Imagine building a new car for every trip you take - that's how space probes work these days. Reusability is the next logical step in their evolution.

NASA's seven Tracking and Data Relay Satellites allow near-constant communication with the International Space Station, the Hubble Space Telescope, and many other spacecraft.

With stations in the USA, Spain, and Australia, NASA's Deep Space Network enables constant communication with deep space probes - no matter where they may roam.

What should the first thing aliens learn from us be? The Breakthrough Message initiative gives each of us an opportunity to come up with this essential message.

Astronauts in orbit don't have time to get bored - but with rigorous training, even extraordinary repairs can become routine.

Long years of research, preparation, testing, and engineering work boil down to a few key moments that we on Earth can follow right as they are happening.

You can conduct two missions to different targets within one project. You just have to reuse your probe blueprints.

It's hard to imagine, but thanks to quantum memories, the entire history of humanity could one day be stored on a device the size of a watch.

The far side of the Moon, a quiet place, isolated from Earth's radio traffic. The perfect location to monitor signals from space using a giant telescope.

You don't have to be interested in space, its exploration, or rocket science to know this name. Yuri Gagarin.

[待补充，看不清] its original mission is complete, a space probe may be tasked with a new objective. Some probes continue working long past their expected lifespan.

A journey to another planet can take years, and a probe often has only hours to explore it. So it makes sense to visit more than one planet during the journey.

This Hawaii-based telescope is used to observe interstellar gas. It is the largest single-dish microwave radio telescope in the world.

For decades, it was believed that a rocket's first flight was also its last. These days, some rockets have flown more than twenty times.

Nothing is so perfect that it can't be improved. Iterative engineering focuses on improving already working systems.

Do you want to experience the high G's of a rocket launch? Weightlessness? Or maybe use a space toilet? You don't even need to become an astronaut.

Popularizing science costs money. But if paid promotion can attract more interested people, it's money well spent.

Many space research projects span multiple areas of focus, so it is sometimes necessary to hire a team of people who understand the issue better than you do.

Planets outside the Solar System are hard to find. They are easiest to observe when they transit their parent star. These observations are the task of the TESS satellite.

Meticulous planning, a great team of people, a worthy goal and perfect execution. Sometimes, things just come together nicely.

Launching a space craft from Earth is so energy-intensive that it doesn't have much fuel left for its actual journey. The [待补充，看不清] refuel directly in orbit.

The metallic asteroid Psyche could be the future embryo of a planet. A probe of the same name is expected to find out more when it visits the asteroid in 2029.

While not a perfect simulation, immersing an astronaut in a precisely weighted suit in a pool of water is a useful method of preparing them for work in zero gravity.

A space elevator is a long-standing dream of enthusiasts and visionaries alike. Building one is a colossal challenge - but [待补充，看不清] the realm of possibility.

The goal of LIGO is to detect gravitational waves. This is almost like astronomical archaeology, allowing us to see way back to the Big Bang.

"I know that you and Frank were planning to disconnect me. And I'm afraid that's something I cannot allow to happen." -HAL 9000-

Since 1970, the efficiency of solar panels has increased from about 5% to 26%. This makes it possible to carry out increasingly demanding scientific experiments.

When an organization's structure becomes too large and inflexible, a radical change may be needed in order to continue making progress.

Each space mission is a colossal investment. Even so, they are sometimes canceled, but the experience gained from them is used in other projects.

Despite reaching Venus five years later than was planned, this Japanese probe managed to complete its mission of studying the planet's atmosphere anyway.

It was designed to work on Mars for 30 days - instead, it worked for 2 years. It was supposed to only fly 5 times - it flew 72 times. That was the helicopter ingenuity.

One of the requirements for working with NASA is fluent use of acronyms. We didn't even put the full one in this card title.

Rocket launches may be delayed for various reasons. In 2014, an ISS resupply mission was delayed by a sailboat crossing the planned flight path.

Getting an investment from the private sector can mean the difference between completion and failure for some scientific projects.

When this was written, the NASA Exoplanet Archive contained 5905 confirmed exoplanets. With weekly updates, that number is almost definitely different today.

Otherwise known as the Ohio State University Radio Observatory, this telescope was used in the longest-running full-scale SETI project (1973-1995).

This small satellite, which will hopefully already be in orbit when you read this, will study the atmospheres of exoplanets using both visible and infrared light.

In 1965, Gemini 6 completed the first successful space rendezvous by coming within 30 cm of its sister craft Gemini 7.

Capitalizing on a specific alignment of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune that only occurs once per 175 years, this project could have used one probe to visit them all.

First used in the 1970s, Hall-effect thrusters are a highly efficient form of electric propulsion, accelerating ionized gas using an electromagnetic field to create thrust.

Since exoplanets are so far away, getting images of them is extremely difficult. Most exoplanets have only been detected through indirect methods.

Science has no borders - a saying nicely demonstrated by the Low-Frequency Array, with thousands of antennas spread over eight European countries.