News Archive / Author: Jim Sharkey

Jim Sharkey is a lab assistant, writer and general science enthusiast who grew up in Enid, Oklahoma, the hometown of Skylab and Shuttle astronaut Owen K. Garriott. As a young Star Trek fan he participated in the letter-writing campaign which resulted in the space shuttle prototype being named Enterprise. While his academic studies have ranged from psychology and archaeology to biology, he has never lost his passion for space exploration. Jim began blogging about science, science fiction and futurism in 2004. Jim resides in the San Francisco Bay area and has attended NASA Socials for the Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity rover landing and the NASA LADEE lunar orbiter launch.

Articles By Jim Sharkey

• NASA’s InSight lander views Martian sunrise, sunset

  May 6th, 2019

  The InSight Mars lander recently trained one of its cameras on the Martian horizon, capturing a series of sunrise and sunset images.

• NASA’s Mars 2020 rover stacked for testing

  April 25th, 2019

  NASA's Mars 2020 mission has reached a crucial milestone in preparation for its launch, currently scheduled for July of 2020. In recent weeks, major spacecraft components and test equipment have been tucked inside the entry capsule in a process known as 'vehicle stacking.'

• Rocket Lab adds spacecraft building program

  April 13th, 2019

  Rocket Lab unveiled its in-house developed and built Photon satellite platform at the 35th Space Symposium in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

• Curiosity update: Methane spike confirmed and Martian eclipses observed

  April 7th, 2019

  A methane spike detected by NASA's Curiosity Mars rover in 2013 has been confirmed by researchers reanalyzing data captured by the Mars Express orbiter.

• NASA’s Mars Helicopter completes flight testing

  March 31st, 2019

  While multiple space agencies have landed spacecraft on other celestial bodies, none have flown in the skies above those worlds—but that may soon change.

• NASA’s OSIRIS-REx discovers surprises on asteroid Bennu

  March 20th, 2019

  NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft has taken images of asteroid Bennu that show particle plumes erupting from a surface more rugged than previously expected.

• ArianeGroup, CNES seek to develop a reusable 1st stage demonstrator

  March 13th, 2019

  Increasingly fierce competition in the commercial launch market has driven established launch providers to seek ways to become more flexible and innovative.

• Rock and a hard place: InSight experiment encounters setback

  March 7th, 2019

  Even successful robotic missions can encounter obstacles. This appears to be the case with NASA's Mars InSight lander and its self-hammering "mole."

• NASA’s InSight lander places heat probe on Martian surface

  February 24th, 2019

  Having placed a heat probe on the surface, NASA's InSight Mars lander is one step closer to taking the temperature of the Red Planet's interior.

• Farewell Opportunity: NASA ends efforts to contact silent Mars rover

  February 13th, 2019

  NASA said efforts to regain communications with the Opportunity Mars rover have ended, concluding one of the agency's most successful missions.

• ESA’s ExoMars rover named after Rosalind Franklin

  February 12th, 2019

  The European Space Agency announced that its ExoMars rover will be named Rosalind Franklin. It and a Russian lander are scheduled for a July 2020 launch.

• NASA’s Parker Solar Probe begins 2nd orbit of the Sun

  January 31st, 2019

  Parker Solar Probe is pulling back the curtains of our parent star and is well on its way to rewriting humanity's understanding of how stars work.

• Juno snaps photo of two giant storms

  January 24th, 2019

  NASA's Juno spacecraft captured an image of two massive storms in Jupiter's turbulent southern hemisphere during its most recent close pass.

• Hubble camera shut down following anomaly

  January 10th, 2019

  Operations of Wide Field Camera 3 on NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have been suspended following an anomaly, the space agency said.

• OSIRIS-REx spacecraft enters record-breaking orbit around asteroid Bennu

  January 2nd, 2019

  Almost overshadowed while New Horizons was zipping past Ultima Thule, another spacecraft went into orbit around an asteroid, albeit a little closer to home.