May 13th, 2017
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The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) may soon award a contract for the XS-1 spaceplane. According to Air Force Magazine, DARPA has entered the final stages of a “downselect” to choose one company to proceed into the flying phase of the spaceplane. Three companies In Phase 1 of XS-1, DARPA awarded prime contracts to […]
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Where is your space program? In 1962, President John F. Kennedy proclaimed that NASA would send astronauts to the Moon by the end of the decade. The “space race” inspired an entire generation to pursue careers in science, technology and engineering, creating the technological boom of the 1990s. As the balance of world […]
Explore Mars, Inc. has unleashed their new 2017 report written to advance the goal of sending humans to Mars within the next two decades. Among a set of key recommendations: Implement a next generation orbiter as soon as possible to prospect for resources (notably water) that will reduce the overall cost of missions to Mars while […]
NASA’s Curiosity rover on Mars is now performing Sol 1694 science duties. Rachel Kronyak, a planetary geologist at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, reports that two sols – 1693 and 1694 – involves the rover carrying out a suite of remote science observations before driving away and resuming its trek up Mount Sharp. “These […]
A Chinese crew of eight is undertaking a year-long stint in the Lunar Palace 1 laboratory, called China’s first bioregenerative life support system. The effort is dubbed “The Lunar Palace 365 Project and involves eight postgraduate students from Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics (BUAA). They will live inside the 160-square-meter, 500-cubic-meter Lunar […]
A simulated overflight of the Martian North Pole reveals its permanent ice cap and Chasma Boreale. The images used to produce the video were acquired by the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC), operated by the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR) on board the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Mars Express spacecraft. […]
Billions of dollars have been spent in reconnoitering Mars since the 1960s. That world has been on the receiving end from Earth of robotic flybys, photo-snapping orbiters and numbers of nose-diving craft onto its surface. Indeed, the Red Planet has been radar pinged, crashed into, soft landed upon, scooped up, digested […]
NASA and civil engineers at Stanford University have teamed up to explore use of a form of concrete to fabricate structures on the Moon and Mars. David Loftus at NASA’s Ames Research Center reached out to Michael Lepech, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford School of Engineering. Lepech has […]
The record-setting, hush-hush mission by the U.S. Air Force’s X-37B space plane returned to Earth this morning, touching down for the first time at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC). Launched from Florida atop an Atlas booster on May 20, 2015, the OTV-4 (Orbital Test Vehicle-4) has performed the program’s longest duration flight. The Air Force […]
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover is now performing Sol 1689 science duties Reports Michelle Minitti, a planetary geologist for Framework in Silver Spring, Maryland, the robot has parked itself in front of a megaripple. Compare and contrast In surveying the sandy feature, scientists are studying its physical and chemical characteristics, comparing and contrasting it to the […]
