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July 3rd, 2023
Depiction of Shenzhou-16 spacecraft approaching docking port.
Image credit: CCTV/Inside Outer Space screengrab
China intends to alter the country’s space station complex, adopting other new configurations in coming months.
The China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) has noted that currently the configuration of the orbiting Tiangong space station consists of the Tianhe core module, the lab modules Wentian and Mengtian, the Shenzhou-16 spacecraft, and cargo spacecraft of Tianzhou-5 and Tianzhou-6.
Image credit: CCTV/Inside Outer Space screengrab
In the next few months, the CMSA said, there will be some changes in the configuration of the space station. However, no further details have been disclosed.
Back in late February, in a China Central Television (CCTV) interview, Yang Hong, chief designer of the space station system, said China’s space station will have over 50 different configurations in the future, enabling it to accommodate more spaceships.
New Shenzhou-16 crew onboard with Shenzhou-15 astronauts during handover ceremonies.
Image credit: CCTV/CNSA/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Current status
On June 6, the Tianzhou-5 cargo spacecraft, which separated from the space station on May 5, completed its second rendezvous and docking with the space station after 33 days of independent flight in orbit.
According to CCTV, the return of the Tianzhou-5 cargo spacecraft is intended to provide additional space for the storage of waste generated by the Shenzhou-16 crew in orbit.
Image credit: CGTN/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Tianzhou-5 will depart China’s space station once again prior to the arrival of the Shenzhou-17 crewed spacecraft. The cargo ship will then be targeted for a destructive re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere.
Presently onboard the orbiting outpost, the Shenzhou-16 crew consists of Jing Haipeng, Zhu Yangzhu and Gui Haichao, China’s first civilian astronaut. Gui is a university professor who specializes in spacecraft dynamics and control technology for aerospace systems.
This trio was sent to the space station on May 30, 2023 to carry out a five-month mission aboard the facility.
Go to this informative video at:
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Artwork of Ingenuity Mars helicopter.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
NASA’s Ingenuity Mars helicopter has captured navigation camera images during the rotorcraft’s 52nd flight on April 26.
Images were taken by its navigation camera, mounted in the helicopter’s fuselage and pointed directly downward to track the ground during flight.
“Sixty-three days is a long time to wait for the results of a flight,” reports JPL’s copter central, “but the data coming in indicates all is well with the first aircraft on another world. If the remainder of Ingenuity’s health checks are equally rosy, the helicopter may fly again within the next couple of weeks.”
Targeted for Flight 53 is an interim airfield to the west, the JPL posting adds, “from which the team plans to perform another westward flight to a new base of operations near a rocky outcrop the Perseverance team is interested in exploring.”
Re-established contact
The flight took place back on April 26, but mission controllers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California lost contact with the helicopter as it descended toward the surface for landing.
Contact was re-established June 28 when the NASA Perseverance rover crested the hill and could see Ingenuity again.
The goal of Flight 52, a 1,191-foot (363-meter) and 139-second-long flight, was to reposition the helicopter and take images of the Martian surface for the rover’s science team.
This select set of images were acquired on April 27, 2023.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Photo from earlier sky skim by Mars helicopter, from flight 51.
After a prolonged hiatus, NASA’s Mars helicopter has made its 52nd flight.
The craft flew on April 26, but mission controllers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory lost contact with Ingenuity as it descended for a landing.
“The Ingenuity team expected the communications dropout because a hill stood between the helicopter’s landing location and the Perseverance rover’s position, blocking communication between the two. The rover acts as a radio relay between the helicopter and mission controllers at JPL,” according to a JPL statement.
Artwork of Ingenuity Mars helicopter.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
The Ingenuity team had already developed re-contact plans for when the rover would drive back within range. That led to re-establishing contact on June 28 when NASA’s Perseverance rover crested the hill and was in communication line-up with Ingenuity again.
Flight 52 was a 1,191-foot (363-meter) and 139-second-long flight, taken to reposition the helicopter and snag images of the Martian surface for the rover’s science team.
Active gullies and gully stratigraphy on Mars. Image credit: University of Arizona’s High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE)/Dickson, et al.
A new study spotlights how gullies on the slopes of craters on Mars could have formed by on-and-off periods of meltwater from ice on and beneath the planet’s surface.
The results from the new study suggest that gully formation was driven by periods of melting ice and by carbon dioxide (CO2) frost evaporation in other parts of the year.
