April 30th, 2016
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NASA’s Curiosity rover on Mars is just about to enter Sol 1328 as of this posting. Ryan Anderson, a planetary scientist at the USGS Astrogeology Science Center in Flagstaff, Arizona, reports: “After a nice rest on Sol 1325, Curiosity was charged up and ready for lots of science!” That Sol 1325 was used primarily to […]
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It was 46 years ago this month that the words “Houston…we’ve had a problem” shot across space to ground controllers on Earth. On April 14, 1970, just 56 hours into the Apollo 13 mission to the Moon, those words were uttered by crew members aboard the spacecraft. Apollo 13 was to be NASA’s third landing […]
Just how crowded is it out there…or are we Earthlings a one-off species? A just issued paper has tackled this long-standing puzzler. The research attempts to assign a new empirically valid probability to whether any other advanced technological civilizations have ever existed. Bottom line: unless the odds of advanced life evolving on a habitable planet […]
A new NASA technical memorandum has taken a hard look at the prospect of sustainable colonization of Mars, one that is safe, affordable, and nurtures independence of residents on the Red Planet from Earth. Frontier In-Situ Resource Utilization for Enabling Sustained Human Presence on Mars has been authored by Robert Moses and Dennis Bushnell of […]
The European Space agency is pressing forward on its vision to establish a “Moon Village,” a product of international collaboration between space faring nations. This village would be a permanent lunar base for science, business, mining and even tourism. The Moon Village concept was advocated by Johann-Dietrich Wörner, Director General of the European Space […]
Given the growing aspirations of the smallsat community, a big concern is the mounting risk posed by orbital debris – and the potential contribution to the nagging problem by pico/nano/micro-satellites developers. A contest is underway to suggest devices for expedited or controlled re-entry at the end of a satellite’s mission life. To that end, the […]
A low cost, domestic launch capability will be of significant strategic value to the space sector of the United Kingdom, according to a new report published by the Satellite Applications Catapult. The “IGS Low Cost Access to Space” report focuses on the UK’s expertise in the small satellite market – a growing segment of the […]
China is celebrating a “National Day of Space Flight,” spotlighting the launch of its first satellite, Dong Fang Hong No. 1, on April 24, 1970. Surrounding the festivities, Chinese space officials have pointed to a number of upcoming and projected space initiatives – such as Moon and Mars spacecraft launches, piloted space flight and space […]
At this writing, NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover is carrying out Sol 1320 duties. “It’s always exciting when we get to drill a new sample on Mars,” notes Lauren Edgar, a research geologist at the USGS Astrogeology Science Center in Flagstaff, Arizona reports. Contact science went well on Sol 1319 Edgar explains, with a drill pre-load […]
The European Space Agency (ESA) has released an impressive and highly informative “Interactive Guide to the Moon.” The why and how of lunar exploration is detailed, an authoritative blueprint that’s detailed and carved up into categories: Science, Technology and Missions. Moon first strategy ESA’s exploration strategy is in line with the Global Exploration Roadmap drawn […]
