Stories

NASA has given Princeton University, Johns Hopkins APL and their many partner institutions the go-ahead to begin implementing the Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP), a mission to sample, analyze and map particles streaming to Earth from the edges of interstellar space.

The DART spacecraft’s recently installed Roll-Out Solar Arrays and DRACO imager are two critical technologies that will enable the spacecraft to navigate through space and effectively reach the Didymos system as part of a carefully planned asteroid deflection experiment.

APL planetary scientist Elizabeth “Zibi” Turtle has been awarded the inaugural Claudia J. Alexander Prize by the American Astronomical Society’s Division for Planetary Sciences.

Key elements of the Europa Clipper spacecraft — which Johns Hopkins APL is developing in partnership with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory — are coming together in cleanrooms across the country.

NASA’s DART mission will be the first-ever to test a way to protect Earth from an asteroid strike. But to ensure DART hits its harmless test target, scientists and engineers at Johns Hopkins APL developed a guidance system unlike anything used on spacecraft before — a system that can direct a spacecraft entirely on its own without any human intervention.

APL scientists have helped solve a decades-old mystery as to how Jupiter produces a spectacular burst of X-rays every few minutes. Critical measurements of the local environment came from APL’s Jupiter Energetic particle Detector Instrument (JEDI) onboard NASA’s Jupiter-orbiting satellite Juno.

Sixty years ago today, the U.S. launched its first nuclear-powered satellite, with a power source that has since enabled more than two dozen pioneering space missions. Here’s a look at four of those innovative missions, all led by Johns Hopkins APL.

After a decade in the making and numerous hurdles along the way, the Particle Environment Package (PEP)-Hi, made of two innovative instruments built by Johns Hopkins APL for the international JUICE mission to Jupiter, is complete and ready for installation on the spacecraft.

For its efforts to untangle the long-standing mysteries of the complex solar environment, the Parker Solar Probe mission team has earned the National Space Club and Foundation’s Nelson P. Jackson Award, which recognizes the most outstanding contribution to aerospace in the preceding year.