August 15th, 2015
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The recent horrific explosions, loss of life and property, and lingering environmental issues at China’s port city of Tianjin may have a ripple effect that could affect China’s space program. State-run news outlets in China note that the Tianhe-1 — a major supercomputer installation has been shut down — a move that some reports say is […]
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At week’s end the NASA Curiosity Mars rover was driven on sol 1074, putting itself in good position for weekend science – slated to involve the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument. It will analyze some of the recent drill sample that the robot has collected. “SAM activities will take up all of sol 1075. […]
The fourth mission of the pilotless X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle is nearing 100 days of flight at month’s end, testing and making use of a cargo bay of payloads. Its mission – or multiple duties – remains classified. The Air Force launched the winged craft, designated OTV-4 and codenamed AFSPC-5, aboard an Atlas V […]
Wheeling its way across Mars, NASA’s Curiosity rover traveled some 115 feet (35 meters) on sol 1072. Rover planners are set to take a load of new mast camera (Mastcam) images on Sol 1073 to document geology at its new locale. According to Ryan Anderson, a planetary scientist at the USGS Astrogeology Science Center in […]
For those watching the on-going U.S. Air Force saga regarding SpaceX and the United Launch Alliance competitive launch issues, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) released the following report today: Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle: The Air Force Needs to Adopt an Incremental Approach to Future Acquisition Planning to Enable Incorporation of Lessons Learned. In […]
The European Space Agency’s Rosetta orbiter has been imaging comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko – watching the celestial wanderer hurling dust and gas into space. All that action is prelude to the comet making its closest point to the Sun in its orbit, the perihelion, on August 13. According to experts at the Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum […]
A potential advancement in the United States’ electric propulsion capability for the future of spaceflight is being underscored by a new NASA contract to support work on the VASIMR project – short for the Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket. VASIMR works with plasma, an electrically charged gas that can be heated to extreme temperatures by […]
Late last week, NASA’s Curiosity rover on the Red Planet wheeled its way for a drive of over 60 feet (19 meters). That Sol 1067 stroll put it back at “Missoula” for more targeted science. “The goal is to perform a detailed study of the Stimson-Pahrump contact, and to determine the relative timing of some […]
While interstellar targets of opportunity are distant, close at hand is the Starship Congress 2015 to be held at Drexel University in Philadelphia this September. Starship Congress 2015 is being subtitled “Interstellar Hackathon” featuring talks and presentations centered on hacking the paradigm of interstellar space exploration. Starship Congress 2015: Interstellar Hackathon – to be held […]
Given the wide variety of scientific zones of interest on the Moon, Mars and other worlds, future use of “robot swarms” may carve up exploration duties. Work by a research team has been captured in a recently published paper: “Evolution of Self-Organized Task Specialization in Robot Swarms.” Division of labor is ever-present in biological systems, […]
