Published on: 2025-06-11 13:00:21
Less than two years after launch, NASA’s Psyche spacecraft experienced a glitch in its propulsion system that’s now jeopardizing its mission to explore a unique metallic asteroid in the main belt. NASA engineers, ever resourceful, implemented a fix for the spacecraft’s unexpected drop in pressure by switching to a backup line—one they hope will help Psyche reach its namesake asteroid. Earlier in April, the team of engineers with the Psyche mission detected an unexpected decrease in fuel pressur
Keywords: asteroid mission nasa psyche spacecraft
Find related items on AmazonPublished on: 2025-06-16 09:47:00
A Chinese spacecraft built to collect specimens from an unexplored asteroid and return them to Earth successfully launched Wednesday from a military-run spaceport in the country's mountainous interior. Liftoff aboard a Long March 3B rocket at 1:31 pm EDT (17:31 UTC) from the Xichang launch base kicked off the second mission in a series of Chinese probes to explore the Solar System. This mission, designated Tianwen-2, follows the Tianwen-1 mission, which became the first Chinese spacecraft to la
Keywords: asteroid chinese earth spacecraft tianwen
Find related items on AmazonPublished on: 2025-06-24 20:10:04
When you put your hand out the window of a moving car, you feel a force pushing against you called drag. This force opposes a moving vehicle, and it’s part of the reason why your car naturally slows to a stop if you take your foot off the gas pedal. But drag doesn’t just slow down cars. Aerospace engineers are working on using the drag force in space to develop more fuel-efficient spacecraft and missions, deorbit spacecraft without creating as much space junk, and even place probes in orbit aro
Keywords: aerobraking elliptical orbit space spacecraft
Find related items on AmazonPublished on: 2025-07-06 00:30:14
NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft has been in space for nearly 50 years, enduring the harsh environment of outer space while teams on the ground figure out ways to keep its aging hardware from falling apart. In the latest attempt to keep Voyager alive, engineers managed to bring the spacecraft’s old thrusters back to life after being inoperable for decades. NASA’s engineers revived a set of thrusters on board the Voyager 1 spacecraft to use as backup while the mission goes offline for ongoing upgrade
Keywords: primary roll spacecraft thrusters voyager
Find related items on AmazonPublished on: 2025-07-06 16:29:09
NASA has revived a set of thrusters on the nearly 50-year-old Voyager 1 spacecraft after declaring them inoperable over two decades ago. It's a nice long-distance engineering win for the team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, responsible for keeping the venerable Voyager spacecraft flying - and a critical one at that, as clogging fuel lines threatened to derail the backup thrusters currently in use. The things you have to deal with when your spacecraft is operating more than four decades be
Keywords: power roll spacecraft thrusters voyager
Find related items on AmazonPublished on: 2025-07-14 20:05:10
A failed Venus mission fell from the sky over the weekend after aimlessly orbiting Earth for the past 53 years. Various agencies closely monitored Kosmos 482’s reentry, but its exact landing site remains unknown due to conflicting reports. Kosmos 482 performed an uncontrolled reentry on Saturday, May 10, plunging through Earth’s atmosphere around 2:24 a.m. ET, according to Russia’s space agency, Roscosmos. The Soviet-era spacecraft was built to withstand the scorching temperatures of Venus, so
Keywords: 482 earth kosmos reentry spacecraft
Find related items on AmazonPublished on: 2025-07-18 16:59:52
Kosmos 482, a Soviet-era spacecraft shrouded in Cold War secrecy, will reenter the Earth's atmosphere in the next few days after misfiring on a journey to Venus more than 50 years ago. On average, a piece of space junk the size of Kosmos 482, with a mass of about a half-ton, falls into the atmosphere about once per week. What's different this time is that Kosmos 482 was designed to land on Venus, with a titanium heat shield built to withstand scorching temperatures, and structures engineered to
Keywords: 482 earth kosmos mission spacecraft
Find related items on AmazonPublished on: 2025-07-19 16:55:15
The European Space Agency’s Proba-3 mission has achieved something no other mission—or synchronized swimmer—has before: autonomous, precision formation flying in space with millimeter accuracy. ESA’s Proba-3 satellites—the Occulter and the Coronagraph, respectively—maintained a steady 492-foot (150-meter) distance from one another in a highly elliptical orbit, simulating a single massive instrument. The same principle is used by satellite constellations and planned space telescopes to capitaliz
