August 19th, 2018
Author: 
The Penguin Book of Outer Space Exploration, edited and introduction by John Logsdon, foreword by Bill Nye, Penguin Classics, September 2018; Paperback $18.00: 400 pages. John Logsdon is a noted space historian and this book reflects his preeminent status as a first-rate scholar. This volume is a treasure-trove of material, just in time for the […]
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The rover for China’s Chang’e-4 lunar mission was presented in Beijing on August 14. 2018. The Chang’e-4 lunar mission — lander and rover — is scheduled to launch in December 2018 and will land in the Aitken crater, located in the Aitken Basin, in the South Pole region on the far side of the […]
The U.S. Department of Defense’s 2018 report to Congress on Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China has been issued, an annual look that includes a review of China’s space prowess. In the report several sections deal with China’s space activities, a program that “continues to mature rapidly,” the document notes. China’s […]
Reports Brittney Cooper, an atmospheric scientist from York University in Toronto, Canada: Identified as the “Pettegrove Point Foreign Object Debris” (PPFOD), it was speculated to be a piece of spacecraft debris. In fact the object has been identified as a very thin flake of rock. “We can all rest easy tonight,” Cooper explains, […]
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover has just begun Sol 2143 operations. Work is underway on the recent Stoer drill sample says Ashley Stroupe, a mission operations engineer at NASA/JPL in Pasadena, California, in a recent report. The main activity is the drop-off of sample to the Chemistry & Mineralogy X-Ray Diffraction/X-Ray Fluorescence Instrument (CheMin), based on […]
China’s bid to return to Earth samples from the Moon since the 1970s is slated for next year. The 2019 liftoff of the highly complex mission of Chang’e-5 on a Long March 5 booster is targeted for the Moon’s Rümker region in Northern Oceanus Procellarum. Mons Rümker is seen as the most distinctive geological feature […]
If all remains on track, a new Chinese Moon mission, Chang’e‐4, will be launched in late 2018 to attempt the first farside landing in history, headed for the Von Kármán crater, within the South Pole‐Aitken (SPA) basin. The scientific instruments of China’s farside spacecraft, mounted on a lander and a rover, will analyze both […]
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover is now performing Sol 2140 duties, and there’s confirmation of new drilling. “Success at Pettegrove Point,” reports Catherine O’Connell-Cooper, a planetary geologist at the University of New Brunswick, New Brunswick, Canada. On our third attempt at drilling within the Pettegrove Point member on the Vera Rubin Ridge, we have success! […]
The U.S. Air Force X-37B mini-space plane has winged past 340 days of flight performing secretive duties during the program’s fifth flight. Labeled the Orbital Test Vehicle (OTV-5), the robotic craft was rocketed into Earth orbit on September 7, 2017 atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 booster from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space […]
The European Space Agency (ESA) and Russia are working together to investigate the Moon’s resources – specifically water ice and other volatiles at the lunar poles. Called the Package for Resource Observation and in-Situ Prospecting for Exploration, Commercial exploitation and Transportation (PROSPECT), this package will access and assess potential resources on the Moon and […]
