August 22nd, 2015
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NASA’s Opportunity and Curiosity Mars rovers are fully engaged in exploration duties on the Red Planet. Ground controllers operating Curiosity are implementing a weekend of tasks. “The vehicle is on a local high spot that gives us a spectacular view of the terrain ahead,” explains Ken Herkenhoff of the USGS Astrogeology Science Center […]
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A Chinese experiment is being readied for flight to the International Space Station, perhaps a forerunner of a larger space cooperation agenda between the United States and China. NanoRacks, a Houston-based commercial firm, has signed an agreement with the Beijing Institute of Technology to fly Chinese DNA research to the orbiting outpost next year. […]
The RD-180 Rocket Engine Issue Guide has been authored by Travis Cottom, the Marshall Institute’s Program Associate for Defense and Space Policy. This paper examines the politically and technologically complex options available to the United States in providing dependable rocket engines for space launch. “The RD--180 has been a stalwart engine for the Atlas V […]
The former Soviet Union’s Luna 9 is the first survivable landing of a human-made object on another celestial body. That historic probe landed on the Moon on February 3, 1966. the plucky probe. The beach ball-shaped craft took the first photographs from the Moon’s harsh landscape. There’s a hunt on to find the true resting spot of Luna 9. […]
Space scientists and engineers are surveying dozens of landing zones for NASA’s Mars 2020 rover…and the early votes are in. But it took a martian-style form of “Rubric’s cube” to sort through and pinpoint ideal locales to achieve mission goals. Roughly 30 candidate landing areas were once on the reasonable roster. Regions […]
In classic do-it-your style, NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover has produced a set of images of several visited sites on the Red Planet. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory released the non-camera shy robot imagery. The rover uses a camera on its robotic arm for multiple images that were then stitched into self-portraits. The robot is now driving […]
NASA Astronaut Drew Feustel, left, Actor Matt Damon, Director Ridley Scott, Author Andy Weir, and Director of the Planetary Science Division at NASA Headquarters Jim Green, participate in a question and answer session about NASA’s journey to Mars and the film ”The Martian,” Tuesday, Aug. 18, 2015, at the United Artist Theater in La […]
For NASA’s Curiosity rover on Mars it’s Sol 1078. In an update from Ken Herkenhoff of the USGS Astrogeology Science Center in Flagstaff, Arizona, before the Mars machinery began a drive away from a current location, the ChemCam and Mastcam were set to observe rock targets dubbed “Huson” and “Ignatius.” Mastcam was also to image […]
Ok…yet another issue to consider for outbound space travelers. Sure there’s radiation, palpitations during landing on a faraway world, or getting struck in the noggin by a meteorite. Here’s a new one to come to grips with. Prolonged spaceflight may give you a nasty case of diarrhea. New research published by the Federation of […]
NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity has entered Sol 1077, landing on the Red Planet back in August 2012. A self-inspection of its six wheels is periodically undertaken, keeping track of wheel wear and tear – damage that engineers keep an eye on. For example, the robot’s Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) returned a new image of […]
