Recently in Missions and Programs Category

While our planet is experiences equinox twice a year, the fall autumnal equinox being today, Saturn experiences equinox twice every 29.7 Earth years. That is the time it takes the Saturn to do one orbit around the sun.

NASA's Cassini spacecraft was there to view this incredible show that has provided scientists an unprecedented view of this event last month.

NASA's MODIS or Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer, a key instrument on the Terra satellite, took this spectacular image of west central Canada on September 13th.

The top quarter of the image shows the Northwest Territories and Great Slave Lake. Below the Northwest Territories from left to right are the provinces of British Columbia, Alberta, and Saskatchewan. On the border of Alberta and Saskatchewan is Lake Athabasca.

The first of three images of ESO's GigaGalaxy Zoom project -- a new magnificent 800-million-pixel panorama of the entire sky as seen from ESO's observing sites in Chile -- has just been released online. The project allows stargazers to explore and experience the Universe as it is seen with the unaided eye from the darkest and best viewing locations in the world.

A lunar or Martian rover appears to be among the priorities that will eventually be outlined in Canada's Long-Term Space Plan, a planning tool the Canadian Space Agency says it has been working to complete during the past year.

That information emerged from a series of CSA tenders - collectively worth at least $9.75 million - issued these past few weeks on Merx, a Canadian contracting system that mainly deals with federal procurement. One of the contracts had no dollar value attached to it.

Former astronauts Steve MacLean of the Canadian Space Agency and Charles Bolden of NASA, heads of their respective space agencies, signed a Framework Agreement in Washington today.

I haven't driven a car in three months, and yet I've traveled 70 million kilometers. I've watched 16 sunrises and sunsets in a single day. I've sipped coffee out of a bag through a straw, and squeezed macaroni and cheese from a package into my mouth. I've conducted many scientific and medical experiments. I've welcomed extraterrestrial friends to my home and bid them farewell. I've helped repair a toilet, as well as a carbon dioxide scrubber, and an oxygen generator.

This is the second newsletter to the community regarding the 2009-2011 Planetary Science Decadal Survey. A great deal has happened since my first newsletter back in April.

Charlie Bolden is no stranger to space exploration but he is a newbie in the Administrator's suite and the strange ecology of Washington, DC interactions that the job entails. His first three days on the job have been abnormal with all the Apollo hoopla swirling through everyone's heads. Most of the time it is going to be far less glamorous.

Space shuttle Endeavour and its seven-member crew launched at 6:03 p.m. EDT Wednesday from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.