January 13th, 2021
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NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover is now performing Sol 3,000 tasks. Reports Lauren Edgar, Planetary Geologist at USGS Astrogeology Science Center in Flagstaff, Arizona: “Three thousand sols and never a dull moment!” A recent planning session orchestrated Sols 2999-3000, “and it was a real reminder of how complex and rewarding this mission can be,” Edgar adds. […]
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China’s lunar farside mission – the Chang’e-4 lander and Yutu-2 rover – have once again perked up from a 14-day nighttime slumber and have resumed work for the 26th lunar day of exploration. A lunar day is equal to roughly 14 days on Earth, and a lunar night is of the same length. The solar-powered […]
Lunar Outfitters – Making the Apollo Space Suit by Bill Ayrey; University of Florida Press; 422 pages; October 6, 2020; Hardcover; $35.00. This is a fascinating, behind-the-scenes look at suiting up and what was required to harness America’s technological cleverness in planting humans on the Moon via the Apollo program. The story is told by […]
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover is now performing Sol 2993 tasks. “Here on Earth, people often use the start of a new year as an opportunity to adopt new resolutions for themselves. In planetary exploration, we often talk about a different kind of resolution, namely the spatial resolution of the cameras carried by a spacecraft,” reports […]
It is a cosmic roll of the dice. There’s no doubt that a major asteroid or comet strike could cause extensive devastation and profoundly affect life on Earth. Thwarting an incoming object that has Earth in its crosshairs will mean deflecting or disrupting the hazardous object. That’s a task of planetary defense, an “applied […]
It is a record amount. A new estimate by Euroconsult has appraised the consolidated space economy, including both government space investments, as well as commercial space. The total: $385 billion in 2020. However, according to Euroconsult’s latest research product — The Space Economy Report 2020 — commercial revenues of $315 billion in 2020 were down […]
China’s Mars probe Tianwen-1 is expected to enter Mars orbit next month, according to the China National Space Administration (CNSA). Tianwen-1, which means quest for heavenly truth, was launched on July 23, 2020 kicking off the country’s independent planetary exploration mission. The probe has flown in space for over 163 days – a multi-part mission […]
China space station officials foresee a busy schedule in the first half of 2021 as preparations are underway for the launch of the station’s core module. That core module will be sent aloft by a Long March-5B Y2 rocket from the Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site in south China’s Hainan Province. Astronaut training In […]
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover is now performing Sol 2990 duties. Curiosity has reached the spectacularly scenic “Sands of Forvie” – a sand sheet is roughly 1,312 feet (400 meters) across and 3,280 feet (1 kilometer) wide. The robot has returned a number of New Year photos of its sandy surroundings.
On Thursday, December 31, 2020, the President signed into law: S 1694, the “One Small Step to Protect Human Heritage in Space Act,” which requires NASA to add recommendations and inform other relevant Federal agencies of information relating to the principle of due regard and the limitation of harmful interference with historic Apollo lunar […]
