January 31st, 2017
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Along with the booming sound of departing rockets, space tourism is booming in a south China city – at the Wenchang Satellite Launch Center. The Wenchang launch center is China’s one-of-a-kind coastal launch site. This center will support the country’s space station construction activities in the 2020s, as well as hurling large exploration probes to […]
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NASA’s next Mars rover – known as Mars 2020 – has fallen under the watchful eye of the space agency’s Office of Inspector General, or IG. It’s the role of the IG to conduct objective oversight of NASA programs and operations and independently report to the Administrator, Congress, and the public to further the Agency’s […]
Work is underway to orbit the world’s first private, international commercial space station, a complex that would serve a global community of sovereign and private astronauts. The Axiom International Commercial Space Station is being pursued to enlarge the landscape of low Earth orbit, to create what they view as a “historic shift” in human […]
Serenity now! Future lunar dwellers may find solace atop a near-perpetually sunlit peak close to the Moon’s south pole – in a temple to celebrate the Moon as a powerful symbol of unity for humankind. The temple would be built on the sunlit rim of Shackleton Crater, which is bathed much of the time […]
One of the more intriguing findings on Mars of late has been spotting recurring slope lineae in certain areas of the Red Planet. These dark fingers of mystery – RSL in Mars shorthand — emerge from steep, rocky exposures. They incrementally grow, fade, and reform on a seasonal basis. But what RSL truly represent is […]
Now in Sol 1593, NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover is set to carry out an agenda of science duties. The Red Planet robot drove 26 feet (8 meters) on Sol 1591, with this weekend’s plan calling for additional driving. Curiosity has carried out a wheel inspection, images that show damage given the one-ton rover’s rolling over […]
A satellite is slated for launch later this year that will conduct plant growth experiments in both lunar and Martian gravity. The spacecraft is Eu:CROPIS – short for Euglena and Combined Regenerative Organic-food Production in Space. Eu:CROPIS is an experiment by the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR). Rotational force During […]
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover is carrying out science duties during Sol 1591. The Sol 1589 and Sol 1590 plan went well, with the robot wheeling roughly 102 feet (31 meters). Still sick Curiosity’s Chemistry & Camera (ChemCam) remains “sick” and some diagnostic activities are being planned for the upcoming weekend, reports Ryan Anderson, a […]
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover is performing science duties as it works its way through Sol 1589. This past weekend saw the robot drive roughly 92 feet (28 meters), reports Ryan Anderson, a planetary scientist at the USGS Astrogeology Science Center in Flagstaff, Arizona. Heavy on observations The plan for Sol 1589 has the rover […]
Work is underway in China to carry out the first Moon-sample return to Earth mission in over four decades. Liftoff of Chang’e-5 is to occur at the end of November, according to the Xinhua news agency. The robotic craft is to ride atop China’s Long March-5 booster, departing from the Wenchang Space Launch Center in […]
