SUNSET: 
Astronomy in Space with David Dickinson
Opportunity Reaches the End of Its Long Road
Despite months of listening, NASA has failed to pick up any signals from the stalwart Opportunity rover.
Astronomy in Space with David Dickinson
Speeding Up Plutonium Production for Space Exploration
Automation of a key process may yield an eightfold boost to U.S. plutonium production, a promising development for deep-space exploration.
Astronomy in Space with David Dickinson
China's Chang'e 4 Lands on the Lunar Farside
China's Chang'e 4 performed a historic first on January 3rd with a soft landing on the farside of the Moon.
Astronomy in Space with David Dickinson
Space Missions to Watch in 2019
Multiple trips to the Moon, physics satellites, and Europe's long-awaited exoplanet explorer are among the space missions on tap for 2019.
Astronomy in Space with David Dickinson
Chang'e 4 Probe Heads to the Lunar Farside
China's latest lunar mission will drop a lander and rover in one of the oldest terrains on the Moon, becoming the first craft to intentionally land on and explore the farside.
Astronomy in Space with David Dickinson
Osiris-REX Arrives at Asteroid Bennu
NASA's ambitious Osiris-REX mission will now spend the next couple years surveying Bennu before attempting to return a sample to Earth.
Astronomy in Space with David Dickinson
Insight Lander Touches Down on Mars
After a safe landing, NASA's first dedicated geophysical mission to Mars will spend the next two years studying the deep interior of the Red Planet.
Astronomy in Space with David Dickinson
Jezero Crater Selected as Landing Site for Mars 2020 Rover
NASA's next Mars rover will explore a geologically diverse crater that may once have been flooded with water, a crucial ingredient for the mission's search for evidence of past life.
Astronomy in Space with David Dickinson
Dusk for Dawn: NASA's Groundbreaking Mission Comes to an End
After 11 Years, NASA's Dawn mission to explore Vesta and Ceres is about to come to an end.
Astronomy in Space with David Dickinson
The Kepler Space Telescope Comes to an End
NASA's planet-hunting telescope has run out of fuel after a nine-year mission that found more than 2,600 planets orbiting other stars along with thousands more worlds yet to be confirmed.
Astronomy in Space with David Dickinson
MASCOT Deploys from Hayabusa-2, Lands on Ryugu
The boxy robotic lander MASCOT delivered photos and other data from asteroid Ryugu during a brief 17-hour stay on the asteroid's surface.
Astronomy in Space with David Dickinson
Touchdown: Hayabusa 2 Deploys Rovers to Explore Ryugu
The Japanese Hayabusa 2 spacecraft dispatched the first of a set of smaller missions that will explore asteroid 162173 Ryugu.
Astronomy in Space with David Dickinson
Dawn Probes Role of Cryovolcanism on Ceres
A recent analysis of data from NASA's Dawn spacecraft reveals the role of cryovolcanism past — and likely present — on the giant asteroid Ceres.
Astronomy in Space with David Dickinson
NASA's Cassini Sees Saturn's Towering Polar Hexagon
Cassini's legacy sheds more light on the strange mystery of Saturn's northern polar hexagon.
Astronomy in Space with David Dickinson
Osiris-REX's First Views of Asteroid Bennu
NASA's Osiris-REX asteroid sample return mission spies target Bennu for the first time. Now the spacecraft is setting up for its close approach in December.
Astronomy in Space with David Dickinson
NASA's Parker Solar Probe Launches to "Touch the Sun"
The unique Parker Solar Probe launched on Sunday, August 12th, set to fly faster and come closer to the Sun than any spacecraft before it.
Astronomy in Space with David Dickinson
HaloSat: A Small Satellite for a Big Question
HaloSat, a mini-satellite recently deployed from the International Space Station, is on the hunt for the universe's missing matter.
Astronomy in Space with David Dickinson
Planet-Protection Policies: Due For Revision?
A new National Academies study assesses NASA's efforts to protect neighboring worlds from contamination and recommends ways the space agency could do a better job.
Astronomy in Space with David Dickinson
Nautilus Expedition Recovers Possible Seafloor Meteorites
The expedition off the coast of Washington state performs a first, recovering meteorite fragments from a documented fall.
Astronomy in Space with David Dickinson
Hayabusa 2: Welcome to Ryugu
We got a peek at a new worldlet in the inner solar system this week, as the Japanese Aerospace Agency's (JAXA) Hayabusa-2 gave us our first good looks at the tiny asteroid 162173 Ryugu.
