'Good Night Oppy': Why this movie about a Martian robot will make you reach for your handkerchief
Get those Kleenex ready. You'll never again see robots as just lurching, whirring, beeping hunks of metal.
In 2003, the U.S. sent two rovers to explore Mars. The documentary "Good Night Oppy" (streaming now on Amazon Prime Video) revives that epic adventure, doing for gangly interstellar probes what the Oscar-winning 2020 doc "My Octopus Teacher" did for that tentacled sea creature: humanize them.
The two rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, or Oppy, were built to last roughly 92 days. Spirit lasted six years. And Oppy rambled across 28 miles of the red planet for nearly 15 years, driving its way into the hearts of NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory scientists, who reveled in its triumphs and sweated its breakdowns. Think Pixar's "WALL-E" meets "Apollo 13."
USA TODAY spoke with "Oppy" director Ryan White and JPL engineering lead Doug Ellison about how this space adventure is really a love story.
The viral NASA tweet that started it all
Science documentaries don't typically tug at the heartstrings. But White says a 2019 viral tweet from NASA instantly convinced him and his production team that there was a very different story to tell.
Orion enters lunar distant retrograde orbit
NASA’s Orion spacecraft entered a high-altitude orbit around the moon Nov. 25 in the latest major step in the Artemis 1 uncrewed test flight.
The post Orion enters lunar distant retrograde orbit appeared first on SpaceNews.
NASA's Orion capsule enters far-flung orbit around moon
India’s PSLV rocket launches nine satellites in final mission of 2022
India’s space agency ISRO launched a one-ton Earth observation satellite and eight nanosatellites to sun-synchronous polar orbit Nov.
SpaceX launches new cargo Dragon spacecraft to space station
A brand new SpaceX Falcon 9 successfully launched a new cargo Dragon spacecraft Nov. 26, carrying supplies, experiments and new solar arrays for the International Space Station.
The post SpaceX launches new cargo Dragon spacecraft to space station appeared first on SpaceNews.
Join us for a fireside chat with Lori Garver & Jim Bridenstine
Together for the first time. She's a longtime SLS critic who served a decade in senior NASA roles under Clinton and Obama. He's a Republican ex-congressman who ran NASA for three years under Trump.
The post Join us for a fireside chat with Lori Garver & Jim Bridenstine appeared first on SpaceNews.
SpaceX sends another Dragon full of cargo and science to ISS
SpaceX's 26th commercial resupply mission for NASA is on its way to the International Space Station.
Carrying more than 7,700 pounds of science experiments, crew supplies, and other cargo, the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft launched on the Falcon 9 rocket at 2:20 p.m. EST Saturday from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
The cargo spacecraft is scheduled to autonomously dock at the spa NASA Orion spacecraft enters lunar orbit: officials
NASA's Orion spacecraft was placed in lunar orbit Friday, officials said, as the much-delayed Moon mission proceeded successfully.
A little over a week after the spacecraft blasted off from Florida bound for the Moon, flight controllers "successfully performed a burn to insert Orion into a distant retrograde orbit," the US space agency said on its web site.
The spacecraft is to take astr Orion surpasses Apollo 13 record distance from Earth: Flight Day 11
On day 11 of the Artemis I mission, Orion continues its journey beyond the Moon after entering a distant retrograde orbit Friday, Nov. 25, at 3:52 p.m. CST. Orion will remain in this orbit for six days before exiting lunar orbit to put the spacecraft on a trajectory back to Earth and f a Sunday, Dec. 11, splashdown in the Pacific Ocean.
Orion surpassed the distance record for a mission wit 
