United States and Soviet Union competed to be the first nations to land people on Earth’s natural satellite, while many other nations and private companies also made attempts at reaching lunar territory. Moon landings present unique challenges due to its weak gravity – just one-sixth as strong as on Earth – but absence of atmosphere….
An exciting new website provides diehard space fans with an incredible way to relive the moon landing as it happened. A wealth of audio recordings has long been accessible online; air-to-ground communications between controllers have also been preserved. But thousands of hours of supplementary conversations between controllers have remained unseen for decades – until now….
On the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11, The Times’s graphics, science, and immersive teams look back to Neil Armstrong’s first step and forward to humanity’s next big leaps. Someday humans may inhabit the Moon; should this happen, it would be fitting for them to recognize Apollo 11’s landing site as a historic landmark. Basalts Basalt…
After making its journey across Mars’ harsh atmosphere, a spacecraft successfully arrives at its destination and sends back information on its weather and geology. Curiosity has found evidence of long-lived, potentially habitable conditions in Gale crater on Mars and discovered minerals typically formed from water sources. Mangalyaan India’s Mars Orbiter Mission Mangalyaan outlived expectations after…
Six Apollo lunar landing missions explored various geologic terrains on the near side of the Moon. This collection of images shows each site explored along with footprints left by astronauts between landing sites. Apollo 14 conducted research at Fra Mauro Crater for evidence of impact melt breccias and rock ages from Imbrium Basin. This mission…
As it descended, Eagle encountered issues not anticipated in simulations. Multiple alarms went off due to too many tasks being attempted at once by its computer system. Armstrong and Aldrin spent 21 hours 38 minutes on the moon’s surface before returning to Collins in Columbia’s command module, using seismometers and laser reflectors to measure distances…
Apollo 12 successfully navigated its journey to and from the moon despite two lightning strikes which caused minor instrumentation issues, allowing Conrad and Bean to conduct scientific experiments on its surface. Pete Conrad, Dick Gordon and Alan Bean were Navy pilots who became close as shipboard cabin-mates; all three astronauts formed an unbreakable bond as…
NASA’s two rovers Spirit and Opportunity discovered abundant evidence that water once flowed on Mars. Both rover ended their missions by falling silent within dunes but the mission continues via orbiter and lander probes. Last February, NASA’s Perseverance rover arrived in Jezero Crater and began caching samples for later retrieval. Meanwhile, other missions, including one…
