October 6th, 2016
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Now in Sol 1482, the Curiosity Mars rover drove another 115 feet (35 meters) on Sol 1480, stopping at a location with a layered bedrock exposure right in front of the rover. “So the tactical planning team decided to take advantage of the touch and go option again,” reports Ken Herkenhoff of the USGS Astrogeology […]
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To message or not to message? That’s the question to ponder when considering the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. There’s on-going discussion and debate about giving ET the “hi-sign.” It is dubbed Messaging Extra-terrestrial Intelligence, or METI for signaling shorthand. Douglas Vakoch, President of METI International in San Francisco, California is author of a new and […]
Now in Sol 1480, the NASA Curiosity Mars rover drove a little over 40 feet (12.5 meters) on Sol 1478, to an area with lots of nodules in the bedrock. The rover’s tactical planning team decided to exercise the “touch and go” option, so the robot’s arm is deployed for contact science before driving away […]
Blue Origin’s planned launch has been rescheduled to Wednesday Oct. 5. Refer to the Blue Origin Twitter, https://twitter.com/blueorigin, for more details. The suborbital passenger rocket program of Blue Origin is to take a next step – a test of the New Shepard’s in-flight escape system. Slated to take place on the anniversary of the […]
Elon Musk’s visionary space presentation in Mexico was inspirational, however, there is an unfortunate reality that companies like SpaceX, among others, will need to face. Musk’s plans for Mars leave unanswered questions. At last week’s International Astronautical Congress, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk laid out his plans to build a sustainable city on Mars […]
NASA’s Curiosity rover on Mars is now in Sol 1477 – wheeling toward a new drill spot. “Everything went well in our previous plan and we are making slow but steady progress over rough terrain toward our next drill location,” reports Ryan Anderson, a planetary scientist at the USGS Astrogeology Science Center in Flagstaff, […]
The European Space Agency’s Rosetta spacecraft today made a controlled descent onto comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko surface, bringing its mission to a close. The spacecraft was launched in 2004. Rosetta studied the comet’s nucleus and environment as it was moving around the Sun. In late 2014, Rosetta deployed the lander Philae to the surface of 67P. […]
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover is busily at work, carrying out Sol 1475 duties. “The science team had a lot of good ideas for new observations, so it was a challenge to fit them all into the plan, but in the end all went well,” reports Ken Herkenhoff of the USGS Astrogeology Science Center in […]
The Mars Curiosity Mars rover is just sliding into Sol 1475. Word is that the roughly 53-feet (16-meter) drive on Sol 1473 was completed perfectly. Curiosity is now in position for contact science on an outcrop of cross-bedded Murray bedrock. Cross-bedding The primary goal for Sol 1474 was to characterize the cross-bedding and measure grain […]
The European Space Agency’s Rosetta comet orbiter is ready to take the fall – smack on top of the surface of Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Rosetta is set to complete its historic mission in a controlled descent to the surface of the comet on September 30, with the end of mission confirmation predicted to be within 20 minutes […]
