June 24th, 2019
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A chocolate chip cookie is slated to become the first food baked in space inside a prototype oven designed to make long-duration space travel more hospitable. DoubleTree by Hilton is partnering with Zero G Kitchen and NanoRacks to bring its signature warm welcome to the International Space Station (ISS) as a scientific experiment. Oven fresh […]
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Scientists and engineers are moving forward with a new plan for getting NASA InSight’s heat probe, also known as the “mole,” digging again on Mars. Part of an instrument called the Heat Flow and Physical Properties Package (HP3), the mole is a self-hammering spike designed to dig as much as 16 feet (5 meters) below […]
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover is now performing Sol 2445 duties. An evolving story is that the Mars machinery has once again detected whiffs of methane – perhaps tied to microbes presently resident on the Red Planet. “Mars, it appears, is belching a large amount of a gas that could be a sign of […]
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover is now performing Sol 2444 science duties. Abigail Fraeman, a planetary geologist at NASA/JPL in Pasadena, California reports: “Curiosity is still parked at a tilt of a little over 23˚ to examine the outcrop on top of ‘Teal Ridge.’” The rover’s science team has begun to pore over all […]
SpinLaunch has been awarded a responsive launch prototype contract from the Department of Defense, facilitated by the Defense Innovation Unit. Work is moving forward on the SpinLaunch concept: developing a kinetic energy-based launch system that will provide a low-cost orbital launch services for the rapidly growing small satellite industry. Tapping existing technology According to […]
The United States Government Accountability Office (GAO) has released a report: “Schedule Uncertainty Persists for Start of Operational Missions to the International Space Station.” In 2014, NASA awarded two firm-fixed-price contracts to Boeing and SpaceX, worth a combined total of up to $6.8 billion, to develop crew transportation systems and conduct initial missions to […]
For those Mars terraforming advocates, you’ll find an interesting read from the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School in Cambridge, Massachusetts. A Belfer Center study group has looked at solar geoengineering – not for the Red Planet but for the Blue Marble – Earth. The factsheet comes […]
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover is now carrying out Sol 2442 duties, parked on Teal Ridge, in the midst of an extended contact science campaign. At this ridge location, new imagery from the robot shows crossbedding in a bedrock layer, as well as a contact between the bedrock outcrop and a rubbly layer below. […]
The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued today a report that flags the finding: “Due to continued production and testing challenges, NASA’s three related human spaceflight programs have encountered additional launch delays and cost growth.” Trio of systems NASA is developing a trio of systems to put astronauts into space: the Orion crew vehicle, […]
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover is now performing Sol 2440 science tasks. “The outcrop in front of us is spectacular,” reports Dawn Sumner, a planetary geologist at the University of California Davis; Davis, California. Curiosity’s science team has planned regular weather observations, a survey of the sky at twilight, a movie looking for dust devils and […]
