August 3rd, 2023
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Kathy Sullivan, the first American woman to walk in space and a veteran of three shuttle missions, created the highly-informative Kathy Sullivan Explores podcast. Since June 2021, the podcasts have focused on science, art, space, and the most memorable moments of Sullivan’s life so far. Listen to her short “Farewell for Now” episode and also […]
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India’s ambitious Moon exploration spacecraft, the Chandrayaan-3, is now en route to its lunar target. The lander is to unleash a rover, both stuffed with scientific instruments to inspect the lunar surface in the southern lunar hemisphere. “Next stop: the Moon,” declared an Internet posting from the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO). All appears on […]
China’s Moon exploration plans call for deep diving into permanently shadowed areas of the lunar south pole. The country’s Chang’e-7 mission is slated to take place around 2026 and utilize a mini-flying probe to investigate the permanently-shadowed bottom of an impact crater. The Chang’e-7 mission consists of an orbiter, lander, the hopper and […]
The European Space Agency performed an assisted/semi-controlled descent of its retired Aeolus, a wind profiling spacecraft lofted into Earth orbit in 2018. Mission scientists and engineers took on the tricky task of targeting a remote stretch of the Atlantic Ocean for the plunge to Earth of Aeolus. A key aspect of assisted reentry is that […]
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover at Gale Crater is now performing Sol 3904 duties. Lucy Thompson, a planetary geologist at the University of New Brunswick; Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada, reports that rover engineers have navigated Curiosity through tricky terrain of fractured blocks and sand. “Our parking spot is on the rim of one of the larger […]
GOLDEN, Colorado – The pace is quickening for using Earth’s Moon as a near-term, go-to location to land, live and explore. NASA’s Artemis back-to-the-Moon agenda is jelling. So too are long-term plans by small and large firms, academia, along with international space agencies. That was in evidence at the twenty-third meeting of the Space Resources […]
That ill-fated dive of the Titan submersible and loss of its deep ocean exploring occupants has sparked conversation and debate in the world of public space travel. There are similarities, some of which offer lessons learned as commercial suborbital and orbital passenger flight flourishes. Please go to my new […]
The results from a just-released RAND analysis of UAP point to three recommendations for government officials. “First, we recommend that government authorities (e.g., local and state government officials, the FAA, and DoD) conduct outreach with civilians located near military operations areas (MOAs.) We hypothesize that many civilians may not be aware that they […]
Call it a “stone’s throw” type of spacecraft mission. Making its way back to Earth is NASA’s Origins Spectral Interpretation Resource Identification Security Regolith Explorer. Yes, that’s a mega-mouthful, but word manicured to OSIRIS-REx. Now it’s called by project members as just “O-REx” for the sake of speedier repartee. OSIRIS-REx is the first U.S. mission […]
They’re Here! How best to brace for “Full Disclosure.” The ongoing saga of UFOs/UAP, what are they and what impact on society? If you follow the complex and perplexing world of Unidentified Flying Objects, now tied to the term Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena, we may be inching toward “full disclosure.” What that means is uncorking the […]
