April 20th, 2017
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NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover is now performing Sol 1673 duties. In a report from the USGS Astrogeology Science Center in Flagstaff, Arizona, Michelle Minitti reports: “There’s nothing like a day of technical difficulties to make you appreciate when it all works!” Minitti explains that the Curiosity science team bounced back from a challenging planning day […]
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A new plan for the “terraformation” of Mars has been scripted by a research team – a blueprint for the red planet to terraform a site on Mars in 2036. Called the Lake Matthew Team their Mars Terraformer Transfer (MATT) concept is designed to accelerate Mars exploration, settlement and commercial development. […]
China’s bid to establish a permanently crewed space station got a boost today by the launch of the country’s first cargo supply spacecraft – the Tianzhou-1. The Tianzhou-1 cargo resupply spacecraft departed in the early evening hours of April 20 atop a Long March-7 Y2 booster from the Wenchang Satellite Launch Center in the southern […]
A key element in China’s hope to establish a permanent space station is set for liftoff on Thursday. China’s automated Tianzhou-1 vehicle is scheduled for launch at 19:41 Thursday (local time) from Wenchang Space Launch Center in southern China’s Hainan Province, officials of the Office of China’s Manned Space Program said Wednesday. Space lab docking […]
Breakthrough Initiatives is holding its second annual scientific conference on April 20-21 at Stanford University. The event is set to bring together leading astronomers, engineers, astrobiologists and astrophysicists to advance discussion surrounding recent discoveries of potentially habitable planets in nearby star systems. Novel methods of exploration The two days of discussions will focus on newly […]
Preparatory work for launch of China’s first cargo spacecraft launch – the Tianzhou-1 — continues. Work is in the homestretch for a launch that is set between Thursday and next Monday. On Feb. 13, the Tianzhou-1 was delivered to Wenchang Space Launch Center in south China’s Hainan Province. On March 11, the Long March-7 Y2 […]
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover has just begun Sol 1671 activities. Reports Roger Wiens, Curiosity’s Chemistry & Camera (ChemCam) Principal Investigator, the rover has nailed a drive of 112 feet (34 meters) to another rock exposure identified in orbital images. Mud cracks “Ever since we observed possible mud cracks at Old Soaker,” Wiens said, “the […]
China is set to launch its first cargo resupply craft – the Tianzhou-1 – in the April 20-24th time period and is viewed by the country’s space officials as a key step toward building a larger space station in the 2020’s. Tianzhou-1 has been transferred atop its Long March-7 Y2 carrier rocket from the testing […]
NASA’s Curiosity rover on Mars has just begun Sol 1668. A drive by the robot has put it into position in front of the interesting “Moosehead Lake” outcrop with lots of veins and grey patches, “plenty to keep Curiosity busy over the weekend!” That’s the word from Ryan Anderson, a planetary scientist at the USGS […]
Now at work during Sol 1667, NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover had its drive cut short during Sol 1664. The robot had driven less than 6 feet (2 meters) then halted due to the angle of the left bogie wheel side that slightly exceeded the suspension limit. “Such limits are routinely set based on the results […]
