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What's New in Lunar & Planetary Science

On June 7 at 17:35 UT (1:35 p.m. EDT), the NASA Juno spacecraft passed within about 1000 km of the surface of Ganymede, the largest moon in the solar system.

NASA has selected two new missions to Venus as part of its Discovery program, an atmospheric probe: DaVinci+ (Deep Atmosphere Venus Investigation of Noble gases, Chemistry, and Imaging), and an orbiter: VERITAS (Venus Emissivity, Radio Science, InSAR, Topography, and Spectroscopy), to launch in 2028 to 2030. For more detail see the NASA Press Release.

The Zurong rover on China's Tianwen 1 mission rolled onto the surface of Mars from the lander platform on May 22 at 2:40 UT (10:40 a.m. Beijing time).

This Day in Planetary and Lunar Exploration History

1963: Launch of Syncom 2 communications satellite, first spacecraft in geostationary orbit.
1971: Launch of Apollo 15, fourth mission to land astronauts on the Moon's surface.