpaceX achieved another commercial launch success with the delivery of ten Iridium satellites to orbit—the first of 70 that will comprise the next generation IridiumNext constellation—as well as a new milestone in its ongoing trek toward reusable launch capability: the first successful landing of a Falcon 9 first-stage booster on…
Revisit Our First (and Only) Landing on Titan
When you think of spacecraft landings on other worlds, you probably first think of Mars, the Moon, Venus, and comet 67P (if you’ve been following along over the past couple of years.) But—in addition to the asteroid Eros and hard impacts on a comet and Mercury—Saturn’s moon Titan was also visited by an alien (i.e.,…
NASA Astronaut Returns to Earth After Historic “Year in Space”
With a smile and an energetic thumbs-up, NASA astronaut Scott Kelly exited the Soyuz TMA-18M capsule shortly after landing on the remote steppe of Kazakhstan at 10:26 p.m. Central time March 1, 2016. It was the return of the Expedition 46 crew, which included Russian cosmonauts Sergey Volkov and Mikhail Kornienko, the latter of whom shared…
Space Is Hard, and So Are the Decks of Drone Ships
On Tuesday, April 14, SpaceX launched its Dragon cargo vehicle aboard a Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral, sending over two tons of supplies up to the crew of the ISS. While the launch was a success and everything went smoothly for Dragon’s CRS-6 mission (despite a single day’s launch delay due to weather) the…
Remembering Huygens’ Titan Landing, Ten Years Later
This incredible image was captured ten years ago today, on January 14, 2005. It shows the murky surface of Saturn’s moon Titan as seen by the European Space Agency’s Huygens probe after it made its historic descent through the moon’s thick haze and clouds and landed in a frozen plain of crusty methane mud and icy pebbles….
Seven Days Out: ESA’s Historic Landing on a Comet is Just a Week Away
In less than a week, on November 12, 2014, the Philae lander will separate from ESA’s Rosetta spacecraft and descend several kilometers down to the dark, dusty and frozen surface of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Its three spindly legs and rocket-powered harpoon are all that will keep the 100-kilogram spacecraft from crashing or bouncing hopelessly back out…
Lights in the Dark 