On the other side of Mars, Curiosity has finally descended the western side of the Naukluft plateau. The rover's current position is probably pretty close to the westernmost limit of its traverse. Now it will head south, keeping isolated dunes on the left side and the Murray buttes on the right side as it crosses the Bagnold dune field at a place where there are large gaps between the dunes. According to Ryan Anderson, there should be a new HiRISE image of Curiosity shortly.

Beyond Mars

Rosetta had a bit of a scare last weekend. It went into safe mode while only 5 kilometers from the comet. Contact was lost for almost 24 hours. A command in the blind recovered the spacecraft and all is fine now; they are bringing the science instruments back online. These safe modes happen when Rosetta's star trackers confuse comet dust for stars, an event that is more likely when the spacecraft is closer to the comet. What does that mean for the plans for bringing Rosetta very close to the comet near the end of the mission? The ESA report says that the star trackers will actually be taken "out of the loop" during the final descent, and possibly even during the final weeks of the mission. They also mention that the spacecraft will probably brought down "close to Philae's original planned landing site at Agilkia, most likely on 30 September." Meanwhile, Rosetta continues to yield new science results. The latest is a report of the first direct detection of a simple amino acid, glycine, in the comet's coma. As always, check here for the latest NavCam image releases and here for the OSIRIS image of the day.

Dawn recently completed its 1000th orbit of Ceres and continues in its low-altitude mapping orbit, 385 kilometers above the surface. This month, June 2016, will be the final month of Dawn's prime mission, but the spacecraft is expected to continue to operate in an extended mission for as long as its maneuvering fuel lasts. Marc Rayman reports that Dawn completed a six-week-long stereo mapping campaign May 25, and has now begun another one, looking in a different direction; the multiple views of terrain from different angles will allow the calculation of detailed digital elevation models of the asteroid. The infrared channel of its visible and infrared mapping spectrometer is losing the ability to cool itself -- an unsurprising symptom of age in an instrument that has operated far more than originally planned -- but other than that, the instruments are all operating well. Check the Photojournal for the latest images!

Juno is now just 34 days and about 22 million kilometers from Jupiter orbit insertion. As of May 27, it is feeling Jupiter's gravitational pull more strongly than that of the Sun. It's going to begin performing approach imaging with Junocam on June 12; I will be posting a very detailed article about JunoCam imaging plans next week. Beginning in November, you'll be able to vote on targets for future Junocam imaging. But already, you can visit the JunoCam website to discuss features visible in amateur astronomers' Jupiter images, and the JunoCam team really wants you to participate!

Cassini has just passed through periapsis of Rev 236, headed for its 121st flyby of Titan on June 7. Jason Perry's Looking Ahead article for Rev 236 provides details on Cassini's plans. One June 3, it will take photos of a nearly-full Dione from a distance of 950,000 kilometers, and then observe Rhea from somewhat closer. But icy moon observations aren't the point of its current inclined orbit. On June 6, Cassini will take advantage of the orbit inclination to perform a radio occultation of Saturn's main ring system. The Titan flyby will be at an altitude of 975 kilometers and will tip the orbit to an even higher angle, from 35.3 to 42.4 degrees. During its closest approach, Cassini will collect a radar swath across Titan's high southern latitudes -- the last radar swath Cassini will ever get of such southern terrain. On June 11, Cassini will gather color photos of the main ring system and Saturn "as a sort of parting shot for Cassini," Jason writes. Sniff. There are 469 days remaining in the mission. Rev 237 begins on June 17. As seen from here on Earth, Saturn will be at opposition on June 3, and since we're only a year away from northern summer solstice, the rings are wide open to view from Earth. Check the raw images page for the latest views from Cassini's cameras.

The biggest news from New Horizons this month is probably the release of a new set of U.S. postage stamps bearing images of the spacecraft and of Pluto. They also got some photos of another Kuiper belt object, 1994 JR1, discovering (among other things) that the little body has a very fast rotation rate, spinning once in 5.4 hours. Last month's LORRI data downlink has concentrated on the early departure phase, including lots of photos like this one of the diminishing "O" of Pluto's backlit atmosphere. Visit my LORRI data summary page and look for the yellow-highlighted images on the Encounter and DP1 pages to see all the new stuff. I am still waiting to see the first formal release of data from New Horizons to the Planetary Data System; I've been told that they delivered the data in April, but for whatever reason, the Planetary Data System has not released the data yet. First data releases are usually a little late due to various hiccups, but I'm going to be pretty irritated if the first Pluto data release is delayed beyond the first anniversary of the flyby on July 14. New Horizons blog entries last month included one by Henry Throop on being the behind-the-scenes photographer during the flyby, one by Jorge Nuñez on systems engineering the LORRI camera, and one by Veronica Bray on science with crater measurements. Check their science images gallery for the latest interpretation of New Horizons images!

Finally, the Voyagers are still going, going, going. Voyager 1 is at 135.1 AU from the Sun, and Voyager 2 is at 111.3 AU.