August 10th, 2018
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On June 18, 2018, U.S. President Trump directed the Department of Defense to immediately begin the important process of establishing Space Force as the sixth branch of the armed forces. “I’m hereby directing the Department of Defense and Pentagon to immediately begin the process necessary to establish a space force as the sixth branch […]
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NASA’s Curiosity rover is now performing Sol 2136 duties. Sarah Lamm, a planetary geologist at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico reports that after two sols of analyzing an intended drill site in the Pettegrove Point member, plans are to drill the target “Stoer.” Stoer has had Mastcam, Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI), Alpha […]
Here’s an upshot from Blue Origin work in landing the group’s New Shepard suborbital rocketry. NASA has announced new partnerships to develop space exploration technologies. A new award to Blue Origin is to advance sensor technologies to enable landing anywhere on the Moon’s surface. This project will mature critical technologies that enable precision […]
For the first time since NASA retired its space shuttle fleet in 2011, American astronauts will once again launch to the International Space Station from U.S. soil. The U.S. space agency on August 3 named the teams of astronauts who will fly aboard the first “commercial crew missions” to and from low Earth […]
A new sweeping assessment from the National Academies regarding future space exploration planning has noted its concern about the aging infrastructure orbiting Mars, which is vital for communicating with the landers and rovers, on the surface of the Red Planet. NASA currently operates Mars Odyssey, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), and Mars Atmosphere and Volatile […]
Now in Sol 2134 Third time’s a charm? That’s the question posed by Rachel Kronyak, a planetary geologist at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. “After a weekend full of contact science, remote science, and driving, Curiosity arrived at her next drill site within the Pettegrove Point member,” Kronyak adds. “Our previous two drilling attempts […]
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover is now performing Sol 2133 duties. Curiosity is ready to bump to a new drill site in the Pettegrove Point member, but not before gathering many observations at the rover’s current location. Reports Vivian Sun, a planetary geologist at NASA/JPL in Pasadena, California: “There are interesting color variations in today’s workspace, […]
About 7,000 smallsats are due to be launched over the next ten years, i.e. a six-fold increase from the 1,200 units launched over the past decade. About 50 constellations, two of which are mega constellations, account for over 80% of the smallsat count. That’s the news from Euroconsult, an independent, privately-owned firm. Other revelations […]
Report: Meteor made 2.1 kiloton explosion over Air Force Space Command Base, Thule, Greenland on July 25, 2018. The high-altitude explosion at 27 miles (43.3 kilometers) was detected by US Government sensors at an altitude of 43.3 km. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s Center for Near Earth Object Studies lists the incident in its Fireball and […]
Copenhagen Suborbitals reports a successful August 4 flight of its suborbital Nexø II rocket, the most advanced rocket built and launched by the group so far. The launch took place from ESD139 in the Baltic Sea 35 kilometers off the coast of the Danish island Bornholm. The rocket lifted off from a sea-based launch platform. […]