Additionally, the researchers report that this has likely occurred repeatedly over the past several million years on Mars with the most recent occurrence about 630,000 years ago.
Turn up the volume
“Our study shows that the global distribution of gullies is better explained by liquid water over the last million years,” said Jay Dickson, the study’s lead author and a former researcher at Brown University and now at California Institute of Technology.
Uppermost vertical extent of gullies on Mars.
Image credit: Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Context Camera (CTX) global panchromatic mosaic overlain by MOLA topography of the Thaumasia highlands/
Dickson, et al.
“Water explains the elevation distribution of gullies in ways that CO2 cannot,” Dickson noted in a Brown University press statement. “This means that Mars has been able to create liquid water in enough volume to erode channels within the last million years, which is very recent on the scale of Mars geologic history.”
Bridge between warm and wet
The paper, published in Science magazine, raises anew the fundamental question of whether life could exist on Mars.
This is because life, as it’s known on Earth, goes hand in hand with the presence of liquid water. Mars will eventually tilt to 35 degrees again, the researchers said.
“Could there be a bridge, if you will, between the early warm and wet Mars and the Mars that we see today in terms of liquid water?” said James Head, a professor of geological sciences at Brown and a study co-author.
Life on ice
“Everybody’s always looking for environments that could be conducive to not just the formation of life but the preservation and continuation of it,” Head noted in the Brown University statement.
Image credit: NASA
“Any microorganism that might have evolved in early Mars is going to be in places where they can be comfortable in ice and then also comfortable or prosperous in liquid water. In the frigid Antarctic environment, for example, the few organisms that exist often occur in stasis, waiting for water,” Head added.
This research underscores the importance of these gullies in terms of potential targets to visit by robotic or human means during future exploration missions on Mars.
Go to – “Gullies on Mars could have formed by melting of water ice during periods of high obliquity” — at:
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abk2464
Also go to this video, A time-lapse of gullies forming in the Upper Wright Valley of the Antarctic Dry Valleys. Video courtesy of Jim Head, Brown University at:
What equipment can work well while withstanding the tough lunar environment? Shown here is technology that has potential for fabricating structures on the Moon utilizing local materials for construction purposes.
Image credit: Contour Crafting and University of Southern California
While the Artemis return to the Moon effort is indeed one giant leap for the United States to regain a foothold there, much work is ahead to sustain living and work-a-day activities within the harsh and stark lunar environment.
A next step for getting hardware to run in tip-top shape on the Moon is establishing a pilot program to assess what technologies work best once down and dirty on the lunar terrain.
Leslie Gertsch, a space mining expert, sees the Moon as a resource-rich world.
Image credit: Barbara David
NASA is pressing forward on creating public private partnerships for companies – large and small – to ace out hardware bugs, not only here on Earth, but also in real-time on the Moon.
NASA senior technologist Rob Mueller talks with Apollo 11 moonwalker Buzz Aldrin about the Regolith Advanced Surface Systems Operations Robot (RASSOR) that was developed at the Kennedy Space Center Swamp Works.
Image credit: NASA/John Smegelsky
Work is underway to identify technology gaps that could be bridged by innovative companies with fresh ideas.
For detailed information, go to my new Multimedia SpaceRef story — “Wanted: Lunar Proving Grounds – Testing Technologies for the Moon” – at:
Curiosity’s location as of Sol 3871. Distance driven to date: 18.78 miles/30.22 kilometers.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover at Gale crater is now performing Sol 3873 duties.
A recent drive by the robot was successful, reports Alex Innanen, Atmospheric Scientist at York University; Toronto, Ontario, Canada. “This put us in a perfect position for our split touch-and-go plan – lots to see, and no need to worry that we might be on unsteady footing, like we were on Friday.”
Curiosity Left B Navigation Camera image taken on Sol 3872, June 28, 2023.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Nearby targets
Two nearby targets are bedrock blocks: the nodular bedrock ‘Lousoi,’ which researchers will be investigating up close (the ‘touching’ in the touch-and-go) with the Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS) and the rover’s Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI), as well as the Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS) target, ‘Valvousi,’ which is on the face of another block.
Curiosity Left B Navigation Camera image taken on Sol 3872, June 28, 2023.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
“Adjacent to Valvousi is a small trench, which Mastcam will take a look at. Mastcam and ChemCam will also be looking further afield,” Innanen notes. “Mastcam is taking a mosaic of the ridge to our south, and ChemCam is looking behind us towards the Gediz Vallis Ridge. After we finish up, we’re taking a late afternoon drive southeast along our alternate route.”
