Inner Solar System

Akatsuki science at Venus was the topic of a plenary talk by Takehiko Satoh at the Division for Planetary Sciences meeting two weeks ago. Kenneth Chang wrote a lengthy article about it for The New York Times. At the end, it mentions that Akatsuki can operate until at least April 2018, and possibly for as many as six more years, depending on the unknown amount of remaining fuel. For updates, check the mission's Twitter feed and website.

Earth's Neighborhood

This month, full Moon is on November 14, and new Moon is on November 29.

The longevity of the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter mission has paid off with a new result published in Nature last month. They have found more than 200 craters that formed on the moon during the mission so far. That's more than predicted, which, in turn, means that very young surfaces on the Moon may be even younger than thought. Meanwhile, they are planning to get the most out of the mission by allowing its orbit to drift and evolve, rather than using precious fuel for a stationkeeping burn. Over time, its orbit (currently slightly elliptical with a periapsis at about 30 kilometers and apoapsis about 150 kilometers) will tend to circularize. Be sure to check out their recently posted images.

I don't have an updates on ARTEMIS since August, or on Chang'e 3 since last month, and Yutu is now Schroedinger's rover, and I haven't had any information on the status of Chang'e 5 T1 for a long time.

OSIRIS-REx is now in its Outbound Cruise phase. Today it is 32 million kilometers from Earth. Last month, it successfully fired its trajectory correction maneuver thrusters for the first time, a brief 12-second burn. Ordinarily, such a burn would have been used to fine-tune its trajectory, but "the spacecraft's orbit had no practical need for correction." They could've used up to 11 kilograms of fuel for the maneuver, but needed only half a kilo -- a major savings that will give the mission more leeway for planning Bennu proximity operations. They'll be doing a much larger burn in December. Its next major event is an Earth flyby on September 23, 2017, 325 days from now. Keep up with the mission via Twitter.

Near-Earth Asteroids

Hayabusa2 is now 152 million kilometers from Earth and 52 million kilometers from Ryugu. It's on track for a July 2018 arrival at the asteroid. It takes a long time because it's using ion engine power to match its orbit with the asteroid's.

Mars

It's full summer for the Mars rovers now, with perihelion having just passed, on October 29, and summer solstice coming on November 28. Warmer nighttime temperatures mean less motor preheating and more active days for the rovers. But it could be a bad dust storm season this year, according to JPL, which would be bad news for solar-powered Opportunity, though some atmospheric scientists I've spoken with are actually hoping for dust storms, because they'd be fun to study from the ground and from orbit with both MAVEN and ExoMars TGO.

Mars Express Mars Webcam recent images and Mars Odyssey THEMIS image releases continue to include enjoyable views of the defrosting south polar ice cap, just about at solstice, like this one.