Space Traffic Management – New Report Calls for Civil Government Agency to Deal with Orbital Clutter
December 25th, 2016
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A recently released report has taken a hard look at “traffic management” of the space domain – an environment increasingly cluttered by orbiting space debris. The study – Orbital Traffic Management Study: Final Report – Report on Space Traffic Management Assessments, Frameworks and Recommendations was issued November 21 by Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC). […]
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“Release…release…release.” Those are the words heard as the second glide flight of Virgin Galactic’s VSS Unity began yesterday, released from the WhiteKnightTwo mothership. The December 22 drop test took place high above California’s Mojave Air and Space Port – the second free-flying shakeout of the suborbital spaceship. 2nd drop test The craft’s first unpowered […]
Now in Sol 1557, NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover is prepped for the holidays. “But that doesn’t mean that Curiosity will be resting,” reports Lauren Edgar, a research geologist at the USGS Astrogeology Science Center in Flagstaff, Arizona. Edgar notes that a group of science team members and operations staff assembled an eight-sol plan that will […]
They are called recurring slope lineae – RSL for Mars shorthand. Spacecraft orbiting the Red Planet have focused on these perplexing features. RSL are spotted as narrow dark features on Mars that incrementally lengthen down steep slopes, fade in colder seasons, and recur annually. These qualities seemingly imply that liquid water is flowing in […]
Ice Home is a deployable Mars habitat concept based on an inflatable structure that makes use of In Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU) derived water ice. This off-world home could provide a large, flexible, and cost effective workspace that can be used for many of the key activities that are essential for the long term success […]
Now in Sol 1555, the Curiosity Mars rover made a short weekend drive. The robot is now at a new location “with plenty of science targets to choose from,” reports Ryan Anderson, a planetary scientist at the USGS Astrogeology Science Center in Flagstaff, Arizona. “It has been quite a while since we had a plan […]
There is “mounting evidence” from a number of lunar probes that suggest the presence of vacant lava tubes under the surface of the Moon. “Such large sub-lunarean structures would be of great benefit to future human exploration of the Moon, providing shelter from the harsh environment at the surface,” reports a Purdue University research team. […]
Skywatcher Paul Maley captured the entire train of 8 satellites from the December 15th Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System (CYGNSS) launch, a video showing the spacecraft passing over his house in Carefree, Arizona. The spacecraft bus precedes this entourage by 2 minutes. The 8 CYGNSS satellites can be viewed over a 2 minute interval […]
NASA’s Curiosity rover on the Red Planet is now in Sol 1553, with the robot’s engineering team still at work diagnosing drill issues. “But in the meantime we are still getting good science done,” adds Ryan Anderson, a planetary scientist at the USGS Astrogeology Science Center in Flagstaff, Arizona. Target shooting A Sol 1552 […]
Innovative Moon robots geared to work in lunar environments — such as the depths of icy craters and inside lunar caves – is a pursuit of ispace, inc. of Tokyo, Japan. As a private lunar robotic exploration company, ispace has announced that it has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Japan Aerospace […]
