All articles tagged with #jpl
NASA has selected the Probe far-Infrared Mission for Astrophysics (PRIMA) as the first mission in its new 'Probe Explorer' class, targeting a 2033 launch. The $1.2 billion observatory will use a modified spare cryocooler from the James Webb Space Telescope to observe the universe in far-infrared light, bridging the gap between existing infrared telescopes and radio observatories.
NASA has selected the Probe far-Infrared Mission for Astrophysics (PRIMA) as the first mission in a new 'Probe Explorer' class, targeting a 2033 launch. Managed by JPL with international partners, the $1.2 billion observatory will bridge the gap between the James Webb Space Telescope and radio telescopes using advanced detectors developed over three decades.
NASA has selected the PRIMA mission to become the first in a new 'Probe Explorer' class, advancing to Phase B development with a 2033 launch target. The $1.2 billion far-infrared telescope, managed by JPL, will bridge the observational gap between the James Webb Space Telescope and radio telescopes. It features a 1.8-meter cryogenically cooled telescope and advanced detectors developed over three decades by Caltech and JPL, aiming to study galaxy evolution, black holes, and exoplanet atmospheres with unprecedented sensitivity.
NASA’s Curiosity rover has completed its 5,000th Martian day, or sol, after landing in August 2012. To mark the milestone, the rover captured a panoramic 'postcard' from the 'Chocolatal' ridge near Mount Sharp, combining morning and evening images. The rover has traveled over 23.6 miles, climbed 1 kilometer up the mountain, and collected 42 rock samples. Recent findings include rare elemental sulfur crystals, an iron-nickel meteorite named 'Cacao,' and evidence of ancient habitable environments, though definitive proof of life requires sample return.
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena will open its doors for a free two-day Explore JPL public tour on Oct. 10–11, with tickets in high demand but periodically released as cancellations come in; visitors can tour the Space Flight Operations Facility, view robotics work and miniaturized tech, and see full-scale models of missions like Perseverance, Voyager, and Galileo as JPL marks its 90th anniversary, though the article also notes a string of suspicious deaths of scientists at JPL and a federal probe into the cases.
NASA’s Dragonfly, a $3.3‑billion nuclear-powered rotorcraft, will hop across Titan’s methane sky to sample its surface and investigate potential subsurface habitats for signs of life. Planned to launch in 2028 and perform a two‑hour descent to Titan’s surface in 2034, the mission represents one of NASA’s last large planetary explorations amid ongoing budget pressures and shifting priorities.
Curiosity stamps the letters JPL in Morse code on Martian terrain with its six aluminum wheels. Those repeating marks serve as a built‑in visual odometry reference, helping NASA's navigation software compare commanded wheel rotations with actual movement across difficult ground to detect wheel slip. The feature is an engineering convenience, not a sensor, designed to provide landmarks and scale while respecting the rover's mass and design limits.
JPL engineers used a “big bang” heater switch on Voyager 2 to keep its electronics and fuel lines warm, freeing enough RTG power to extend the mission by about a year, with a similar upgrade planned for Voyager 1.
NASA's Curiosity Mars rover reveals wheel wear—holes and cracks—from nearly 14 years and about 32 km of driving, in a MAHLI image taken on Sol 4963 (July 23, 2026). NASA/JPL notes the wheels are holding up well despite rough Martian terrain as Curiosity continues to explore Gale Crater, having logged over 20 miles of travel in its long-running mission.
Facing an eight-and-a-half-hour delay to render a grayscale Mars image from Mariner 4’s numeric data, JPL engineers pasted the teletype strips on a wall and hand-colored them with Rembrandt pastels, creating a color image before the official photo was released; the result, while an improvised color-by-numbers, matched Mars’ hues surprisingly well and became a public-facing first close-up of another planet.
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory revived four attitude-control hydrazine thrusters on Voyager 1 in 2017 after they had been idle since 1980, firing 10-millisecond pulses at a distance of about 21 billion kilometers to keep the spacecraft’s dish pointed at Earth. The 19-hour-35-minute signal lag meant there was no real-time control, so engineers reconstructed the dormant branch’s behavior from old records and code and used a spare trajectory-correction thruster set. The test, enabled by hardware redundancy, extended the probe’s life by a few years as power and aging continue to challenge the mission, underscoring how careful engineering and cross-generational knowledge keep deep-space hardware operational.
NASA's Voyager 1, launched in 1977, remains the farthest human-made object and still sends data from interstellar space. Its plutonium RTGs are decaying, so JPL is rationing power by turning off nonessential instruments and managing heaters to keep critical systems like the thruster lines warm. Signals take about 23 hours to travel from Voyager 1 to Earth, meaning a response would take a full day, and the team hopes to keep the mission alive into the 2030s while the golden record aboard continues to carry humanity's greetings into the cosmos.
NASA's ERNEST rover prototype, built by JPL, completed a 16-mile desert trek in Southern California, mostly autonomously, thanks to new wheels, an active suspension and AI-driven obstacle navigation. The seven-day test aims to inform future lunar and Martian rovers with greater range, speed and terrain flexibility than traditional six-wheel rocker-bogie designs.
Launched in 1977, Voyager 1—roughly the size of a small car—still sails outward at about 17 km/s, now well beyond Pluto’s orbit at 166 AU. It communicates at light speed, with signals taking over 23 hours to reach Earth, while its power has dwindled to ~250 watts and only two instruments remain active. The mission has outlived its original four-year plan, outlasting most of its creators, and it carries the Golden Record as a lasting message as it drifts through interstellar space for billions of years.
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory is field-testing ERNEST, a compact autonomous rover designed to move faster across rugged terrain for future Moon and Mars missions. In a desert trial, ERNEST reached up to 0.6 mph and covered about 16 miles over roughly 37 hours, using mesh-wheeled propulsion, four steerable wheels, and two powered front joints to switch among gaits like squirming, wheel-walking, and obstacle-climbing. Trained with reinforcement learning, the rover can navigate autonomously and even drive sideways, aiming to reach previously inaccessible regions on upcoming missions.