SSL’s Dr. Shannon Curry is new lead of MAVEN Mission
Dr. Shannon Curry, planetary scientist and the Deputy Assistant Director of Planetary Science at SSL, is now principal investigator of MAVEN, NASA’s first mission devoted to studying the Martian atmosphere. As of Aug. 31, she succeeds Dr. Bruce Jakosky, from the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) at the University of Colorado Boulder, who […]
OTD in August 30, 2012 the Twin RBSP Spacecraft Launched
The two probes launched atop and Atlas V rockets out of the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station and successfully completed their mission. While the electronics and sendsors continued to work the two probes eventually ran out of fuel to maintain their orbits and pointing and are now in parking orbits with a long decay rate […]
NASA Rocket, Satellite Tag-Team to View the Giant Electric Current in the Sky
by Miles Hatfield, NASA —The Dynamo-2 sounding rocket mission will launch two rockets coordinated with the passing of the ICON satellite overhead to study a churning electric current in the upper atmosphere. The mission is just the latest in a centuries-long quest to understand the atmospheric dynamo, beginning with Michael Faraday’s invention of the electric […]
More About Escapade
The twin orbiters recently approved for a trip to Mars in 2024 have received a lot of press. Here are more articles from NASA and Berkeley sources. https://www.dailycal.org/2021/08/24/nasa-approves-key-funding-for-uc-berkeley-satellite-mission-to-mars/ https://blogs.nasa.gov/escapade/2021/08/20/nasas-escapade-mission-twin-martian-orbiters-moves-toward-launch/ https://news.berkeley.edu/2021/08/23/blue-and-gold-satellites-headed-to-mars-in-2024/ https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2021/08/24/uc-berkeley-mars-satellites-nasa-escapade/
NASA’s ESCAPADE Mission – Twin Martian Orbiters – Moves Toward Launch
NASA’s Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers, or ESCAPADE mission, passed a mission review on August 17, 2021, moving the mission into its next phase with a new target launch readiness date of October 2024. The review, Key Decision Point C, evaluated the mission’s preliminary design and project plan to achieve launch by its […]
Parker Solar Probe Team Earns Aerospace Award from the National Space Club and Foundation
After nearly three years in space, NASA’s Parker Solar Probe has not only made numerous passes around our fiery orb, inching closer to the Sun than any spacecraft before it, but it has also ushered in discoveries that are shaping scientists’ understanding of Earth’s star. For its efforts to untangle the long-standing mysteries of the complex solar […]
Physicists led by University of Iowa more fully describe sun’s electric field
As the Parker Solar Probe ventures closer to the sun, we are learning new things about our home star. In a new study, physicists led by the University of Iowa report the first definitive measurements of the sun’s electric field, and how the electric field interacts with the solar wind, the fast-flowing current of charged particles […]
OTD – August 12th, 2018 Parker Solar Probe Launched
In the early morning hours of August 12th a Delta IV Heavy Rockets three engines roared to life lifting the Parker Solar Probe into the night sky and started its journey on a mission to study the sun. Parker Solar Probe has been setting records throughout its mission, from fastest spacecraft to closest approach to […]
NASA Rocket Mission Studying Escaping Radio Waves
A NASA rocket mission, launching May 26, 2021, will study radio waves that escape through the Earth’s ionosphere impacting the environment surrounding GPS and geosynchronous satellites, such as those for weather monitoring and communications. Launching from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility, a Terrier-Improved Malemute suborbital sounding rocket will carry the Vlf trans-Ionospheric Propagation Experiment Rocket, or VIPER. The mission is […]
Wind: Discoveries and Impacts of a Venerable Spacecraft
Wind has been one of the most robust, diverse, long-lasting, and impactful heliophysics missions ever to have been carried out. The Wind spacecraft, launched on 1 November 1994, is a critical element in NASA’s Heliophysics System Observatory (HSO) – a fleet of spacecrafts created to understand the dynamics of the Sun‐Earth system. The combination of its longevity, its diverse complement […]
