News Releases

In his new role, Schatz will assume leadership of the premier research and advanced technology development organization within APL.

The Mid-Atlantic Section of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) has named MESSENGER team members Peter Bedini and Eric Finnegan as Engineering Manager of the Year and Engineer of the Year, respectively, for 2011.

MESSENGER Co-Investigator Scott Murchie, of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Md., will be awarded the NASA Distinguished Public Service Medal, the highest honor that NASA bestows to an individual working outside the government.

After nearly three months in orbit about Mercury, MESSENGER’s payload is providing a wealth of new information about the planet closest to the Sun, as well as a few surprises.

Surprising observations from NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft raise questions about the radial extent of the heliosheath — the heated outer shell of our sun’s sphere of influence — leading scientists to believe the intrepid probe is closer to interstellar space than they thought.

The MESSENGER spacecraft successfully completed its first orbit-correction maneuver today to reset its periapsis altitude — the lowest point of MESSENGER's orbit about Mercury relative to the planet's surface — from 506 kilometers to approximately 200 kilometers.

Devising ways to explore space in tight fiscal times tops the agenda of the 9th International Conference on Low-Cost Planetary Missions, set for June 21–23, 2011, at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md.

Yesterday the MESSENGER spacecraft successfully completed the first of four "hot seasons" expected to occur during its one-year primary mission in orbit about Mercury.

NASA will host a news conference at 1 p.m. EDT on Thursday, June 16, 2011, to reveal new images and science findings from the first spacecraft to orbit Mercury.

The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL), in Laurel, Md., has licensed large motor control (LMC) software to HDT Robotics, a business unit of HDT Global and a provider of advanced robotic manipulation systems and military robotics solutions.