Berkeley scientists reveal how organics emerged in deep freeze of early solar system
Asteroid Bennu material shows organic precursor molecules that may have produced ingredients of life first formed from cryogenic ammonia.
ESCAPADE sends a selfie
Commissioning of NASA’s twin ESCAPADE spacecraft is proceeding smoothly. ESCAPADE snapped this selfie in visible and infrared light.
Psyche Fact Sheet
Psyche is both the name of an asteroid orbiting the Sun between Mars and Jupiter — and the name of a NASA space mission to visit that asteroid.
NASA’s ESCAPADE mission to Mars — twin UC Berkeley satellites dubbed Blue and Gold — launched today
After two launch delays because of weather and a solar storm, New Glenn launched from Cape Canaveral at 3:55 p.m. EST Thursday, Nov. 13. The twin satellites successfully separated from the rocket about 33 minutes after launch.
Psyche talk embodies spirit of Center for Integrative Planetary Science lecture series
On October 15, Lindy Elkins-Tanton gave a talk on NASA’s Psyche mission as part of a Center for Integrative Planetary Science seminar series.
Planetary scientist Lindy Elkins-Tanton to head Space Sciences Laboratory
Lindy Elkins-Tanton, a geologist and planetary scientist, will be the new director of UC Berkeley’s Space Sciences Laboratory, effective July 1. She currently leads the NASA Psyche mission to explore an asteroid called Psyche.
Sample return experts at the Space Sciences Laboratory uncover asteroid Bennu’s secrets
When NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft passed by the Earth in 2023 and released a sample return capsule, it marked the end of a journey to visit and collect a small piece of an asteroid, but the journey to understanding that material had only just begun.
OPAL
OPAL—the Outer Planet Atmospheres Legacy program—is a Hubble Space Telescope (HST) imaging program that maps the four giant planets every year.
ESCAPADE Mars Mission on Track for Fall 2024 Launch
The Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers (ESCAPADE) mission to Mars, led by the University of California, Berkeley’s Space Sciences Laboratory, is set to launch sometime in fall 2024. It consists of two identical smallsats, named Blue and Gold, that will study Mars’ magnetosphere and its interaction with the solar wind. While the exact […]
NASA will launch a Mars mission on Blue Origin’s first New Glenn rocket
NASA is aware of the risk of launching a real science mission on the first flight of a new rocket. But this mission, known by the acronym ESCAPADE, is relatively low cost. The Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers mission has a budget of approximately $79 million, significantly less than any mission NASA has sent to Mars in recent history.