June 19th, 2017
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The 22nd NASA Extreme Environment Mission Operations (NEEMO) mission is underway, an underwater analog exercise to train for spaceflight without leaving Earth. Six aquanauts took a dive of some 65 feet (20 meters) to the sea floor where they will spend 10 days living and working below the waves. They are now on board the […]
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The Curiosity Mars rover is now performing Sol 1729 science duties. A drive by the NASA robot on Sol 1728 was successful, reports Abigail Fraeman, a planetary geologist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California. “Our weekend plan will be chock-full of activities.” Colorful workspace On the first sol, Curiosity will do some […]
Now in Sol 1728, NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover completed a busy day of contact science yesterday, reports Rachel Kronyak, a planetary geologist at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. The plan now is dedicated towards remote science and driving. Fernald Point A suite of Mastcam images for Curiosity to take included mosaics of “Preble […]
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover is performing Sol 1727 science duties. “After a successful drive, our parking spot included a nice patch of Murray bedrock to allow us to perform contact science,” reports Rachel Kronyak, a planetary geologist at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. That contact science involves use of the rover’s Mars Hand […]
Chinese space officials report that a second refueling test has been completed. The testing involves the country’s Tianzhou-1 and Tiangong-2 space lab. This second refueling lasted about two days, reports China’s Xinhua news agency “and cemented technical results from the first refueling.” As China’s first cargo spacecraft, Tianzhou-1 was lofted into Earth orbit on April […]
The informative New Space journal is making available an Elon Musk commentary entitled “Making Humans a Multi-Planetary Species” – a detailed overview of Musk’s plan to create a self-sustaining city on Mars. The article draws upon Musk’s presentation at the 67th International Astronautical Congress in Guadalajara, Mexico, September 26–30, 2016. Major challenge In […]
World View has announced a first-ever, multi-day shake-down Stratollite demonstration mission. Stratollite is a navigable stratospheric payload-carrying focused on unlocking a new economy in the stratosphere and a variety of important applications for things like remote sensing, disaster recovery, communications, and weather forecasting. The shake-out flight has a finger-licking flair. Zinger of a sandwich This […]
Space Elevator – A History is now available via the International Space Elevator Consortium (ISEC). This fascinating history was published in April 2017 and thanks to the editorship of David Raitt. This book brings together for the first time the record of people, places, developments and activities — in fiction and in fact — […]
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover is now in Sol 1725, busily at work after a weekend of science choirs. In a report by Michelle Minitti, a planetary geologist at Framework in Silver Spring, Maryland, the Mars rover dedicated itself to more rare and more complex work. Rarer, more complex Last weekend…time and power were dedicated to […]
China space officials made use of last week’s Global Space Exploration Conference (GLEX) 2017 meeting in Beijing to provide details of the country’s Moon exploration plans. Upcoming is the late November liftoff of the Chang’e-5 Moon return sample lander, slated to plunk down within the Mons Rümker region of Oceanus Procellarum. Mons Rümker features a […]
