NASA’s Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) is turning 10. Launched on June 13, 2012, this space telescope detects high-energy X-ray light and studies some of the most energetic objects and processes in the universe, from black holes devouring hot gas to the radioactive remains of exploded stars. Here are some of the ways NuSTAR has opened our eyes to the X-ray universe over the last…
Watching the skies for large asteroids that could pose a hazard to the Earth is a global endeavor. So, to test their operational readiness, the international planetary defense community will sometimes use a real asteroid’s close approach as a mock encounter with a…
NASA’s Psyche Starts Processing at Kennedy
November 16, 2022
Since its arrival on April 29, the Psyche spacecraft has moved into the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, where technicians removed it from its protective shipping container, rotated it to vertical, and have begun the final…
Shake and Bake: NASA’s Psyche Is Tested in Spacelike Conditions
November 16, 2022
The conditions that a NASA spacecraft endures are extreme: the violent shaking and cacophony of a rocket launch, the jolt of separating from the launch vehicle, the extreme temperature fluctuations in and out of the Sun’s rays, the unforgiving vacuum of space.
Before launch, engineers do their best to replicate these harsh conditions in a rigorous series of tests to ensure the spacecraft can…
How NASA’s Psyche Mission Will Explore an Unexplored World
November 16, 2022
The target of NASA’s Psyche mission – a metal-rich asteroid, also called Psyche, in the main belt between Mars and Jupiter – is an uncharted world in outer space. From Earth- and space-based telescopes, the asteroid appears as a fuzzy blur. What scientists do know…
NASA’s Next-Generation Asteroid Impact Monitoring System Goes Online
November 16, 2022
To date, nearly 28,000 near-Earth asteroids (NEAs) have been found by survey telescopes that continually scan the night sky, adding new discoveries at a rate of about 3,000 per year. But as larger and more advanced survey telescopes turbocharge the search over the next few…
One Year From Launch: US-European Satellite to Track World’s Water
November 16, 2022
An international team of engineers and technicians has finished assembling a next-generation satellite that will make the first global survey of Earth’s surface water and study fine-scale ocean currents. The Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) mission is just a year out from launch, and the final set of tests on the spacecraft have started.
SWOT is a collaboration between NASA and the…
New findings from NASA’s Juno probe orbiting Jupiter provide a fuller picture of how the planet’s distinctive and colorful atmospheric features offer clues about the unseen processes below its clouds. The results highlight the inner workings of the belts and zones of…
NASA Turns to the Cloud for Help With Next-Generation Earth Missions
November 16, 2022
The cutting-edge Earth science satellites launching in the next couple of years will give more detailed views of our planet than ever before. We’ll be able to track small-scale ocean features like coastal currents that move nutrients vital to marine food webs, monitor how…
Solar Electric Propulsion Makes NASA’s Psyche Spacecraft Go
November 16, 2022
When it comes time for NASA’s Psyche spacecraft to power itself through deep space, it’ll be more brain than brawn that does the work. Once the stuff of science fiction, the efficient and quiet power of electric propulsion will provide the force that propels the Psyche spacecraft all the way to the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. The orbiter’s target: a metal-rich asteroid also…
