May 18th, 2016
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The Mars Curiosity rover drive planned last weekend was completed successfully, moving MSL less than 20 feet (6 meters) into position for contact science on the rocks broken by the rover wheels. That’s the word from Ken Herkenhoff of the USGS Astrogeology Science Center in Flagstaff, Arizona. Curiosity is just about to enter Sol […]
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NASA’s quest to place boot prints on Mars in the 2030’s is advancing, bolstered by new studies on a multi-function next-generation Mars Orbiter and how best to use Red Planet resources to sustain expeditionary crews on the planet. Last year, nearly 50 locations on Mars were proposed by scientists as future locales for human landings. […]
A petition is gaining momentum to prompt the President of the United States to lead the transition to space-based energy. Among items, the call to action urges the establishment of “congressionally chartered public-private corporations for space-based energy, space mining, and spacefaring logistics. These corporations shall provide the United States, its allies, and trading partners with […]
Word is that there’s a change of plans for using the wheeled robot. An over the weekend long drive of the robot has been put off. Ken Herkenhoff of the USGS Astrogeology Science Center in Flagstaff, Arizona reports why that’s the case. Fresh rock surfaces “There was enough interest in the fresh rock surfaces […]
The problem of walking – and falling — on the Moon is gaining renewed attention by a research team. Principal Investigator, Irene Lia Schlacht of the Politecnico di Milano and Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, along with her colleagues, are asking some key questions: How crewmembers will walk inside and outside a lunar habitat. How high […]
China has a stated interest to send a lander to the Moon’s far side – the Chang’e-4 (CE-4) mission. New details about possible instruments of CE-4 are to be detailed in a forthcoming conference on Moon exploration. Y.L. Zou and colleagues from the Key Laboratory of Lunar and Deep Space Exploration in Beijing are on […]
Yesterday, on May 11, NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover has been on the surface of Mars for two Mars years – almost four Earth years. During that time, the rover has made systematic measurements to compare how conditions change from year to year on the Red Planet. Curiosity is now in Sol 1339, with the […]
Asteroids are big bruisers that can lead to a bad day on Earth. Dealing with space rocks that are on-target to strike our planet has prompted a number of planetary defense ideas. At the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in California, a group of physicists, material scientists, engineers and computational researchers have focused their efforts […]
NASA’s Curiosity is now in Sol 1337, slated to go into an extensive arm workout. Last weekend, the rover transferred and sieved the “Okoruso” drill sample, and analyzed it with the Chemistry & Mineralogy X-Ray Diffraction/X-Ray Fluorescence Instrument (CheMin). The plan then called for imaging the drill location, starting by dumping the pre-sieved drill […]
X-37B update: Satellite watchers have indicated that the now-orbiting X-37B (OTV-4) recently made a significant orbit boost. In early May, ground observers started noticing the OTV-4 was not showing up as predicted. It was found on May 6 by José Luis Ruiz Gómez running around 44 minutes late. The OTV-4 orbit had been boosted by […]
