Browse Archive

  • Artist's concept of the IRIS satellite in orbit.

    IRIS - Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph - Launching Late Spring 2013

    The Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS) mission opens a window of discovery into the sun's upper layers by tracing the flow of energy and plasma through the chromosphere and transition region into the corona using spectrometry and imaging.

  • Artist's concept of the Solar Orbiter Satellite

    Solar Orbiter  →

    Solar Orbiter is a European Space Agency (ESA) mission to study the Sun from a distance closer than any spacecraft previously has, and will provide images and measurements in unprecedented resolution and detail.

  • A solar eruptive prominence as seen in extreme UV light on March 30, 2010 with Earth superimposed for a sense of scale.

    SDO Celebrates One Year Anniversary

    02.11.11 - Project scientists discuss SDO's first year of science and collaboration with other Heliophysics System Observatory missions.

  • Artist rendition of RBSP spacecraft.

    The Van Allen Probes

    This mission (formerly known as Radiation Belt Storm Probes(RBSP)) was designed to help us understand the Sun’s influence on Earth and Near-Earth space by studying the Earth’s radiation belts on various scales of space and time.

  • Artist conception of the four MMS spacecraft investigating magnetic reconnection within Earth's magnetic field (magnetosphere).

    MMS - Magnetospheric MultiScale  →

    The Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) mission is a Solar-Terrestrial Probe mission comprising four identically instrumented spacecraft that will use Earth's magnetosphere as a laboratory to study the microphysics of three fundamental plasma processes: magnetic reconnection, energetic particle acceleration, and turbulence.

  • The Solar Probe Plus spacecraft with solar panels folded into the shadows of its protective shield, gathers data on its approach to the Sun. Credit: JHU/APL

    SPP - Solar Probe Plus  →

    Solar Probe+ will be an extraordinary and historic mission, exploring what is arguably the last region of the solar system to be visited by a spacecraft, the Sun’s outer atmosphere or corona as it extends out into space.

  • Artist concept of FASTSAT satellite.

    FASTSAT - Fast, Affordable, Science and Technology SATellite

    The objective of the FASTSAT mission is to demonstrate the capability to build, design and test a microsatellite platform to enable governmental, academic and industry researchers to conduct low-cost scientific and technology experiments on an autonomous satellite in space.

  • An artist's concept of the two ARTEMIS spacecraft in orbit around the Moon.

    ARTEMIS - Acceleration, Reconnection, Turbulence and Electrodynamics of the Moon’s Interaction with the Sun

    The ARTEMIS mission is to study how the solar wind electrifies, alters and erodes the moon's surface. ARTEMIS is using two in-orbit spacecraft from the completed THEMIS magnetosphere mission.

  • Artist's rendition of the TRACE spacecraft in orbit.

    Spacecraft Boogie

    12.20.10 - Team of engineers discover that the faster way between two points is not a straight line, but looks more like a five-point star.

  • Artist's concept of SOHO spacecraft observing the sun.

    Solar Observation Mission Celebrates 15 Years

    12.01.10 - Since launch in 1995, SOHO has revolutionized what we know about the solar atmosphere and violent solar storms produced by the sun.

  • An artist's concept of THEMIS-P1 and P2 (since renamed ARTEMIS-P1 and P2) in lunar orbit.

    Dead Spacecraft Walking

    10.27.10 - Because they lie just outside Earth's magnetosphere, Lagrange points are excellent places to study the solar wind.

  • Artist's concept of TIMED spacecraft

    NASA Extends TIMED Mission for Fourth Time

    11.05.10 - NASA approved an extension of the TIMED mission through 2014.

  • Artist's concept of ARTEMIS spacecraft in orbit around the Moon.

    Dead Spacecraft Walking  →

    10.27.10 - A pair of NASA spacecraft that were supposed to be dead a year ago are instead flying to the Moon for a breakthrough mission in lunar orbit.

  • SDO Eclipsing

    SDO Enters Fall Eclipse Season

    09.13.10 - Eclipse periods are a normal part of life with a geosynchronous observatory.

  • Artist conception of the four MMS spacecraft investigating magnetic reconnection within Earth's magnetic field (magnetosphere).

    NASA's Magnetospheric Mission Passes Major Milestone

    09.03.10 - NASA's Magnetospheric Multiscale mission passed its critical design review, which clears the way for spacecraft fabrication.