Curiosity Left B Navigation Camera image taken on Sol 3872, June 28, 2023.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Planned nap
After this busy sol, Sol 3871, Curiosity was slated to spend most of the second sol of the plan (Sol 3872) napping, but will wake up for a few observations around noon.
Curiosity Right B Navigation Camera photo acquired on Sol 3872, June 28, 2023.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
ChemCam will use AEGIS to autonomously look for a post-drive target. AEGIS stands for Autonomous Exploration for Gathering Increased Science) – a software suite that permits the rover to autonomously detect and prioritize targets.
Curiosity Left B Navigation Camera image taken on Sol 3871, June 27, 2023.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Mars scientists on the environment team also has normal atmospheric monitoring activities, including a suprahorizon cloud movie, a tau observation to monitor dust, and a 360 degree dust devil survey, Innanen concludes.
Curiosity Left B Navigation Camera image taken on Sol 3871, June 27, 2023.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Curiosity Left B Navigation Camera image taken on Sol 3871, June 27, 2023.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Image credit: NASA
There is a growing business in selling fake Moon dirt. It is labeled as “simulant,” customized concoctions of lunar topside that are celestial stand-ins for different areas on the Moon.
The airless body is pounded by solar wind, radiation and micrometeorites. The Moon is blanketed by grayish, sharp-edged particles and rocky debris termed the lunar regolith. At one-sixth the gravity of Earth, that world is a Disneyland of dust that can stick to space suits, gum up equipment and jam mechanical components.
Lunar simulant is used to test a rover at Michigan Tech’s Planetary Surface Technology Development Lab.
Image credit: Michigan Technological University
The knowhow to wrestle with the woes of operating on the Moon took center stage at the 23rd meeting of the Space Resources Roundtable, held in Golden, Colorado on June 6 through 9 at the Colorado School of Mines.
For more information, go to my new Multiverse Media SpaceRef story “Mimicking the Moon – Here’s the (Simulant) Dirt” – at:
https://spaceref.com/science-and-exploration/mimicking-the-moon-heres-the-simulant-dirt/
MOXIE unit being installed into the Perseverance rover at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
GOLDEN, Colorado – Breathe easy. There’s good news from Mars. The first experiment to suck in the planet’s thin, carbon dioxide-laden air has achieved a major milestone in transforming that native resource into oxygen.
The toaster-sized device, if built to a larger scale, can be used not just for astronaut expeditions to Mars for breathing, but also for rocket fuel.
Artist’s illustration of NASA’s Perseverance rover on Mars.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Tucked inside NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover, the hardware is tagged MOXIE for Mars Oxygen In Situ Resource Utilization Experiment.
Master MOXIE technologist, MIT’s Michael Hecht.
Image credit: Barbara David
Researchers recently pushed MOXIE to a maximum production level – a factor of two higher than reached earlier.
For details on this milestone on Mars, go to my new Space.com story – “Mars rover Perseverance sets new record for making oxygen on Red Planet” – at:
https://www.space.com/mars-perseverance-rover-oxygen-experiment-moxie-record
Image credit: Virgin Galactic
Virgin Galactic is GO for launch.
Departing Spaceport America in New Mexico, the target data for the Galactic 01 scientific research mission is June 29.
Image credit: Virgin Galactic
The three-person crew from the Italian Air Force and National Research Council of Italy will be onboard VSS Unity for a 90-minute suborbital flight, carrying out a series of in-cabin science experiments.
An astronaut instructor will also be onboard to assess the research flight experience during the mission.
Piloting the VSS Unity: Mike Masucci (Commander) and Nicola Pecile (Pilot).
Flying the drop plane, VMS Eve: Kelly Latimer (Commander) and Jameel Janjua (Pilot).
Tune in on June 29 at 11:00 am EDT for the livestreamed launch at:
Image credit: Mars Guy
Five days without downlink from Mars – What’s going on?
Video commentator, Mars Guy, notes that NASA’s Perseverance rover rolling about at Jezero Crater sends back a daily stream of images from its many cameras.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Mars Guy
Those images are quickly posted to a NASA public website.
But on June 16th, the stream dried up, fueling concerns with each passing day.
For a detailed video, go to:
