December 20th, 2018
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Landing on Mars on November 26, NASA’s InSight lander has used its robotic arm outfitted with grippers to emplace its Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure, or SEIS, on the Red Planet’s surface. On Wednesday, Dec. 19, the seismometer was gently placed onto the ground directly in front of the lander, about as far away as […]
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NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover has just begun Sol 2265 tasks. “We are still very excited and happy that the final drill hole, “Rock Hall,” on Vera Rubin Ridge was successful over the weekend,” reports Kristen Bennett, a planetary geologist at the USGS in Flagstaff, Arizona. “Now we get to analyze the drilled sample with rover […]
Progress with the Instrument Deployment Arm (IDA), a two-meter-long robotic arm designed to deploy with the greatest precision and safety possible the mission’s two main instruments, namely the French-built seismometer and the German-provided HP3 heat flow sensor. InSight’s seismometer, SEIS, the Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure, is a round, dome-shaped instrument that will sit on […]
Now in Sol 2363, the Curiosity Mars rover is performing science duties and ready for new drilling activities on the Red Planet. It is “Go for drill on the red Jura!” – the signal from Catherine O’Connell, a planetary geologist at the University of New Brunswick in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada. Triage activities In the […]
A nuclear-powered ‘tunnelbot’ – that’s an icy, innovative approach to search for life on Jupiter’s icy moon Europa. Researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago performed a concept study for a nuclear-powered “tunnelbot” that can penetrate the ice shell and reach the top of Europa’s ocean while carrying devices and instruments that can […]
Rocket Lab’s Electron rocket launched NASA’s ELaNa-19 mission from Launch Complex 1 on Mahia Peninsula, New Zealand, on December 16, 2018 local time. NASA Venture Class Launch Service flight of the CubeSat Launch Initiative Educational Launch of Nanosatellites (ELaNa) XIX mission launched the following cubesats: Ceres and STF-1 (NASA Goddard Spaceflight Center), CubeSail (University of […]
NASA’s InSight Mars lander has produced new Sol 18: Instrument Deployment Camera (IDC) imagery, acquired on December 15, 2018. The robotic arm-mounted, Instrument Deployment Camera (IDC) is surveying the lander surroundings in preparation for deployment of surface science gear. InSight touched down on Mars at 11:52:59 a.m. PT (2:52:59 p.m. ET) on Nov. 26, 2018. […]
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover is now performing Sol 2259 tasks. “May the (drill) force be with us!” reports Michelle Minitti, a planetary geologist at Framework in Silver Spring, Maryland A recent Curiosity rover drive around to the north side of “Rock Hall” in was successful, placing the robot at a lower tilt and with room […]
Today, Virgin Galactic conducted its fourth powered test flight and first space flight of its commercial SpaceShipTwo, VSS Unity. The achievement has been recognized by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) who announced today that early next year they will present pilots Mark Stucky and Frederick Sturckow with FAA Commercial Astronaut Wings at a ceremony in […]
China Central Television (CCTV) reports that the country’s Chang’e-4 lunar probe has successfully decelerated near the Moon Wednesday This is a vital step forward leading to the spacecraft’s attempt to make the first-ever soft landing on the farside of the Moon, the China National Space Administration (CNSA) announced. Elliptical lunar orbit CCTV reports that after […]
