Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy And Science

It’s the biggest dwarf planet between here and Pluto, and it has a new permanent resident. The Dawn spacecraft is orbiting Ceres in the asteroid belt, revealing it as never before. What are those bright spots anyway? We spend time with Dawn’s Chief Engineer and Director, Marc Rayman.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Humankind’s arrival at Pluto is barely two months away. The science and images have already started to flow from New Horizons, according to the mission’s Principal Investigator, Alan Stern. Alan returns to Planetary Radio this week.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We open with the countdown to destruction—the MESSENGER spacecraft’s impact on Mercury ended its spectacularly successful mission. Principal Investigator Sean Solomon joins us immediately after this big finish.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The road to space has been a rocky one for most spacecraft, and LightSail is no different. Challenges remain even with the May 20th launch of a test mission approaching. Embedded LightSail reporter Jason Davis checks in with the latest news.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Planetary Radio Live was the only public event at the just-completed Planetary Defense Conference in Italy. Join us for excerpts from an all-star celebration of worldwide efforts to find, track, characterize and eventually deflect killer Near-Earth Objects.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Landing on Mars is hard, and the bigger you are, the harder it gets. Rob Manning returns to tell us about one of NASA’s best hopes for getting much bigger spacecraft down there—spacecraft that may one day carry humans.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A human mission to orbit Mars might be possible by 2033, and it might be accomplished at reasonable cost and with existing or nearly-ready technology. Three leaders of a recent Washington DC conference on this topic provide a report.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Bigelow Aerospace’s BEAM expandable/inflatable space module will be attached to the International Space Station later this year. Mat travels to the company’s headquarters for a conversation with founder and CEO Robert Bigelow.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Senior Editor Emily Lakdawalla has returned from the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in Texas with the latest revelations about our solar system. She shares them in an extended report. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Mars Science Laboratory rover has accomplished its primary goals on the Red Planet, and John Grotzinger has left his central role to become Chair of the Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences at the California Institute of Technology. He shares his thoughts about the ongoing mission and much more.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

6,000 job-seekers came to the new Long Beach, California home of Virgin Galactic’s LauncherOne rocket on a recent morning. We sit down with CEO George Whitesides for a conversation about this new effort and the return of SpaceShipTwo.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Planetary scientist and author Jim Bell has just written “The Interstellar Age—Inside the Forty-Year Voyager Mission.” He talks with Mat Kaplan about the magnificent grand tour of the outer solar system that is now headed toward the stars.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

ARM is the Asteroid Redirect Mission, and sometimes it seems that it doesn’t have a friend in the world. But it does, and Jonathan Goff of Altius Space Machines is one.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Beagle 2 Mars lander disappeared after it separated from the Mars Express orbiter on Christmas Day, 2003. Eleven years later, it has been found, partially-deployed on the Martian surface. Longtime Beagle 2 mission leader Mark Sims tells the story.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The just-released budget for the US space agency has much that fans of planetary science can be grateful for, though the news is not all pos.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We’ll visit the Jet Propulsion Lab on its Icy Worlds Day to learn more about spacecraft exploring Ceres, Enceladus and Europa from leaders of these missions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Robina Shaheen and Mark Thiemens tell us how an ancient Mars meteorite has revealed much about the red planet. Mat holds a tiny fragment of the rock in their UC San Diego lab.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Planetary Society has just announced that LightSail will be launched into orbit on its first test flight in May. We’ll talk with Project Manager Doug Stetson and embedded LightSail reporter Jason Davis about what to expect.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Astronomer and planetary scientist Courtney Dressing is the lead author of research that may have found the formula for the mass and composition of Earth-like planets. She reveals the ingredients and why she spent time at JPL while in high school.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Joe Liske, host of Hubblecast, is also the top scientist on the European Southern Observatory’s European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT), now under construction on a Chilean mountaintop. “Dr. J” tells us what this largest ever telescope will help us discover.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.