Landing missions are especially tricky ... But 20 seconds after beginning its first photographic scan, Mars 3’s signal went silent for good. On Christmas Day 2003, the British-built Beagle ...
On September 29, 2013, SpaceX performed the first supersonic retropropulsion (SRP) maneuver to decelerate the reentry of the ...
On November 23, 2015, a Blue Origin rocket made a historic landing. Before this time, all rockets were single-use only — even ...
Back in 2007, I talked with Rob Manning, engineer extraordinaire at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and he told me something shocking. Even though he had successfully led the entry, descent, and ...
The Starship is at the heart of Elon Musk’s ambitious plan to send humans to Mars. This latest test flight showcased the rocket’s capabilities, with the first stage landing as planned and the ...
The landing came after a flawless six and a half month cruise through the interplanetary space between Earth and Mars and was humanity’s first successful landing on Mars in over six years ...
China is about to attempt its first Mars landing - a feat accomplished successfully by only half the spacecraft that have ever tried. Tianwen-1, as the mission is called, means "questions to heaven." ...
Which makes landing on Mars risky at best. So, how do space agencies do it? Very carefully. First, the spacecraft deploys its giant parachute to slow down as much as possible — usually to around ...
BEIJING--China landed a spacecraft on Mars for the first time on Saturday, a technically challenging feat more difficult than a moon landing, in the latest step forward for its ambitious goals in ...