Tag: Janus
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NASA decides not to launch two already-built asteroid probes
Two small spacecraft should have now been cruising through the Solar System, on their way to study unexplored asteroids, but after several years of development and nearly $50 million in expenditures, NASA announced Tuesday the probes will remain locked inside a Lockheed Martin factory in Colorado. That’s because the mission, called Janus, was supposed to…
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NASA taps SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket to launch mission to metal asteroid
File photo of a Falcon Heavy launch in April 2019. Credit: SpaceX NASA has selected SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket to launch a robotic mission in July 2022 to explore Psyche, a metal-rich asteroid located between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. The Psyche probe is NASA’s first mission assigned to fly on SpaceX’s heavy-lift launcher.…
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NASA’s first interplanetary smallsats may struggle to stay under cost caps
Artist’s concept of the Janus mission imaging a binary asteroid. Credit: NASA The first set of proposals for a new class of small robotic probes NASA wants to dispatch across the solar system came in with higher cost estimates than agency officials expected, a NASA manager said Sunday. NASA selected three finalist mission concepts in…