April 24th, 2018
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The China National Space Administration (CNSA) has announced the name of the relay satellite to be used in the country’s Chang’e-4 far side Moon lander project. Enter drum roll: “Queqiao” – bridge of magpies. As explained by China’s Xinhua news agency: In a Chinese folktale, magpies form a bridge with their wings on the […]
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Abigail Fraeman, a planetary geologist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, reports that the robot drove a little over 52 feet (16 meters) to the east over last weekend. “The rover is currently skirting around the southern edge of a small, blocky impact crater on its way north off the Vera […]
Now in Sol 2031, NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover has relayed new imagery, including self-inspection photos of wheel wear and tear:
The Outsider’s Guide to UFOs by James T. Abbott, Archway Publishing, Bloomington, Indiana; December 2017; 370 pages, Softcover(B/W), $22.99. Author James Abbott has taken an impartial look at the baffling and bewildering phenomenon – Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs). The volume is a good read with the author taking on core questions that surround and cloud […]
Carnegie Mellon University’s CREATE Lab has established an EarthTime website. It enables users to interact with visualizations of the Earth’s transformation over time. Combining huge data sets with images captured by NASA satellites between 1984 and 2016, EarthTime brings to life patterns of natural change and human impact. Rapid urbanization For example, city growth can […]
Aerospace’s Center for Space Policy and Strategy (CSPS) released a new policy paper that explores future opportunities in cislunar space—essentially, the space inside the moon’s orbit and the orbital area around the moon. The policy document — Cislunar Development: What to Build— and Why –discusses the possible applications for cislunar space—for example, outposts on […]
The classified U.S. Air Force X-37B space plane program is now flying its Orbital Test Vehicle (OTV-5) mission. Skywatchers are reporting the craft recently made an orbital altitude change. OTV-5’s space jaunt began on September 7, 2017. To date, the orbiting craft has chalked up some 225 days of flight. […]
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover in carrying out Sol 2028 science duties. Reports Scott Guzewich, an atmospheric scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland: “This was a week of transition for Curiosity’s environmental science team. The cloudy season on Mars has ended as we’ve seen a marked decrease in water ice […]
China is set to announce the name for its relay satellite associated with the country’s far side lander – Chang’e-4. According to the China state news agency, Xinhua, together with the relay satellite, two microsatellites, developed by the Harbin Institute of Technology, will also be sent into orbit to conduct scientific research. The names […]
NASA and the Israel Space Agency have signed an agreement for use of the AstroRad radiation protection vest on NASA’s Exploration Mission-1 flight. AstroRad is the second product developed by StemRad, following the success of its first product, called StemRad 360 Gamma – the world’s first wearable shield that provides meaningful protection from harmful gamma […]
