December 18th, 2018
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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 […]
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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 […]
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover is wrapping up Sol 2257 tasks. Reports Brittney Cooper, an atmospheric scientist at York University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada: “Even on Mars, where every second of Curiosity’s sol is planned, things don’t always go quite as expected.” In this case, a planned drive of the robot stopped at the mid-drive point. Bump […]
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover is now performing Sol 2256 tasks. The hunt for red Jura continues reports Rachel Kronyak, a planetary geologist; University of Tennessee in Knoxville. “After a successful weekend of activities and driving, we were hopeful that we would wake up on Sol 2256 and be ready for contact science and drilling,” […]
