Copernical Team
Origins of life researchers develop a new ecological biosignature
When scientists hunt for life, they often look for biosignatures, chemicals or phenomena that indicate the existence of present or past life. Yet it isn't necessarily the case that the signs of life on Earth are signs of life in other planetary environments. How do we find life in systems that do not resemble ours?
In groundbreaking new work, a team led by Santa Fe Institute Professor Chri NASA rover to search for water, other resources on Moon
As part of the Artemis program, NASA is planning to send its first mobile robot to the Moon in late 2023 in search of ice and other resources on and below the lunar surface. Data from the Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover, or VIPER, would help the agency map resources at the lunar South Pole that could one day be harvested for long-term human exploration at the Moon.
VIPER's NASA awards $500K in First Phase of $5M Watts on the Moon Challenge
NASA has awarded $500,000 to seven winning teams in Phase 1 of the agency's Watts on the Moon Challenge. The technology design competition challenged U.S. innovators, from garage tinkerers to university researchers and startup entrepreneurs, to imagine a next-generation energy infrastructure on the Moon.
Sixty teams submitted original design concepts aimed at meeting future needs for robu European Space Agency plans network of moon satellites
The European Space Agency plans to build a communications and navigation network of satellites around the moon to aid future missions, including NASA's planned Artemis astronaut crews.
The agency has initiated a study of potential designs for the network, named Moonlight, that would tap private companies for proposals. Those firms include the United Kingdom's Surrey Satellite Technology Salts could be important piece of Martian organic puzzle
A NASA team has found that organic, or carbon-containing, salts are likely present on Mars, with implications for the Red Planet's past habitability.
A NASA team has found that organic salts are likely present on Mars. Like shards of ancient pottery, these salts are the chemical remnants of organic compounds, such as those previously detected by NASA's Curiosity rover. Organic compounds an Plans underway for Ingenuity's 6th flight
Plans are underway for NASA's Ingenuity Mars Helicopter to make its sixth flight on the Red Planet in the next week. The flight is the first to be executed during the helicopter's operations demonstration phase and includes scouting multiple surface features from the air and landing at a different airfield.
In this new phase, data and images from the flight will be returned to Earth in the NASA fires up fourth RS-25 engine test
NASA conducted its fourth RS-25 single-engine hot fire of the year May 20, a continuation of its seven-part test series to support development and production of engines for the agency's Space Launch System (SLS) rocket on future missions to the Moon.
The engine was fired for more than 8 minutes (500 seconds) on the A-1 Test Stand at Stennis Space Center near Bay St. Louis, the same amount SpaceX's 22nd Commercial Resupply Mission to ISS
The 22nd SpaceX cargo resupply mission carrying scientific research and technology demonstrations launches to the International Space Station from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida no earlier than June 3. Experiments aboard include studying how water bears tolerate space, whether microgravity affects symbiotic relationships, analyzing the formation of kidney stones, and more.
Highligh Video: Bringing connectivity to the moon
As international teams across the world forge plans to revisit the moon, ESA is elaborating how best to facilitate this exploration.
As part of its moonlight initiative, the agency is encouraging European space companies to put a constellation of telecommunications and navigation satellites around the moon.
To succeed, the proposed lunar missions will require reliable navigation and telecommunication capabilities. Building these independently would be costly, complex and inefficient.
If this work were outsourced to a consortium of space companies, each individual mission would become more cost-efficient.
Having one system dedicated to lunar telecommunications and navigation could reduce design complexity, liberating missions to concentrate on their core activities.
Because missions could rely on this dedicated telecommunications and navigation service, they would be lighter. This would make space for more scientific instruments or other cargo.
An accurate and reliable telecommunications and navigation service would enable missions to land wherever they wanted. Radio astronomers could set up observatories on the far side of the moon.
Rovers could trundle over the lunar surface more speedily. It could even enable the teleoperation of rovers and other equipment from Earth.
Talking to the moon: Europe pitches lunar satellites plan
The European Space Agency presented a vision Thursday to put satellites in orbit around the moon that would facilitate future missions to Earth's closest neighbor.
