December 28th, 2017
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Several new initiatives are underway to better catalog asteroids and their potential to strike the Earth. Headquartered in California’s Silicon Valley, the B612 organization is dedicated to protecting Earth from asteroid impacts. Earlier this year, the organization created the Asteroid Institute with team members busy at work on hardware, new technologies, and applications intended […]
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The Aerospace Corporation’s Center for Orbital and Reentry Debris Studies (CORDS) is sponsoring a “live on green event” guessing game. Entrants can compete for Aerospace swag with the closest estimate to the actual reentry date and time of China’s Tiangong-1 space lab. Launched in late September of 2011, Tiangong-1’s uncontrolled reentry is currently predicted to […]
Space Legaltech is a free and impressive legal research platform dedicated to space law. This innovation, created by the Space Institute for Researches on Innovative Uses of Satellites (SIRIUS Chair) provides access to all spatial laws and regulations around the world through an interactive map: laws, decrees, ordinances, authorization, launch, registration, control of space objects […]
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover is now in Sol 1915, continuing its study of the Vera Rubin Ridge. Some recent imagery from the robot shows the landscape being studied:
A recently completed economic analysis of space transportation supplied from near-Earth object (NEO) resources demonstrates “the potential to break the tyranny of increasing space transportation costs” created by dependence on Earth-based resources, particularly propellant. Joel Sercel, Founder and Principal Engineer of TransAstra Corporation, authored the analysis, done under a NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) […]
China is pressing forward on its Chang’e-4 lunar probe, to be launched in the latter half of next year. The spacecraft will attempt the first ever soft landing on the far side of the Moon. As prelude to the mission, China is set to launch a relay satellite in the first half of 2018. […]
NASA’s veteran Mars rover, Opportunity, is continuing her winter exploration of “Perseverance Valley” on the west rim of Endeavour Crater. Next month is will celebrate 14 years of planet prowling. The robot landed on the Red Planet on January 25, 2004. It has snapped over 223,760 images and wheeled over 28 miles (45 kilometers). Sols […]
Now in Sol 1911, NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover is “back on familiar ground,” reports Abigail Fraeman, a planetary geologist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. The robot is near the targets “Lismore” and “Leadhills” that it imaged back on sol 1905. Closer look “We drove here to take a closer look at the […]
National Geographic’s online shop has lots of holiday discount specials, including my book, MARS: OUR FUTURE ON THE RED PLANET. Also, stay tuned in 2018 for season 2 of Mars on the National Geographic channel. For a sneak peek at all things Mars that requires further investigation and consideration, go […]
Now in Sol 1909 operations, the NASA Curiosity Mars rover continues its survey of the Vera Rubin Ridge. Reports Lauren Edgar, a planetary geologist at the USGS in Flagstaff, Arizona, there’s been an important decision about where to drive the robot and how that will set up researchers for exciting science over the holidays. “After […]
