September 25th, 2020
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A high-tech pioneer for NASA’s Gateway — the deep space outpost that’s part of the Artemis return-to-the-moon agenda — is being readied for departure early next year. NASA’s Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment – mercifully called CAPSTONE in space agency shorthand — is destined to be the first spacecraft to function […]
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The absence of surface water doesn’t preclude the potential for life elsewhere on a rocky object, like deep in the subsurface biosphere – be it at Mars or Earth’s Moon. New research analyzes the “thickness” of subsurface regions on those worlds, places where water and life might exist in principle and whether the […]
China’s Chang’e-4 lander and the well-wheeled rover have been switched to dormant mode within the Von Kármán crater in the South Pole-Aitken Basin on the farside of the Moon. The farside mission landed on January 3, 2019. According to the Lunar Exploration and Space Program Center of the China National Space Administration the […]
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover is presently performing Sol 2892 tasks. Susanne Schwenzer, a planetary geologist at The Open University; Milton Keynes, U.K., reports that Mars researchers are continuing to finish recent drilling activities. They are taking a look at the instrument inlets on top of the rover deck to make sure no sample is […]
New space missions to hellish Venus have repeatedly gotten the cold shoulder over the years, but exploring that cloud-veiled globe now appears to be receiving a renewed lease on life, quite literally. An international team of researchers, led by Jane Greaves of Cardiff University, announced September 14 the detection of a rare molecule – phosphine […]
Amazon.com entrepreneur and space visionary, Jeff Bezos, is on the lookout for those interested in orbital habitats. According to a Blue Origin’s posting, the private space firm wants to develop the company’s vision of millions of people living and working in space. To do so, humanity will require places for them to live and work: […]
A newly issued report examines China’s perceptions of its space program and the U.S. space program. It concludes that the United States and China are in a long-term competition in space. “Although advancing rapidly, China’s space program is viewed by Chinese officials and analysts as trailing the U.S. space program. Nevertheless, China’s space industry plans […]
A new memorandum of understanding (MOU) announced today by U.S. Space Force (USSF) Chief of Space Operations Gen. John “Jay” Raymond and NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine spells out new relationships between the organizations. One area is in the deep space survey and tracking arena, using technologies to support extended Space Domain Awareness (SDA) and near […]
The U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) is working on efforts to demonstrate how energy can be transmitted without wires, also known as power beaming. One of NRL’s power beaming experiments is now aboard the U.S. military’s X-37 space plane. LEctenna is a light-emitting rectifying antenna that converts a wireless network signal, similar to home networks, […]
En route to the Red Planet, China’s Mars probe Tianwen-1 has successfully carried out its second orbital correction on Sunday, using four of its 120N engines working for 20 seconds. Tianwen-1, which means “Questions to Heaven,” has traveled about 60 days in orbit since liftoff on July 23. All of the probe’s systems continue to […]
