You can now submit your name on The Planetary Society's website:

http://www.planetary.org/get-involved/messages/hayabusa-2/

You can now submit your name on the Japanese version of JAXA's Hayabusa 2 page:

http://153.122.7.196/form/

(Deadline: Juy 16 - 12:00 PM JST)

The English version should be up on The Planetary Society's website this Saturday (April 13)

Another pic of the microchips...finally shown on Mars

Awesome news!

If InSIGHT's selection is true, then I'm glad that JPL's EDL team will have a reason to eat peanuts again in 2016...though I REALLY wanted to see a spacecraft float in an extraterrestrial lake. Oh well.

The chips are more visible in this pic, since there's brighter lighting:

http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/jpeg/PIA16063.jpg


In regards to answering your question, nope-- Don't know what the recessed area is

Photos of the microchips and their location on Curiosity...

Thanks for the heads-up! *Crosses fingers for TIME*

My assumption would be 'yes'.

Don't know if this has already been posted, but check out this funny Twitter page for a disgruntled Mars rover

https://twitter.com/SarcasticRover


(Beware of some language!)

An IMAX film will be made with the MARDI footage? I guess this should make up for the zoom lens not being installed on Curiosity. Sorry James Cameron

Don't forget about Phoenix in 2008. It's not a rover, but you know...

Anyways, congrats to JPL and the MSL team for another awesome achievement for space exploration! Looking forward to seeing Curiosity's wheels finally begin motion on the surface of Gale Crater...

Heh, I remember when I first heard about the Cassini-Huygens mission back in 1992. I didn't think my interest in space exploration would last up to 1997. And now I'm a bigger space geek than ever...

The article below mentions three upcoming NASA missions (which will be flown on the venerable Delta 2 rocket) that would reach orbital altitudes that seem desirable for Lightsail-1...which The Planetary Society wants to send to an altitude of 800 km (500 miles):

http://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/n1207/16delta2/

OCO 2 (launch in 2014): 438-mile polar orbit

SMAP (launch in 2014): 423 miles above Earth

JPSS 1 (launch in 2016): 512 miles above Earth

Of course, I think TPS is planning to launch Lightsail-1 before the end of this year...so all of this may be a moot point

I voted for TiME... This mission just sounds and looks way too awesome. And this artwork sold it to me too: http://palebluespeck.wordpress.com/2011/06...forbidden-seas/

Where is Curiosity now? There's now a dedicated page on its mission website

http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/mission/whereistherovernow/

You can now view MSL's current position in space on JPL's Solar System Simulator

http://space.jpl.nasa.gov/

http://space.jpl.nasa.gov/

MSL's position should eventually be posted on this page

EDIT: And this page as well:

http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/mission/whereistherovernow/

MSL is now encapsulated by the Atlas V's payload fairing

The Mylar is now removed. The photo on the JPL page linked below shows the wheels nice and black just as the rover is about to be enclosed by the heat shield:

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2011-313

MSL launch prep page now up on the KSC Media Gallery:

http://mediaarchive.ksc.nasa.gov/search.cfm?cat=237

New Horizons' launch was delayed many times up to the last minute, due to cloudy weather on 1/19/06

If NASA collected names to fly on this mission a la Cassini and the Mars rovers, then I'd be excited. Of course, the microchip or CD bearing the names would probably be erased by the radiation not too long after Juno enters Jovian orbit. (I'm into space exploration for all the wrong reasons )

Possibly because it's only designed to last 33 months at Jupiter...as opposed to 7 years and counting for Cassini at Saturn

(That, and there are only so many interesting images the Junocam can take of Jupiter's poles)

Congrats to the Dawn team for a successful orbit insertion! Now looking forward to a color image of Vesta...