January 20th, 2022
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Data and images collected by China’s Yutu-2 rover indicate it has experienced varying degrees of mild slip and skid. The lunar terrain trod by the six-wheeled, off-road robot, is relatively flat at large scales but scattered with local gentle slopes. “Cloddy soil sticking on its wheels implies a greater cohesion of the lunar soil than […]
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A worldwide group of researchers is engaged in a unique, archaeological study of crew culture within the International Space station, focused on the orbiting habitat as a “microsociety in a miniworld.” This global inside look at the ISS is called The International Space Station Archaeological Project (ISSAP) and is expected to supply new insights regarding […]
Future human missions to the Red Planet and the voyage back to Earth are expected to take two to three years. During those lengthy sojourns, significant amounts of waste will be generated. A crowdsourcing competition is seeking innovative approaches to repurpose, recycle, and reprocess the waste generated onboard to enable mission sustainability. HeroX is a […]
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover at Gale Crater is now performing Sol 3361 tasks. “We continue to document rocks similar to what we saw at ‘The Prow,’ a dark appearing rock outcrop with amazing sedimentary structures and details,” reports Catherine O’Connell-Cooper, Planetary Geologist at University of New Brunswick; Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada. “To do this, […]
Research carried out by NASA’s Curiosity rover at Gale Crater point to the possible ultraviolet degradation of biologically produced methane. The robot has permitted scientists to analyze carbon isotopes in sediment samples taken from half a dozen exposed locations, including an exposed cliff. According to a just-published paper led by Christopher House, professor of geosciences […]
China’s Chang’e-4 probe was launched on December 8, 2018, making the first-ever soft landing within the Von Kármán Crater in the South Pole-Aitken Basin on the Moon’s far side on January 3, 2019. The Chang’e-4 lander deployed the Yutu-2 rover that has now wheeled over 1,000 meters of lunar landscape. The lander and rover have […]
Dylan Taylor is a “space angel,” an investor in NewSpace and last December he reached a new career high, quite literally. He flew onboard Blue Origin’s New Shepard suborbital rocketship on its NS-19 mission. Blue Origin successfully completed its third human spaceflight on Saturday, December 11, 2021 the first with six passengers to make the […]
China’s Yutu-2 far side lunar rover has taken over 1,000 photos since it landed on the Moon three years ago. The robot is exploring the Von Kármán crater, a large lunar impact feature that is located in the South Pole-Aitken Basin. Yutu-2 was deployed from the Chang’e-4 lander that touched down on the far side […]
London-based Sen has announced that its first satellite able to stream Ultra High Definition videos of Earth is now in orbit. Sen’s ETV-A1 was launched January 13 aboard the SpaceX Falcon 9 rideshare. On board this launch were 105 commercial and government spacecraft, including CubeSats, microsats, PocketQubes, and orbital transfer vehicles. The Sen satellite is […]
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover at Gale Crater is now performing Sol 3356 duties. Ken Herkenhoff, a planetary geologist at USGS Astrogeology Science Center in Flagstaff, Arizona, reports that a rover “bump” has moved the Mars machinery closer to “The Prow” outcrop. The short drive placed the front wheels very close to the base of the […]
