Appears on
Articles19
Pluto Crater Named for New Horizons Pathfinder Tom Coughlin
In the early 2000s, Johns Hopkins APL’s Tom Coughlin shepherded the fledging New Horizons mission from early design through flight confirmation. Two decades later, the mission team is honoring Coughlin with a tribute on Pluto, the world New Horizons was built to explore.
The Coolest, Hottest Mission to the Sun
With cutting-edge scientific instruments to measure the environment around the spacecraft, Parker Solar Probe – designed, built, and managed for NASA by Johns Hopkins APL – has completed six of 24 planned passes through never-before-explored parts of the Sun’s atmosphere, the corona.
Searching for Clues to Our Origins
It sounds like science fiction: fly a robotic rotorcraft over the dunes of an alien moon, scanning and sampling its organic sands in a search for the chemical building blocks of life. But a team led by APL scientists and engineers is turning this idea into space exploration reality.
Johns Hopkins APL Space Instruments Ride Aboard Blue Origin
APL scientists and engineers are assessing data from two experimental instruments flown into space aboard Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket and crew capsule on Oct. 13.
Johns Hopkins APL Spacecraft Capture Planetary Portraits
The APL-built Parker Solar Probe was wheeling around the Sun last summer when it spied six planets — Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn — in its camera's field of view. The Lab-operated STEREO spacecraft caught a similar glimpse at the same time.
NEAR Landing Left a Lasting Space Exploration Legacy
On Feb. 12, 2001, a carefully designed series of maneuvers brought the APL-built NEAR Shoemaker spacecraft to the surface of 433 Eros — the first-ever landing on an asteroid. The trailblazing accomplishment pointed the way for future missions.
Perseverance Mission Highlights CRISM’s Continued Contributions to Martian Science
Perseverance is the most advanced Mars rover yet, strategically dispatched to a spot teeming with indicators of long-gone liquid water and, possibly, fossilized Martian life. Data from the Johns Hopkins APL-built CRISM imaging spectrometer factored into NASA’s selection of the Perseverance landing site.
Parker Solar Probe Offers Stunning View of Venus
During Parker Solar Probe's third Venus flyby, the camera aboard the Johns Hopkins APL-built spacecraft captured a striking — and surprising — image of the planet's nightside.
Johns Hopkins APL Technology Helps Mars Mission Phone Home
The Emirates Mars Mission, also known as “Hope,” stays connected to its operators on Earth using a novel radio provided by APL.
Johns Hopkins APL Space Sensor Package Passes Latest Flight Test
The recent flight of Virgin Galactic’s VSS Unity marked another successful test for the JHU APL Integrated Universal Suborbital (JANUS) platform, a sensor designed to observe the conditions inside suborbital space vehicles.
Johns Hopkins APL Board of Managers Welcomes New Chair Murren and New Member Barber; Bids Farewell to Outgoing Chair Hankin
After six years as chair of APL's board of managers, Michael Hankin closed out his term on June 30, making way for new chair Heather Murren. Jeffrey Barber has also joined the board.
IMAP Mission Advances to Next Development Stage
NASA has given Princeton University, Johns Hopkins APL and their many partner institutions the go-ahead to begin implementing the Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP), a mission to sample, analyze and map particles streaming to Earth from the edges of interstellar space.
Lunar Vertex: Solving Mysteries Swirling Around the Moon’s Magnetic Regions
Scientists believe that so-called magnetic anomalies hold clues to conditions on the Moon and other worlds throughout the solar system. To find out, APL leads a project not just to visit the most famous of these areas on the lunar surface but to drive right across it.
Large-Scale Liquid Water Existed on Mars Much Longer Than Suspected
An analysis of large salt deposits on Mars, led by Johns Hopkins APL researcher Ellen Leask, indicates that ponds of liquid water existed on the red planet for about a billion years longer than previously believed.
Visions of Venus
NASA’s Parker Solar Probe has captured a series of visible light images of Venus, and this data from the Johns Hopkins APL-built spacecraft is adding to scientists’ understanding of the planet likened as Earth’s twin.
NASA’s Perseverance Rover Captures New Sounds on Mars
APL's Ralph Lorenz is part of an international science team performing the first analysis of acoustics on Mars, releasing a new study that details how fast sound travels through the Red Planet’s extremely thin, mostly carbon-dioxide atmosphere and how Mars might sound to human ears.
Signs of Success: At Mission’s Midpoint, Parker Solar Probe Marks Amazing Achievements
NASA's Parker Solar Probe - designed, built and operated by Johns Hopkins APL - has come closer to the Sun than any spacecraft in history.
Deep-Space Landslide Yields an Avalanche of Insight on Asteroid Structure
By studying a landslide on the asteroid Bennu, a team of scientists led by Johns Hopkins APL's Mark Perry has gained new insight into the surface strength — or weakness — of so-called rubble-pile asteroids, the loose collections of smaller rocks and dust held together by their own gravity.
Tunnel Visions
Well before NASA’s Dragonfly rotorcraft lander soars through Titan’s skies, APL researchers are making sure their designs and models for the nuclear-powered, car-sized drone will work in a truly alien environment. The team has been testing its flight systems in wind tunnel facilities at NASA’s Langley Research Center.