July 13th, 2020
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I can see clearly now…there’s dust on Mars! Comparative images from NASA’s InSight Mars lander from Sol 10 to Sol 578 show that the spacecraft is quite dusty. Robotic arm-mounted, Instrument Deployment Camera (IDC) images taken on December 7, 2018, Sol 10 and recent July 12, 2020, Sol 578 photos reveal the coating of […]
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China’s space tracking ship Yuanwang-6 has set sail on multiple spacecraft monitoring missions. The Xinhua news agency reports that Yuanwang-6 will carry out missions in the Pacific Ocean, the Indian Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean – the first time for a Yuanwang ship to perform missions in the three oceans during a single voyage. The […]
Space is Open for Business – The Industry That Can Transform Humanity by Robert C. Jacobson; Self-published, Release Date: July 2020; Available by pre-order. The space industry is experiencing a renaissance, led by private companies who have pushed the boundaries and continue innovating at a rapid pace, explains space investor and entrepreneur, Robert C. Jacobson. […]
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover is now carrying out Sol 2819 tasks. Last Wednesday, Curiosity successfully drove a whopping 336 feet (102.5 meters) over 159 minutes, reports Abigail Fraeman, a planetary geologist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “This isn’t the longest drive Curiosity’s ever completed (the record is 142.5 meters on sol 665), but it […]
Advanced digital technologies, such as AR (augmented reality) VR (virtual reality), are being used in spacecraft design, development and manufacturing at the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC), Beijing, China. For example, about 90 percent of the cables on China’s new crewed spacecraft prototype were put in with the help of AR technology. “In […]
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover is now performing Sol 2817 duties. “Curiosity is going downhill,” reports Roger Wiens, a geochemist at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. “Not in the figurative sense—Curiosity’s 10 instruments all still work well, its six wheels are all doing well, and the drill has been working great for […]
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover has just begun performing Sol 2816 functions. The rover has taken a turn…to the north, reports Lucy Thompson, a planetary geologist at the University of New Brunswick; Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada. “We returned to nominal planning…after successfully upgrading Curiosity’s flight software,” Thompson explains. Recent drive A just completed drive should take […]
The Emirates Mars Mission, the first interplanetary exploration undertaken by an Arab nation, today confirmed the launch of its Mars Hope Probe in 7 days – on July 15, 2020 at 5:51 a.m. (JST)/July 14, 2020 at 4:51 a.m. (EST) from Tanegashima Space Center in Kagoshima Prefecture, southwestern Japan, on a Mitsubishi MH-IIA rocket. […]
The European Space Agency’s Advanced Concepts Team (ACT) has a new issue of Acta Futura in the works, the latest dedicated to research on interstellar exploration. “We hoped to create a snapshot as of 2020 of established results, visions, concepts, designs and technologies related to such a wonderful, albeit far-fetched endeavor. We hope, in doing […]
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover is now conducting Sol 2810 activities. No holidays on Mars! To give the (American) Earthlings a holiday on Friday, Mars researchers have planned 5 sols of activities for Curiosity, reports Scott Guzewich, an atmospheric scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Mix of activities “But our rover will […]
