December 14th, 2021
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“Newer, nimbler, faster.” That’s the call stemming from a newly issued report led by MIT scientists that details a suite of privately-funded missions to hunt for life on Venus. The Venus Life Finder (VLF) Missions are a series of three direct Venus atmosphere probes designed to assess the habitability of the Venusian clouds and […]
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NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover at Gale Crater is now performing Sol 3326 duties. “As we continue exploring Maria Gordon notch, we are planning a touch and go with lots of remote sensing activities between the ‘touch’ and the ‘go,’” reports Kenneth Herkenhoff, a planetary geologist at the USGS Astrogeology Science Center in Flagstaff, Arizona. […]
Once Europe’s ExoMars rover, Rosalind Franklin, lands on Mars in June 2023 the machine will utilize a unique wheel walking locomotion mode. Similar to leg movements, the robot’s wheel-walking combines motions of the deployment actuators (the legs) with the rotation of the wheels to progress without slippage. This motion is designed to provide the […]
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover at Gale Crater is now performing Sol 3324 duties. Abigail Fraeman, a planetary geologist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory reports that the robot recently parked just a few meters away from the towering western wall of Maria Gordon notch. “While this location gives us spectacular views of the layering, veins, […]
How can we determine the meaning of a message from a distant civilization if we don’t have a common language? That’s the topic tackled in a new research paper – “How to decode interstellar messages” – appearing in the journal, Acta Astronautica. Highlights of the paper include: Five electromagnetic properties can […]
Blue Origin conducted its third human spaceflight on Saturday, December 11, the first with six astronauts on board. The astronaut manifest included, Laura Shepard Churchley, Michael Strahan, Evan Dick, Dylan Taylor, Cameron Bess, and Lane Bess. For replay of flight, go to: https://www.blueorigin.com/ “We had a great flight today. This was our sixth flight in […]
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is ending its Commercial Space Astronaut Wings Program and will recognize individuals reaching space on its website. The FAA issued the following news today: With the advent of the commercial space tourism era, starting in 2022, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) will now recognize individuals who reach […]
Due to a forecast of strong winds, the Blue Origin New Shepard suborbital launch team has made the call to delay the launch of NS-19 to Saturday, December 11. Liftoff from Launch Site One near Van Horn in West Texas is targeted for 8:45am CST/14:45 UTC. “The team has completed Flight Readiness Review and confirmed […]
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover at Gale Crater is now performing Sol 3321 duties. The rover is taking in the visually stunning Maria Gordon notch, reports Scott Guzewich, an atmospheric scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. A plan for Sols 3321-3322 involves Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) activities with a Laser Induced […]
More news on that “mystery” object spotted on the Moon by China’s Yutu-2 lunar rover. The object, shaped like a hut, was spotted in November, two years after the rover was dispatched onto the Moon’s landscape. Photos of the feature have spurred a variety of comments. It was seen over 260-feet (80-meters) away from […]