Keywords: esa occulter proba space spacecraft
Find related items on AmazonPublished on: 2025-07-23 08:25:01
Kosmos 482 has been trapped in Earth’s orbit for 53 years but its wandering journey is coming to an end. The failed Venus mission is expected to reenter through the atmosphere in a dramatic fall toward its home planet, where it may remain intact or scatter its bits across a still unknown location on either side of the equator. The Soviet-era spacecraft will plunge through Earth’s atmosphere sometime between May 8 to 12. As of now, the exact location of where Kosmos 482 will crash-land on Earth
Keywords: atmosphere earth orbit reentry spacecraft
Find related items on AmazonPublished on: 2025-07-29 23:17:25
NASA's Psyche mission to visit a gargantuan asteroid — worth, according to some estimates, more than the Earth's entire world economy — has hit a snag. On Tuesday, the space agency announced that engineers were investigating a sudden drop in fuel pressure in the Psyche spacecraft's electric propulsion system, which caused the thrusters to automatically shut off. While the mission team could send the command to fire the engines back up, it's chosen to defer thrusting while engineers try to troub
Keywords: asteroid fuel nasa psyche spacecraft
Find related items on AmazonPublished on: 2025-07-30 08:25:03
The Psyche spacecraft launched nearly two years ago and is currently on its way to rendezvous with a unique asteroid in an effort to understand the origins of Earth. Although it’s still a few years away from orbiting the asteroid, which bears the same name, the Psyche mission has run into an issue with its propulsion system that forced it to power off its thrusters. NASA engineers with the Psyche mission are investigating the root cause of a recent decrease in fuel pressure in the spacecraft’s
Keywords: mission nasa psyche spacecraft thrusters
Find related items on AmazonPublished on: 2025-07-31 04:08:06
NASA's Psyche spacecraft, located nearly 150 million miles from Earth on the way to an unexplored metal asteroid, has stopped firing its engines after detecting a problem in its propulsion system. NASA published an update Tuesday revealing that the robotic spacecraft shut off its plasma thrusters earlier this month. The news wasn't widely shared until Wednesday, when NASA science chief Nicky Fox posted it on X. "Engineers with NASA’s Psyche mission are working to determine what caused a recent
Keywords: fuel nasa psyche spacecraft thrusters
Find related items on AmazonPublished on: 2025-07-31 19:18:08
NASA's Psyche spacecraft, located nearly 150 million miles from Earth on the way to an unexplored metal asteroid, has stopped firing its engines after detecting a problem in its propulsion system. NASA published an update Tuesday revealing that the robotic spacecraft shut off its plasma thrusters earlier this month. The news wasn't widely shared until Wednesday, when NASA science chief Nicky Fox posted it on X. "Engineers with NASA’s Psyche mission are working to determine what caused a recent
Keywords: fuel nasa psyche spacecraft thrusters
Find related items on AmazonPublished on: 2025-08-04 19:20:10
A 53-year-old Venus probe that failed to escape low Earth orbit is expected to make an uncontrolled reentry in the coming weeks. Built to withstand extreme heat, parts of the spacecraft could survive the descent and crash on Earth. The lander module from an old Soviet spacecraft is expected to reenter Earth’s atmosphere during the second week of May, according to Marco Langbroek, a satellite tracker based in Leiden, the Netherlands. “As this is a lander that was designed to survive passage thro
Keywords: atmosphere earth orbit reentry spacecraft
Find related items on AmazonPublished on: 2025-08-05 00:20:10
A 53-year-old Venus probe that failed to escape low Earth orbit is expected to make an uncontrolled reentry in the coming weeks. Built to withstand extreme heat, parts of the spacecraft could survive the descent and crash on Earth. The lander module from an old Soviet spacecraft is expected to reenter Earth’s atmosphere during the second week of May, according to Marco Langbroek, a satellite tracker based in Leiden, the Netherlands. “As this is a lander that was designed to survive passage thro
Keywords: atmosphere earth orbit reentry spacecraft
Find related items on AmazonPublished on: 2025-08-06 08:15:04
A 53-year-old Venus probe that failed to escape low Earth orbit is expected to make an uncontrolled reentry in the coming weeks. Built to withstand extreme heat, parts of the spacecraft could survive the descent and crash on Earth. The lander module from an old Soviet spacecraft is expected to reenter Earth’s atmosphere during the second week of May, according to Marco Langbroek, a satellite tracker based in Leiden, the Netherlands. “As this is a lander that was designed to survive passage thro
Keywords: atmosphere earth orbit reentry spacecraft
Find related items on AmazonPublished on: 2025-08-13 08:55:26
A German startup was aiming to test a reentry capsule designed to reach orbit and survive the intense heat of returning to Earth. For its first flight, PHOENIX 1 launched to space as part of a SpaceX ride-share mission, but a change in launch plans largely messed the whole thing up. ATMOS Space Cargo launched its PHOENIX 1 capsule at 8:48 p.m. ET on Monday, with the device tucked inside a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. About two hours after liftoff, the capsule reentered Earth’s atmosphere, but its sp
Keywords: atmos capsule payloads phoenix spacecraft
Find related items on AmazonPublished on: 2025-08-17 08:31:59
NASA’s Lucy spacecraft just pulled off its second asteroid flyby and imaged a frankly tasty-looking rock: a peanut-shaped asteroid named Donaldjohanson. The oblong asteroid is a fragment of a long-destroyed space rock that formed roughly 150 million years ago, and Lucy swooped within 600 miles (960 kilometers) of it on April 20, 2025, capturing some seriously wild close-ups. “These early images of Donaldjohanson are again showing the tremendous capabilities of the Lucy spacecraft as an engine
Keywords: asteroid donaldjohanson lucy spacecraft trojan
Find related items on AmazonPublished on: 2025-08-18 14:07:35
A NASA spacecraft will make a close approach to an asteroid in the main belt on Sunday afternoon, in the second of several asteroid flybys planned for its 12-year mission to study remnants of the early solar system. The Lucy spacecraft will be 596 miles (960 km) from asteroid Donaldjohanson — named after the paleoanthropologist who discovered the “Lucy” hominin fossil — at the closest point of its pass, which will occur at 1:51PM ET, according to NASA. Lucy will use three instruments to capture
Keywords: asteroid donaldjohanson lucy nasa spacecraft
Find related items on AmazonPublished on: 2025-08-18 16:00:03
The Lucy mission is on a 12-year journey to explore a peculiar set of asteroids that lead and follow Jupiter as it orbits the Sun. As it journeys to these Trojan asteroids, the probe is preparing for its second stop at the main belt, approaching a mysterious space rock to practice for the main event. NASA’s Lucy spacecraft will carry out a flyby of the small main belt asteroid Donaldjohanson on April 20 at 1:51 p.m. ET, when it will come within an eerily close distance of 596 miles (960 kilomet
Keywords: asteroid flyby lucy main spacecraft
Find related items on AmazonPublished on: 2025-09-01 09:00:56
For nearly a decade, a large probe has braved the harsh Jovian environment to bring us mesmerizing, close-up views of Jupiter and its moons. But sometimes, the gas giant gets the best of it. The Juno mission recently went into an unexpected safe mode during a scheduled flyby of Jupiter, temporarily powering down its science instruments. Juno was making its 71st close approach to Jupiter when it entered its precautionary status twice on April 4 as it was flying by the gas giant, NASA recently re
Keywords: juno jupiter mode safe spacecraft
Find related items on AmazonPublished on: 2025-09-10 06:01:46
In 1977, two probes launched less than a month apart on a mission to the great beyond. The twin Voyager spacecraft were to travel where no other mission had gone before, exploring what lies outside the vast bubble that surrounds our solar system, beyond the influence of our host star. Voyager 1 reached the beginning of interstellar space in 2012, while Voyager 2 reached the boundary in 2018, traveling beyond the protective bubble surrounding the solar system known as the heliosphere. The Voyage
Keywords: computer mission space spacecraft voyager
Find related items on AmazonPublished on: 2025-09-10 08:00:55
In 1977, two probes launched less than a month apart on a mission to the great beyond. The twin Voyager spacecraft were to travel where no other mission had gone before, exploring what lies outside the vast bubble that surrounds our solar system, beyond the influence of our host star. Voyager 1 reached the beginning of interstellar space in 2012, while Voyager 2 reached the boundary in 2018, traveling beyond the protective bubble surrounding the solar system known as the heliosphere. The Voyage
Keywords: computer mission space spacecraft voyager
Find related items on AmazonPublished on: 2025-09-18 03:14:00
While it was getting ready to power down its Gaia spacecraft, the European Space Agency encountered some unusual resistance. The spacecraft, which has been creating a highly detailed three-dimensional map of more than a billion stars throughout the Milky Way and beyond, proved surprisingly difficult to kill. "Switching off a spacecraft at the end of its mission sounds like a simple enough job," said Gaia spacecraft operator Tiago Nogueira in an ESA statement. "But spacecraft really don’t want
Keywords: earth gaia mission space spacecraft
Find related items on AmazonPublished on: 2025-09-25 08:40:24
NASA is adding more food and consumable supplies to an upcoming cargo dropoff to the International Space Station (ISS) to sustain the crew after canceling a resupply mission slated to launch in June. A Cygnus spacecraft that was due to launch to the ISS in June sustained damage while traveling to the launch site at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, and is no longer fit to fly. NASA was forced to cancel the Cygnus cargo mission, which was due to carry water, food, experiments, and other supplies
Keywords: cargo iss mission nasa spacecraft
Find related items on AmazonPublished on: 2025-10-02 10:12:52
Despite a challenging road, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk is far from giving up on the company's gigantic, fully reusable Starship spacecraft. SpaceX has some extremely ambitious plans for the vehicle, from returning the first astronauts to the lunar surface to establishing the first permanent presence on Mars. And as SpaceX inches closer to successfully launching and landing a full-scale prototype, it's worth having a look back at all of the spectacular tests — and failures — that brought us here. We
Keywords: flight massive spacecraft spacex test
Find related items on AmazonPublished on: 2025-10-05 04:00:06
Welcome to Edition 7.36 of the Rocket Report! Well, after nine months, NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams are finally back on Earth, safe and sound. This brings to conclusion one of the stranger and more dramatic human spaceflight stories in years. We're glad they're finally home, soon to be reunited with their families. As always, we welcome reader submissions, and if you don't want to miss an issue, please subscribe using the box below (the form will not appear on AMP-enabled ver
Keywords: kg launch launches spacecraft spacex
Find related items on AmazonPublished on: 2025-10-08 22:22:36
NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore have finally returned after being stranded on board the International Space Station for nine months. The pair became stuck in June after Boeing's plagued Starliner spacecraft was deemed unfit to return them last summer due to a litany of technical problems. After splashing down in the Gulf of Mexico, Williams and Wilmore were greeted by a curious pod of dolphins — a soothing experience after being thrown in the middle of a politically charged cir
Keywords: dolphins dragon nasa space spacecraft
Find related items on AmazonPublished on: 2025-10-10 11:16:00
Serving tech enthusiasts for over 25 years.TechSpot means tech analysis and advice you can trust Forward-looking: Traffic in low Earth orbit has surged in recent years. The growing number of satellites is now pushing scientists to develop new management and tracking solutions, as GPS and ground-based stations can sometimes be unreliable or unavailable. The Los Alamos National Laboratory has introduced the "Spacecraft Speedometer," a novel technology for tracking satellites in low Earth orbit.
Keywords: satellite satellites space spacecraft tracking
Find related items on AmazonPublished on: 2025-10-12 15:46:11
The Athena spacecraft was not exactly flying blind as it approached the lunar surface one week ago. The software on board did a credible job of recognizing nearby craters, even with elongated shadows over the terrain. However, the lander's altimeter had failed. So while Athena knew where it was relative to the surface of the Moon, the lander did not know how far it was above the surface. An important detail, that. As a result, the privately built spacecraft struck the lunar surface on a platea
Keywords: knew lander lunar spacecraft surface
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