April 17th, 2014
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A new story from me up today on SPACE.com: NASA Moon Probe Will Bite the Lunar Dust Soon: What It Taught UsBy Leonard David, SPACE.com’s Space Insider ColumnistApril 17, 2014 07:00am ET http://www.space.com/25529-nasa-moon-dust-probe-death-science.html
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Vegetables for a Red Planet? That is the prognosis of a study by plant ecologist Wieger Wamelink of Wageningen UR – a university and research center in The Netherlands that focuses specifically on the theme “healthy food and living environment.” The soil on Mars may be suitable for cultivating food crops, Wamelink reports, and he […]
China’s Tiangong-1 “target spacecraft” used for the country’s human spaceflight program is now in an extended application phase – including use for Earth remote sensing. Tiangong-1 is churning out “hyperspectral” imaging products, collecting information from across the electromagnetic spectrum. Launched on September 29, 2011, Tiangong-1 — meaning “Heavenly Palace 1″ — is China’s first space […]
If larger and larger payloads – including human habitats – are to set down safely on Mars, new atmospheric reentry technologies to brake in the thin air of the Red Planet are required. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is deep into cutting-edge and crosscutting demonstration flights of hardware to land hefty payloads on the Red […]
NASA’s Origins Spectral Interpretation Resource Identification Security Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) is taking shape. This return sample mission to asteroid Bennu is to launch in the fall of 2016. The spacecraft will then rendezvous with the space rock in 2018. Following a year of reconnaissance of the object, OSIRIS-REx will snag a sample of the asteroid […]
It had to happen. After you have plunked down the cash to achieve escape velocity, there’s nothing like a “Drinkbot” to mix your drink in microgravity and dispense the cocktail. For one, you’ve earned it after that nail-biting liftoff. That’s the plan according to the Cosmic Lifestyle Corporation, slated to make its first public appearance […]
Let the games begin! A new online educational resource allows the user to build their own planetary system, putting planets into orbit around a star and racking up points until they add a planet that destabilizes the whole system. The game is an offshoot of the open-source software package – Systemic Console — astronomers use […]
The most comprehensive satellite-gleaned view of land-surface conditions from coast to coast in the conterminous United States is an eye-opener! Just issued by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), this latest look-see shows land-surface conditions from coast to coast, showcasing the extent of land cover types from forests to urban areas. The National Land Cover Database (NLCD […]
Want to take part in a worldwide celebration of this year’s Earth Day? NASA is inviting all passengers on our planet to take part in a “Global Selfie” event. For Earth Day – celebrated on April 22 – NASA is trying to create an image of Earth from the ground up while also fostering a […]
Europe is pressing ahead on blueprinting its Red Planet exploration via the ExoMars program. Some 60 scientists and engineers came together late last month for the first ExoMars 2018 Landing Site Selection Workshop, held at the European Space Agency’s (ESA) European Space Astronomy Centre near Madrid. Their task was to begin the process of drawing […]
