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The first two designs are for the Europa Clipper proposal. The only difference in the second one I know of is that the team switched to using solar panels. The third design was released when NASA selected nine instruments for the official Europa mission. The multi-flyby concept offers great...

Their blog is being updated frequently with LightSail news. Contact! LightSail Phones Home after 8-Day Silence LightSail Team Prepares for Sail Deployment First Look: Partial Camera Test Images from LightSail LightSail Deployment Update: Panels Wednesday, Sails Friday Test image from space:

I don't think rings are a concern anymore.

More photos from The Martian movie (contains possible book spoilers so I won't post all of them): Vogel looks close to how I imagined him, maybe because of this astronaut, but unfortunately he's not an actual bird. It looks like Martinez is missing from the crew photo.

JPL: "Dawn Spirals Closer to Ceres, Returns a New View"

NASA: "NASA’s Europa Mission Begins with Selection of Science Instruments"

More:

Searching for "Falcon 9 abort" turned up some information.

The Planetary Society's LightSail is a secondary payload on that rocket. It's just a test flight, but unfortunately it's expected to have some problems already.

The rover: I think I'm doing it wrong. I found the time consuming way that there's no science to be gained by rendezvousing with an asteroid, wasting my first ever visit to such an object. Apparently, I have to send some Kerbals to the asteroid to gain some science points. I should research...

The bright spots are multiplying! There's an article accompanying the release of these images. JPL: "Ceres Animation Showcases Bright Spots" The next orbit is called Survey.

I was running out of easy science points on Minmus and the Mun so I sent two probes to Duna. The first is a rover that targeted the lowlands (I promise it's in there) called Valley Mariner (because Mars). The second is a compact polar orbiter called Ares (because Mars again). The orbiter...

Speaking of ejection seats, ejecting from a lit Titan II seems like a pretty unpleasant experience.

Dragon looks like it's operating in a vacuum until the deployment of its chutes.

But a bonus is that the rocket does not have to haul a big tower much of the way to orbit. Dragon can also use the engines later to land on ground and avoid saltwater. It's unusual that Dragon will carry the trunk when it aborts, why is this? The trunk is useless mass and will be disposed of in...

HOLY :censored::

Photos from RC3: Source Source Source Source

Good point, although the surfaces get hotter during a faster reentry and a heat shield should ablate faster. I guess KSP doesn't model this. I've installed the game on Steam a while ago but haven't tried any mods. It's vanilla. Rather than testing heat shields today, I've been working on...

I noticed that my old rocket's capsule (the Mk1-2) was able to reenter without a heat shield. I started a new sandbox and tested both the Mk1-2 and HECS; neither were affected by reentry, even after launching straight up to 500 km. I'll try some other pods.

It's nice that a follow-up mission to Mercury is coming right after MESSENGER, BepiColombo. It's sad that parts of the solar system are often abandoned for years or decades with no plans for any future missions. But the data that MESSENGER has taken will be studied for a long time, and we can...