Copernical Team
Why NASA is trying to crash land on Mars
Like a car's crumple zone, the experimental SHIELD lander is designed to absorb a hard impact.
NASA has successfully touched down on Mars nine times, relying on cutting-edge parachutes, massive airbags, and jetpacks to set spacecraft safely on the surface. Now engineers are testing whether or not the easiest way to get to the Martian surface is to crash.
Rather than slow a spacecraft A hydrogen-rich first atmosphere for Mars inferred from clays on its surface
According to new research, Mars may have been born a blue and water-covered world, long before the Earth had even finished forming. The discovery could open a window for scientists on an overlooked chapter in Martian history.
In a recent study published in Earth and Planetary Science Letters, a team of researchers, including several from Arizona State University, found that Mars's earliest Celebrating Halloween and investigating ghoulish rocks from the Red Planet
Have you ever seen faces on Mars? What about weirdly shaped rocks resembling animals and bones? Rocks with spooky holes and crevices?
Over the course of Perseverance's time on Mars, multiple images captured by the Mastcam-Z instrument aboard the Rover have garnered special attention from the wider public. A recent example of this involved a Mastcam-Z image acquired on June 12, 2022 (Sol 46 NASA orders three more Orion spacecraft from Lockheed Martin
Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT) is now under contract to deliver three Orion spacecraft to NASA for its Artemis VI-VIII missions, continuing the delivery of exploration vehicles to the agency to carry astronauts into deep space and around the Moon supporting the Artemis program.
Lockheed Martin is the prime contractor to NASA for the Orion program and has completed two Orion vehicles-EFT-1 whi Sidus Space executes launch agreement with Vaya Space
Sidus Space, Inc. (NASDAQ:SIDU), a Space-as-a-Service company, focused on mission critical hardware manufacturing combined with commercial satellite design, manufacture, launch, and data collection, has signed a launch agreement with Vaya Space for four launches over multiple years. Vaya Space is an emerging leader in sustainable space access and this agreement expands Sidus Space's ability to d NASA's Curiosity Mars rover reaches long-awaited salty region
After journeying this summer through a narrow, sand-lined pass, NASA's Curiosity Mars rover recently arrived in the "sulfate-bearing unit," a long-sought region of Mount Sharp enriched with salty minerals.
Scientists hypothesize that billions of years ago, streams, and ponds left behind the minerals as the water dried up. Assuming the hypothesis is correct, these minerals offer tantalizing clues as to how—and why—the Red Planet's climate changed from being more Earth-like to the frozen desert it is today.
European Space Agency to launch two missions on SpaceX rockets
The European Space Agency announced Thursday it will use SpaceX's Falcon 9 rockets to launch two scientific missions because of delays to its own Ariane 6 rocket and the cancellation of flights on Russia's Soyuz launchers.
The ESA's space telescope Euclid had been planned to launch next year on a Soyuz rocket, but in February Russia pulled out in response to European sanctions over Moscow's war in Ukraine.
Euclid, which aims to better understand the mysteries of dark energy and dark matter, will now instead catch a ride into space on the Falcon 9 rocket of billionaire Elon Musk's US company SpaceX.
The ESA's Hera mission, which will probe the Didymos asteroid that NASA successfully knocked off course in September by smashing the DART spacecraft into it, will launch on a Falcon 9 in late 2024, ESA director general Josef Aschbacher said.
Looking to move to a galaxy far, far away? An innovative system evaluates habitability of distant planets
NASA extends contract with Planet Labs granting access to EO data to 300,000 scientists
Planet Labs PBC (NYSE:PL), a leading provider of daily data and insights about Earth, reports that NASA has exercised an option to extend its contract with Planet under the Commercial SmallSat Data Acquisition (CSDA) Program through September 2023.
Planet has been providing data to NASA scientists and federally funded researchers under this program since 2018 and the company looks forward Distribution partners selected for Inmarsat's SwiftJet Business Aviation Inflight Connectivity Service
Inmarsat's ground-breaking new SwiftJet inflight connectivity service for the business aviation market has passed an important milestone, after industry heavyweights Satcom Direct and Honeywell were named as the first global distribution partners.
The announcement comes less than five months after SwiftJet was launched as the world's fastest business aviation inflight connectivity service