August 16th, 2023
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NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover at Gale Crater is now performing Sol 3920 tasks. “Curiosity is behaving much as you would as you climb a mountain. You pause occasionally to look around at what lies beneath your boots – the reward for your hard work up to that point,” reports Michelle Minitti, a planetary geologist at […]
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Russia’s Moon lander, the Luna-25, has entered lunar orbit. Thanks to the spacecraft’s corrective braking engine, one propulsive burn lasted 243 seconds, the second nudge, by soft landing engines, lasted 76 seconds. The craft is now in Moon orbit, nearing the time for its attempted landing on the lunar surface. Functioning normally Roscosmos reports that […]
While “X” may mark the spot – on Mars consider hexagonal features that indicate an environment conducive to the appearance of life. Researchers making use of the NASA Curiosity Mars rover at Gale Crater have discovered deposits of salts forming a hexagonal pattern in sedimentary layers dated to 3.8 to 3.6 billion years ago. […]
En route to a rendezvous with the Moon, Russia’s Luna-25 has sent back first images from space. Using the STS-L onboard television camera, images show the structural elements of Luna-25 against the background of the Earth and against the background of the Moon. Another image shows the mission emblem and the onboard manipulator bucket. So […]
Following its August 10 liftoff, Russia’s Moon-bound Luna-25 has switched on its scientific equipment. All systems on the spacecraft are working normally, reports Roscosmos, the Russian space corporation. “Communication with it is stable, the energy balance is positive. Today, the first switching on of the complex of scientific equipment developed by IKI RAS,” [Space […]
The U.S. State Department is pressing forward on the concept of an “International Lunar Year” – coordinating programs around a one-to-two-year celebration of the study and exploration of the Moon later in the decade. Such a celebration was put forth in a White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) Cislunar Science & Technology […]
Russia has reignited its Moon exploration program with the launch today of Luna-25 from the Vostochny Cosmodrome in Russia’s Far Eastern Amur Region. Roscosmos has announced that the automatic station was put on the flight path to the Moon and separated from the upper stage Fregat. Luna-25 is now scheduled to nudge itself into lunar […]
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover at Gale Crater is now performing Sol 3913 duties. This past weekend, Curiosity officially completed its 11th (Earth) year on Mars, landing on the Red Planet the evening of Aug. 5 PDT (morning of Aug. 6 EDT) 2012. “Curiosity has been busy conducting science activities as the milestone came and went. […]
Work continues on readying the SpaceX Starship for another attempt to peg an orbital test flight. Back in April, the first attempt ended minutes after launch, with the huge vehicle tumbling out of control. How soon the booster can take to the air is, well, up in the air, according to the Federal Aviation […]
Japan’s Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) is set for liftoff on August 26, co-riding with the country’s X-Ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission (XRISM). An H-IIA launch vehicle carrying the payloads will depart the Yoshinobu Launch Complex at the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s (JAXA) Tanegashima Space Center. Pinpoint landing The SLIM project aims to […]
