October 21st, 2015
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Oxia Planum has been recommended as the primary candidate for the landing site of the European Space Agency/Roscosmos ExoMars 2018 mission. ExoMars 2018, comprising a rover and surface platform, is the second of two missions making up the ExoMars program, a joint effort between ESA and Russia’s Roscosmos. Launch is planned for May 2018, […]
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Today, the White House is marking “Back to the Future Day” with a series of conversations with innovators across the country. As part of the Day, the White House requests your participation by asking you to take a visionary leap into the future by asking: “You Tell Us: What Does 2045 Look […]
The Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) – sitting out at the L1 Lagrange point directly between Earth and the Sun – is producing images of the full, sunlit side of the Earth every day. Now a special website offers once a day postings of at least a dozen new color images of Earth acquired […]
Operators of NASA’s Curiosity rover have scored another successful drill hole on Mars. “Over the weekend Curiosity drilled another hole on Mars at the “Greenhorn” target,” explains Lauren Edgar, a research geologist at the USGS Astrogeology Science Center in Flagstaff, Arizona. “Everything went smoothly and we have another beautiful sample to analyze!” Now […]
Several space pioneers are slated to share their experiences later this month regarding the Cold War Air Force program: The Manned Orbiting Laboratory (MOL). In the 1960s, the U.S. Air Force initiated a human spaceflight program to carry out experiments in space in a laboratory orbiting the Earth for an extended period of time. MOL […]
The Curiosity Mars rover is now in Sol 1136 operations. Due to a Deep Space Network upload command issue, some activities at week’s end were delayed and the rover spent a day resting and recharging, readying itself for weekend science duties. Scheduled work includes a full drill hole on the “Greenhorn” target, explains Lauren […]
A CubeSat recently released in Earth orbit that was to demonstrate high speed optical transmission of data from Earth orbit has run into trouble. The Optical Communications and Sensor Demonstration (OCSD) satellite was built and managed by The Aerospace Corporation, funded through NASA’s Small Spacecraft Technology Program within NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD). OCSD was […]
The revelation that dark streaks flowing downhill on Mars are likely signs of liquid water on the red planet have sparked debate on how best to investigate them. Dubbed Recurring Slope Lineae (RSL), the new RSL findings may well bolster the odds that life is alive and well today on Mars. Moreover, RSL might be […]
At month’s end, there’s a winnowing down of landing sites for Europe’s ExoMars 2018 mission. There are now four sites under discussion: Mawrth Vallis, Oxia Planum, Hypanis Vallis and Aram Dorsum. These landing sites are all located relatively close to the Martian equator and to each other. All sites show evidence of having been influenced […]
The NASA Curiosity Mars rover is dumping and “thwacking” away on the Red Planet, explains Lauren Edgar, a research geologist at the USGS Astrogeology Science Center in Flagstaff, Arizona. Sol 1133 on Mars involved the rover dumping the “Big Sky” sample and “thwacking” CHIMRA (the Collection and Handling for in-Situ Martian Rock Analysis) […]
