June 9th, 2018
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NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover is now in Sol 2076, ready to tackle a weekend of duties. Reports Rachel Kronyak, a planetary geologist from the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, the weekend plan has two main priorities: perform another analysis with the robot’s Chemistry & Mineralogy X-Ray Diffraction/X-Ray Fluorescence Instrument (CheMin) on the Duluth drill sample […]
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Over the next ten years, more than 6,000 smallsats are expected to launch. That’s an over six-fold increase from the previous decade. As the smallsat market grows, launch remains the main bottleneck to timely and affordable access to space. The Aerospace Corporation’s Center for Space Policy and Strategy (CSPS) released a new policy paper today […]
NASA’s Curiosity rover has found new evidence preserved in rocks on Mars that suggests the planet could have supported ancient life, as well as new evidence in the Martian atmosphere that relates to the search for current life on the Red Planet. While not necessarily evidence of life itself, these findings are a good sign […]
Given a revitalization of interest in lunar exploration, work is underway to develop a navigation system for the Moon that scales with increasing demand and can be utilized by government and commercial space missions. Advanced Space LLC of Boulder, Colorado announced today it signed a two-year contract with NASA to continue development of a cislunar-centric […]
Attention Millennials, Gen Xers, Baby Boomer or older generations: space tourism is not an excursion that appeals to everyone. According to a new Pew Research Center survey: About four-in-ten Americans (42%) say they would definitely or probably be interested in orbiting the Earth in a spacecraft in the future, while roughly six-in-ten (58%) say they […]
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover is now wrapping up Sol 2074 duties. Curiosity rover scientists received the happy news that the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) Instrument Suite received enough sample to conduct its “evolved gas” analysis of the powdered rock from the “Duluth” drill hole! “This will allow the team to study the composition of […]
U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), chairman of the Subcommittee on Space, Science, and Competitiveness convened a hearing entitled “Examining the Future of the International Space Station: Stakeholder Perspectives,” on Wednesday, June 6, 2018. The second in a series of hearings to examine the role of the International Space Station (ISS), this hearing provided ISS stakeholders […]
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover is deep into Sol 2073 science operations. Ken Herkenhoff, a planetary geologist at the USGS in Flagstaff, Arizona, reports that the focus of Curiosity operations continues to be on the analysis of the Duluth drill sample. The latest Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) Instrument Suite Evolved Gas Analysis (EGA) […]
Esri, a leader in geographic information system (GIS) software, has created Satellite Map – an application that maps the current location of about 14,000 human made objects orbiting the Earth. The application is driven by data sourced from Space-Track.org, which is maintained by the Joint Functional Component Command for Space, and allows you to intersect […]
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover is wrapping up Sol 2072 duties. Reports Abigail Fraeman, a planetary geologist at NASA/JPL in Pasadena, California: “Every single day that the Curiosity team gets to go into work and operate a one-ton rover on the surface of Mars is a good day. But last Friday was not just your typical […]
