February 6th, 2020
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NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover is now performing Sol 2667 duties. “After seeing our initial contact science results and our successful pre-load test, the plan is to continue preparing to drill and get a sample from the Hutton target,” reports Ashley Stroupe, Mission Operations Engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory Curiosity is continuing to do more […]
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China’s Long March-5B — a modified version of the Long March-5 rocket – has arrived at its launch site in southern China’s Hainan Province. The rocket’s components were carried by two rocket transportation ships – Yuanwang 21and Yuanwang 22– from Tianjin, a northern coastal municipality and home to the launch vehicle’s manufacturing complexes. Those rocket […]
As a batch of OneWeb satellites is set for liftoff Thursday, an international appeal/petition from astronomers is calling for a moratorium on satellite constellations. A Soyuz-2.1b with Fregat-M booster, topped by 34 OneWeb satellites is scheduled to take off February 6 from Kazakhstan, kicking off a sequence of up to 20 launches from three countries […]
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover is now performing Sol 2666 duties. Mars scientists are scoping out new assignments for the rover, notes Claire Newman, an atmospheric scientist at Aeolis Research in Pasadena, California. There were three options at the start of planning: (1) Stay put and prepare to drill; (2) Do a “bump” to get […]
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover is now performing Sol 2665 tasks. “It’s not the ground that is tilted, we are!” That’s the report from Abigail Fraeman, a planetary geologist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Curiosity is near the contact between the clay-bearing “Glen Torridon” unit and the “Greenheugh” pediment, and the rover is parked at a […]
After landing on the Moon’s farside on January 3, 2019, China’s lunar rover Yutu-2 (Jade Rabbit-2) has now driven 1,204 feet (367.25 meters). Both the Chang’e-4 lander and the rover ended their work for the 14th lunar day on Saturday (Beijing Time), and switched to dormant mode for the lunar night, according to the […]
As many of the readers of this website know…I do inspect quite a number of Curiosity Mars rover images daily. I was intrigued by a recent new image…and I asked Pascal Lee, a planetary scientist of the Mars Institute and SETI Institute to help me identify what I’m observing. Here’s his reaction: “The feature at […]
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover is now performing Sol 2663 tasks. Recent images include close-up photos of the robot’s surroundings, use of its Dust Removal Tool, and other scenic shots.
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover is now performing Sol 2661 duties. Curiosity’s recent drive successfully moved uphill and closer to the “Greenheugh” pediment, reports Michelle Minitti, a planetary geologist at Framework in Silver Spring, Maryland. “The rocks around us were a riot of shapes, colors and textures, making it difficult to limit ourselves to which ones […]
Southern Launch is an Adelaide-based space company and is moving ahead to develop the world’s largest privately operated rocket test range near Koonibba, in the far west of South Australia. Australia’s Koonibba Test Range will extend out over uninhabited national park, and is located on Aboriginal land north-west of Ceduna. The site provides the ability […]
