NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, has issued a request for proposal (RFP) seeking design, development and build of the robotic spacecraft that will capture a multi-ton asteroid boulder from deep space during the first segment of the agency’s Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM). The RFP is open to the four industry partners that previously…
Versatile Instrument to Scout for Kuiper Belt Objects
At the Palomar Observatory near San Diego, astronomers are busy tinkering with a high-tech instrument that could discover a variety of objects both far from Earth and closer to home. The Caltech HIgh-speed Multi-color camERA (CHIMERA) system is looking for objects in the Kuiper Belt, the band of icy bodies beyond the orbit of Neptune…
Engineering Made Fun: JPL’s Annual Invention Challenge
Slingshots, catapults and launchers packed the outside mall area at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, on Friday, Dec. 4, as local middle- and high-school students, and JPL employees competed in the annual JPL Invention Challenge. Twenty-three teams competed to create a device that could launch playground balls into three targets (shaped like the…
Photo of the Day: NASA Photographs Bright Spots on Dwarf Planet Ceres Again
The two brightest spots on dwarf planet Ceres, which have fascinated scientists for months, are back in view in the newest images from NASA’s Dawn spacecraft. Dawn took these images on April 14 and 15 from a vantage point 14,000 miles (22,000 kilometers) above Ceres’ north pole. The image shows the brightest spot and its companion…