On December 13, 2001, one week before the Deep Space 1 spacecraft was retired, some former and present members of the DS1 team gathered to say farewell to the remarkable craft. Click on image for full size (100K JPEG) Courtesy of NASA/JPL

Has the Yohkoh spacecraft mission also come to an end? We'll have to wait and see! On December 14, 2001, the Japanese solar spacecraft experienced a power shutdown to the scientific instruments. This power shutdown was triggered by an annular eclipse of the Sun that occurred over parts of the Pacific Ocean that same day. Efforts are being made to recover the spacecraft. Overall, the Yohkoh spacecraft, which was launched in 1991, has been highly successful and has provided real-time monitoring of solar activity for the sake of space weather studies.

Two new missions have recently been selected by NASA headquarters: Dawn and Kepler. Dawn is a spacecraft that will investigate two of the largest asteroids in our solar system, Vesta and Ceres. Dawn will be NASA's first purely scientific mission to use SEP or solar electric propulsion, an advanced technology that was tested by Deep Space 1. Dawn is scheduled to be launched in May 2006. Kepler is a telescope that will search for Earth-like planets around nearby stars. This is an especially timely choice given Hubble Space Telescope's recent detection of an extrasolar planetary atmosphere. Kepler is also scheduled for launch in 2006. Both missions are part of NASA's Discovery program.

On December 13, 2001, one week before the Deep Space 1 spacecraft was retired, some former and present members of the DS1 team gathered to say farewell to the remarkable craft. Click on image for full size (100K JPEG) Courtesy of NASA/JPL

Has the Yohkoh spacecraft mission also come to an end? We'll have to wait and see! On December 14, 2001, the Japanese spacecraft experienced a power shutdown to the science instruments. This power shutdown was triggered by an eclipse of the Sun that occurred over parts of the Pacific Ocean that same day. Efforts are being made to recover the spacecraft. The Yohkoh spacecraft was launched in 1991 and will be considered a great success even if the spacecraft can't be recovered. Yohkoh was especially well known for providing real-time monitoring of solar activity and new data for space weather studies.

Two new missions have recently been selected by NASA: Dawn and Kepler. Dawn is a spacecraft that will study two of the largest asteroids in our solar system, Vesta and Ceres. Dawn is scheduled to be launched in May 2006. Kepler is a telescope that will search for Earth-like planets around nearby stars. This is an especially timely choice given Hubble Space Telescope's recent detection of an extrasolar planetary atmosphere. Kepler is also scheduled for launch in 2006. Both missions are part of NASA's Discovery program.

On December 13, 2001, one week before the Deep Space 1 spacecraft was retired, some former and present members of the DS1 team gathered to say farewell to the remarkable craft. Click on image for full size (100K JPEG) Courtesy of NASA/JPL

Has the Yohkoh spacecraft mission also come to an end? We'll have to wait and see! The Japanese spacecraft has been experiencing problems since mid-December. The trouble was started by an eclipse of the Sun. Even if the Japanese space program can't get Yohkoh out of trouble, the mission can be counted as a great success. For 10 years, Yohkoh has been looking at how the Sun affects the Earth.

Two new missions have recently been chosen by NASA: Dawn and Kepler. Dawn is a spacecraft that will study two of the largest asteroids in our solar system, Vesta and Ceres. Kepler is a telescope that will search for Earth-like planets around nearby stars. Both missions are scheduled for launch in 2006.