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National Air and Space Museum

Artist’s conception of the Perseverance rover sampling rocks on the floor of Jezero crater. The rover also carries the Ingenuity helicopter (not shown) that can fly in advance of the rover and scout out high priority rocks and outcrops for the rover to visit. (NASA)

Is There Life on Mars?

To get the answer, we have to know what to look for and where to go on the planet for evidence of past life. With the Perseverance rover set to land on Mars on February 18, we are finally in a position to know.

Alan Shepard on the lunar surface of the Moon during Apollo 14 mission. Photographed by Edgar D. Mitchell still inside Antares. (NASA)

Lessons from Apollo 14

The Apollo program should be remembered as much for landing the first humans on the Moon as it is for countless demonstrations of problem solving and ingenuity, of continual fine-tuning and honing of expertise, which enabled NASA to set even more ambitious goals with each successive mission.

Jack Schmitt picking up the gnomon after collecting samples. This view is to the west toward the Lee Lincoln Scarp. Apollo image AS17-140-21496.

Small Steps and Giant Leaps in the Apollo Lunar Landings

The 50th anniversary of the Apollo 14 mission, which included the longest moonwalk without a rover, is a good time to show how traverses away from the lunar landers progressed from one mission to the next.

Artist’s rendition of Ingenuity flying on Mars. (NASA/JPL-Caltech)

Driving Mars Exploration: How the Perseverance Rover Will Pave a Path into the Future

It’s been nearly 60 years since the first spacecraft were sent to Mars, and it’s inspiring to reflect on the progress that has been made since then. If all goes according to plan, the landing of the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover will mark the start of NASA’s ninth surface mission on the Red Planet.

Perseverance Rover on Mars ( NASA Illustration)

Six Ways to Celebrate Perseverance This February

Be a part of NASA's Perseverance rover landing this February with these six ways to celebrate the mission to Mars.

Carruthers holding one of the film cassettes that the astronauts brought back from the moon from his lunar camera/sectrograph. (NASA)

George Robert Carruthers: Astronautical Engineer and Astronomer

Astronautical engineer and astronomer George Robert Carruthers, a name well-known and dearly regarded in the space science community, and a good friend of the National Air and Space Museum, passed away on Saturday, December 26 after a long illness.

Two prominent lobate thrust fault scarps on Mercury, Discovery Rupes and Beagles Rupes, imaged by Mercury Dual Imaging System (MDIS) on the MESSENGER spacecraft. Discovery Rupes (left), named for the ship HMS Discovery, shown here in a MDIS high-incidence angle image mosaic, was first imaged by Mariner 10 in the mid-1970’s. Beagle Rupes (right), a bow-shaped fault scarp, was initial imaged during MESSENGER’s first flyby.

Mercury, The Not So Shrunken Planet

Based on my research, which include image composites of two flyby views of Mercury from the MESSENGER spacecraft, I conclude that Mercury has not cooled and shrunken as much as previously thought.

NASA astronaut and Pilot Victor Glover launched from the International Space Station on the agency’s SpaceX Crew-1 mission. (SpaceX)

Five Things We Learned from Victor Glover

Discover what it's really like to live and work in space! Astronaut Victor Glover shares his thoughts and little-known facts about being an astronaut.

The waxing gibbous Moon as we viewed it on December 3, 2011.

The Moon: Before We Knew

Reading Mark Wick’s novel To Mars Via the Moon words motivated reflection on how our thinking of the Moon changed as real-life science and technology has evolved, in contrast to science ficton.

Portrait of science fiction author Ray Bradbury. (Copyright © V. Tony Hauser, Courtesy The Ray Bradbury Literary Works, LLC.)

Gaining Inspiration from The Martian Chronicles

August 22, 2020, is the 100th anniversary of science fiction author Ray Bradbury’s birth. To honor the centennial, Museum geologist John Grant reflects on Bradbury’s impact on his career studying Mars.

The Hope spacecraft of the United Arab Emirates' Emirates Mars Mission during testing.

Launching Hope to Mars

Museum director Ellen Stofan reflects on the significance of the United Arab Emirates upcoming mission to Mars.

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