Free to follow every thread. No paywall, no dead ends.
Discovery Program: stories to listen to | HearLore
— Curated category —
Discovery Program
Dawn (spacecraft)Harold R. Kaufman built the first working ion thruster in 1959 at NASA's Glenn Research Center in Ohio. This early engine used mercury as its propellant and…
NEAR ShoemakerJohns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory built the NEAR Shoemaker spacecraft in the mid-1990s. This robotic probe was designed to study asteroid…
Stardust (spacecraft)Scientists began seeking a dedicated mission to study a comet during the 1980s. Several missions to Comet Halley became the first successful missions to…
MESSENGERthe 3rd of August 2004 marked the launch of MESSENGER from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. A Delta II rocket carried the spacecraft into a…
Deep Impact (spacecraft)A comet-impact mission first appeared on NASA's desk in 1996. Engineers at the agency were skeptical that a probe could hit such a moving target.