November 20th, 2019
Author: 
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover is now carrying out Sol 2591 tasks. Reports Fred Calef, a planetary geologist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Curiosity’s Central Butte campaign continues and the rover is traversing along an ever narrowing ledge. “To continue forward, we need to take a few steps back and make a U-turn around to a […]
Posted in 
Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have made one of the highest-performance cameras ever composed of sensors that count single photons, or particles of light. With more than 1,000 sensors — or pixels — NIST’s camera may be useful in future space-based telescopes searching for chemical signs of life on other […]
Pit Boss is an autonomous mission management system for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s (DARPA) Blackjack satellite constellation. DARPA’s Blackjack constellation is designed to operate in low Earth orbit. It will network sensors together with a goal to provide persistent global coverage for many applications, including missile warning. Raytheon is designing Pit Boss that […]
NASA’s Curiosity Mars Rover is now performing Sol 2589 tasks. Reports Roger Wiens, noted geochemist at Los Alamos National Laboratory: “After the ‘butte-iful’ location and view of sols 2585-2586, Curiosity descended back down from its perch on ‘Central butte’ and skirted its steep side,” Wiens explains. The robot now has another butte in view, “Western […]
See You In Orbit? – Our Dream Of Spaceflight by Alan Ladwig, To Orbit Productions, LLC, October 2019; paperback, 500 pages, $18.00. Public space travel is soon getting a boost from Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic and the efforts of the Jeff Bezos-backed Blue Origin. Plunking down cash to skyrocket into near-space heights and escape […]
Remarks by Vice President Pence to NASA’s Ames Research Center Employees and Guests | Moffett Field, CA Issued on: November 14, 2019 Go to: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-vice-president-pence-nasas-ames-research-center-employees-guests-moffett-field-ca/ During his visit to Ames, the vice president took a tour of the center that featured highlights of facilities and projects critical to the Artemis program. These included the Vertical […]
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover is now closing out Sol 2586 science duties. Reports Claire Newman, an atmospheric scientist at Aeolis Research, Curiosity is again at the “Hunda” facies, high up on Central Butte. “At this location, we’re finding a lot of decimeter-scale laminations – sequences of fine layers – near to and underneath the rover,” […]
SUBCOMMITTEE ON SPACE AND AERONAUTICS DATE: WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2019 TIME: 02:00 PM LOCATION: 2318 RAYBURN HOUSE OFFICE BUILDING OPENING STATEMENTS: Chair Kendra Horn (D-OK) of the Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics https://science.house.gov/imo/media/doc/11.13.19%20CHorn%20OS%20Sights%20on%20Mars%20.pdf Chairwoman Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX) https://science.house.gov/imo/media/doc/11.13.19%20CJohnson%20OS%20Sights%20on%20Mars%20.pdf — Lt. General Thomas P. Stafford, USAF (Ret.); Member, National Academy of Engineering; Chairman, NASA ISS […]
China’s Longjiang-2 spacecraft (also known as DSLWP-B) crashed onto the lunar farside on July 31, 2019 after completing its orbital mission. NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) has spotted the apparent impact site. The Longjiang-2 satellite was launched to the Moon along with the Queqiao relay communications satellite on May 20, 2018 by the China National […]
China has unveiled a simulated Mars landing facility, making use of a tower nearly 460 feet (140 meter) in height, a testing structure situated at Huailai County, Hebei Province, north China. The six pylon tower facility included a servo system and a Martian surface simulation area. The highly touted test is prelude to China launching […]
