Comets occasionally give a dazzling light displays in the night sky, but they may also help us to understand the chemical processes that led to our existence on Earth.

comets planetary orbits space technology↗

NASA NTRS1999

How can Wave Behavior Help Us Find Planets Around Distant Stars?

Here we will see how waves act in water. We will also see how the same kinds of wave behavior occur in other everday situations.

interferometry children's activity keck interferom↗

NASA NTRS1998

Name the Mars Miniature Probes

Two brave explorers travel to a mysterious, distant world. They go where no one has gone before and boldly begin to explore. They discover new things about this world. In shareing this information they help to shape human understanding about our universe.

Mars multi-probes Deep Space 2 New Millenium Progr↗

NASA NTRS1998

Building a 'Pop Rocket' to Demonstrate Newton's Third Law

Explore the source record for details and available documents.

science activity space science rockets Deep Space↗

NASA NTRS1998

Solving a Spacecraft Design Problem

We have probably all been amazed at the ingenuity of spacecraft engineers when we see some of the solutions they invent for such problems as landing a roving vehicle on Mars-as engineers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory did for NASA's Mars Pathfinder project-without using retro-rockets or even putting a spacecraft in orbit first.

Deep Space 2 Mars Microprobe classroom activity sp↗

NASA NTRS1998

Getting a Feel For Gravity

Exploring space requries first of all that we get our spacecraft off the ground, at least into Earth orbit. Then, if we want to explore any other bodies in our solar system, we have to get our spaceraft out of Earth orbit and somehow propel it to its intended target.

exploring space spacecraft gravity trajectory kine↗

NASA NTRS1998

Avionics: Integrating Spacecraft Technologies

Spacecraft may seem almost magical in their ability to coordinate a variety of instruments to explore unknown worlds.

Avionics Spacecraft bus X2000 integration technolo↗

NASA NTRS1998

Deep Space 1 (fact sheet)

Exerting less force than does a single sheet of paper resting in your hand, Deep Space 1's ion propulsion system will slowly, yet continuously accelerate the spacecraft well beyond speeds attainable by conventional chemical propulsion.

system xenon gas↗