NASA’s Curiosity Takes Close Look at Rock That Got Stuck on Drill
NASA’s Curiosity Takes Close Look at Rock That Got Stuck on Drill

Description NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover used its Mast Camera, or Mastcam, to capture this view of a rock nicknamed “Atacama” on May 6, 2026, the 4,877th Martian day, or sol, of the mission. The rock had gotten stuck to the drill on the end of Curiosity’s robotic arm on April 25. Engineers spent several days […]

NASA’s Psyche Mission Captures Mars During Gravity Assist Approach
NASA’s Psyche Mission Captures Mars During Gravity Assist Approach

Description This colorized image of Mars was captured by NASA’s Psyche mission on May 3, 2026, about 3 million miles (4.8 million kilometers) from the planet. The spacecraft is approaching the planet for a gravity assist on May 15 that will give it a boost in speed and adjust its trajectory toward asteroid Psyche for […]

NASA’s Next-Gen Mars Helicopter Rotors Are Moving Fast
NASA’s Next-Gen Mars Helicopter Rotors Are Moving Fast

Description Engineer Jaakko Karras inspects a next-generation Mars helicopter rotor blade prior to supersonic speed testing in the 25-Foot Space Simulator at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California in November 2025. The three-bladed rotor hanging horizontally in the foreground is the next-gen rotor being tested. The vertically aligned two-bladed rotor provided a “headwind,” enabling […]

NASA’s Curiosity Rover Frees Its Drill From a Rock
NASA’s Curiosity Rover Frees Its Drill From a Rock

Description This series of images shows NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover as it got a rock stuck to the drill on the end of its robotic arm and, after waving the arm and running the drill a few times, finally detached the rock. The imagery showing the entire process was captured by the black-and-white hazard cameras […]

US-Indian Spacecraft Captures Mexico City Subsidence
US-Indian Spacecraft Captures Mexico City Subsidence

Description A scientist produced this map of land subsidence (sinking) in Mexico City using data from the NISAR (NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar) mission captured between Oct. 25, 2025, and Jan. 17, 2026. The region has been a well-known hot spot of subsidence for decades, and images like this help confirm that NISAR is performing as […]

Curiosity Captures a 360-Degree View at ‘Nevado Sajama’
Curiosity Captures a 360-Degree View at ‘Nevado Sajama’

Description NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover captured this 360-degree view of a region filled with low ridges called boxwork formations between Nov. 9 and Dec. 7, 2025 (the 4,714th to 4,741st Martian days, or sols, of the mission). At 1.5 billion pixels, this is one of the largest panoramas Curiosity has ever taken (the rover’s largest […]

Six Years of Curiosity’s Wheels on the Move
Six Years of Curiosity’s Wheels on the Move

Description NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover used its right navigation camera — one of two on the rover’s mast, or head — to capture the images in this timelapse, which spans six years of driving. The images were snapped between Jan. 2, 2020, and March 8, 2026 (the 2,633rd and 4,830th Martian day, or sol, of […]

Watching the Artemis II Mission Unfold at JPL’s Space Flight Operations Facility
Watching the Artemis II Mission Unfold at JPL’s Space Flight Operations Facility

Description Staff at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California watch the agency’s Artemis II mission unfold soon after launch on April 1, 2026, at the Space Flight Operations Facility, which operates the Deep Space Network (DSN). The DSN comprises of three complexes in Goldstone, California; Madrid, Spain; and Canberra, Australia. Each complex has several […]

The Deep Space Network Acquires Artemis II Signal
The Deep Space Network Acquires Artemis II Signal

Description A graphical representation of the Deep Space Network’s radio frequency antennas indicate signal acquisition from NASA’s Artemis II mission to the Moon on April 1, 2026, inside the Space Flight Operations Facility at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. Two antennas at the Madrid Deep Space Communications Complex, Deep Space Station 54 and […]

The Deep Space Network Acquires Artemis II Signal
The Deep Space Network Acquires Artemis II Signal

Description The acquisition of the radio frequency signal from the Artemis II crewed mission to the Moon by NASA’s Deep Space Network (DSN) is indicated by the peak in the data signal shown on the top computer screen.  Soon after the mission’s launch on April 1, 2026, at 6:35 p.m. EDT, NASA’s Near Space Network […]