December 8th, 2020
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NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover is now performing Sol 2966 duties. The rover has hit the road again, heading towards the contact with a rubbly-looking geologic unit on the way up Mount Sharp, reports Melissa Rice, a planetary geologist at Western Washington University in Bellingham, Washington. The robot was scheduled to make a pit stop to […]
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China’s Chang’e-5 ascender vehicle has been purposely ditched on the Moon – the hardware used to transfer lunar samples to the orbiter/returner vehicles. The returner craft will fly back to Earth with its cargo of lunar specimens via an Earth-Moon transfer orbit shortly. After reentering the Earth’s atmosphere, the return capsule is slated to […]
China’s Chang’e-5 mission performed an aerial ballet above the Moon, an uncrewed rendezvous and docking of spacecraft and transfer of collected samples in lunar orbit. At 23:10 (Beijing Time) on December 3, the ascender of Chang’e-5 took off from the lunar surface with its cache of Moon samples. At 05:42 (Beijing Time) on December […]
There is big science via small satellites to help appreciate the lunar water cycle – how it forms, its abundance, and location related to geology. To help find the answers, high on the launch list is Lunar Trailblazer, a mission selected under NASA’s Small Innovative Missions for Planetary Exploration (SIMPLEx) program. Last month, it passed […]
The ascender of China’s Chang’e-5 lunar sample return mission successfully rendezvoused and docked with the orbiter-returner spacecraft segments in lunar orbit, the China National Space Administration (CNSA) announced Sunday. Samples collected from Oceanus Procellarum were transferred from the ascender to the returner. The orbiter-returner has now separated from the ascender, and is waiting for […]
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover is now performing Sol 2962 tasks. The rover is marching forward, reports Mark Salvatore, a planetary geologist at the University of Michigan. “Curiosity continues to make swift progress on her climb up Mt. Sharp. After ascending a relatively steep portion over the last few weeks, Curiosity is now on “’flatter’ ground […]
Here is the first look from NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance orbiter (LRO) of China’s recent Moon lander – Chang’e-5. Box indicates China’s Chang’e-5 lander on the basaltic plains of Oceanus Procellarum (“Ocean of Storms”) on December 2, 2020. The team supporting the LRO’s super-powerful LROC camera computed the coordinates of the lander to be […]
China’s Chang’e-5 lunar sample return capsule is preparing for transit back to Earth. The mission’s lander/ascender spent about 19 hours snagging samples from the Moon’s surface on Thursday and completed the country’s first-ever takeoff from an extraterrestrial body. Carrying its precious cargo of lunar collectibles, the ascender module of the Chang’e-5 lander spacecraft powered itself […]
Before China’s Chang’e-5 ascender blasted off into Moon orbit today, a five-star red flag was deployed on the Moon’s surface. According to China Central Television (CCTV) this is the first time that China has realized the “independent display” of the five-star red flag on the lunar landscape. The five-star red flag weighs only 1 […]
China’s Chang’e-5 ascender vehicle has blasted off from the Moon, successfully positioning its cargo of lunar samples for rendezvous, docking, and transfer to an awaiting orbiter/returner craft. China Central Television (CCTV) reports at 23:10 on December 3 (Beijing time), the 3000 newton-thrust engine of the Chang’e-5 ascender worked for about 6 minutes and successfully hurled […]
