December 8th, 2015
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Wheeling about on Mars, the Curiosity rover successfully completed a mobility test last week, captured in images of the robot’s wheel tracks through a sand patch. Curiosity drove roughly 115 feet (35 meters) toward a dune that is now named “Namib.” “We’ve accomplished a lot of reconnaissance imaging of the dunes, and we’re looking ahead […]
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Devon Island doubles as a welcome mat for revealing safer and more efficient ways to live long and prosper on faraway Mars. Future Mars explorers are sure to benefit by trekking to a high arctic site here on Earth that in many way offers scenery akin to the Red Planet. On Devon Island you’ll find […]
Mum’s the word: The secretive X-37B space plane has winged its way past the 200 day mark, carrying out a classified agenda for the U.S. Air Force. Rocketed into orbit aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket from Florida’s Cape Canaveral Air Force Station back on May 20 of this year, the reusable robotic […]
NASA’s Curiosity rover on Mars has been busy carrying out mobility testing, turning and backing out of Martian sand. The robot documented its moves while taking multiple Hazcam images, then pausing to take Navcam and Mastcam images of the wheel tracks, reports Ken Herkenhoff of the USGS Astrogeology Science Center in Flagstaff, Arizona. Images were […]
Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic has introduced an addition to its fleet of vehicles as part of a technical update on its LauncherOne small satellite launch service. A 747-400 commercial jet aircraft — previously operated by Virgin Atlantic under the nickname “Cosmic Girl” — will provide a dedicated launch platform for the LauncherOne orbital vehicle. […]
NASA’s next Mars lander has completed assembly and testing at Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Colorado – but one problem. A key science instrument to be carried on the mission is experiencing a problem. The Interior Exploration Using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport (InSight) spacecraft is to investigate processes that formed and shaped Mars. […]
The European Space Agency is pressing forward on its 2018 mission to Mars, selecting payloads for the ExoMars surface platform. That surface platform — which is the responsibility of Roscosmos and the Space Research Institute of Russian Academy of Sciences (IKI) — will remain stationary on the surface of Mars. Once on Mars in 2019, […]
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover has entered Sol 1180, reconnoitering sand dunes and studying ripples. Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) has evaluated the rover’s wheels for damage. An initial assessment showed no broken grousers, explains Ken Herkenhoff of the USGS Astrogeology Science Center in Flagstaff, Arizona. “The rover is now poised to begin testing mobility […]
Earth’s crater-dotted moon is a graveyard of space probes, hurled there by a number of nations. The search is on for pinpointing the whereabouts of the former Soviet Union’s Luna 9 probe. It was the first survivable landing of a human-made object on another celestial body. The USSR’s Luna 9 made it to the moon […]
The Joint Space Operations Center (JSpOC) at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California has served notice of a breakup of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s NOAA-16 spacecraft. Orbital debris related to the breakup is being cataloged. Potential close approaches to other satellites are being assessed. Although pinpointing the cause of the breakup is under […]
