August 4th, 2020
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NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover is now performing Sol 2842 tasks. The robot is carrying on with its drill campaign at the “Mary Anning” site, reports Rachel Kronyak, a planetary geologist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The meat of a recently scripted plan focuses on dropping off a powdered drill sample to the rover’s onboard Chemistry […]
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The China National Space Administration reports that its Tianwen-1 Mars probe carried out its first mid-course correction maneuver on Sunday morning. China Daily reports that the maneuver was completed over a 20-second period of time using the spacecraft’s 3000 Newton engine. During the probe’s seven-month spaceflight toward Mars, it will make several mid-course corrections […]
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover is now performing Sol 2839 tasks. New imagery from the robot shows the results of drilling into the target Mary Anning and a few views of the rover’s surroundings:
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover is now performing Sol 2838 tasks. “This past week, while Curiosity has been preparing to drill its next rock target, the Perseverance rover mission has been preparing to launch to Mars,” reports Melissa Rice, a planetary geologist at Western Washington University in Bellingham, Washington. Due to a minor issue with […]
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover is just now starting to perform Sol 2836 tasks. “A little inside joke among rover scientists, going back to previous rover missions, is the refrain ‘well, if we see a dinosaur bone, we’ll stick around,’” reports Fred Calef, a planetary geologist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. While, sadly, there is (checks […]
China Academy of Space Technology has built a testing ground to prepare for China’s first Mars mission. The ground was renovated from a site which was initially used to simulate the Moon’s surface for two Chinese lunar rovers. The testing ground comes complete with sand and stones to simulate various scenes on Mars […]
Now en route to Mars is China’s Tianwen-1 probe. Joining that long march to the Red Planet is the United Arab Emirates (UAE) Hope orbiter. Lastly, NASA’s Perseverance rover is ready for sendoff on July 30th. In readying this trio of spacecraft, engineers and test technicians endured the COVID-19 crisis. Indeed, the pandemic greatly […]
In this Arms Control and International Security (ACIS) paper, Christopher Ashley Ford, Assistant Secretary for International Security and Nonproliferation discusses his long-standing efforts to find effective forms of arms control in outer space. Future prospects The paper also offers the reasons such efforts have failed in the modern era, before exploring what prospects there yet […]
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover is now carrying out Sol 2832 tasks. Reports Michelle Minitti, a planetary geologist at Framework in Silver Spring, Maryland: “Our drive in the last plan successfully placed at what we hope is our next drill site, the large, lovely, layered block. (photo at left). It is always exciting to name a […]
The White House National Space Council has released a report on Deep Space Exploration and Development in consultation with the Council’s members and its Users’ Advisory Group. It describes the rationale and purpose for the Administration’s new direction in space. Whole of government approach “‘A New Era for Deep Space Exploration and Development’ […]
