Washington DC (SPX) Apr 16, 2021
Research shows that a new telescope could detect a potential signature of life on other planets in as little as 60 hours. "What really surprised me about the results is that we may realistically find signs of life on other planets in the next 5 to 10 years," said Caprice Phillips, a graduate student at The Ohio State University, who will share preliminary findings at a press conference dur

Greenbelt MD (SPX) Apr 16, 2021
NASA's Parker Solar Probe mission has given scientists the first complete look at Venus' orbital dust ring, a collection of microscopic dust particles that circulates around the Sun along Venus' orbit. Though earlier missions have made some observations of Venus' orbital dust ring, Parker Solar Probe's images are the first to show the planet's dust ring for nearly its entire 360-degree span arou

Washington (AFP) April 19, 2021
NASA is hoping to make history early Monday when the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter attempts the first powered, controlled flight on another planet. The space agency had originally planned the flight for April 11 but postponed it over a software issue that was identified during a planned high-speed test of the aircraft's rotors. The issue has since been resolved, and the four-pound (1.8 kilog

Washington DC (UPI) Apr 17, 2021
NASA has announced that it is targeting Monday for the first flight of the Ingenuity Mars helicopter. A press release from the agency said the helicopter is now scheduled to attempt to fly about 3:30 a.m. EDT, and that data from the flight will return to Earth a few hours after the autonomous flight. NASA's Mars rover, Perseverance, carried the tiny, four-pound helicopter under i

Washington DC (UPI) Apr 17, 2021
NASA astronaut Kate Rubins, and Russian cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikiov and Sergey Kud-Sverchkov landed on Earth on Saturday after a half-year International Space Station mission. They departed the station in their Soyuz MS-17 spacecraft at 9:34 p.m. EDT Friday and landed safely under parachutes at 12:55 a.m. EDT Saturday in Kazakhstan after spending 185 days in space, NASA announced.

Washington (AFP) April 17, 2021
NASA's Ingenuity Mars Helicopter could make its first flight over the Red Planet as soon as Monday, the US space agency reported, following a delay of more than a week due to a possible technical issue. The mini-helicopter's trip will mark the first-ever powered, controlled flight on another planet, and will help NASA reap invaluable data about the conditions on Mars. "NASA is targeting

Image: Crew Dragon traditions

Laurel MD (SPX) Apr 16, 2021
In the weeks following its launch in early 2006, when NASA's New Horizons was still close to home, it took just minutes to transmit a command to the spacecraft, and hear back that the onboard computer received and was ready to carry out the instructions. As New Horizons crossed the solar system, and its distance from Earth jumped from millions to billions of miles, that time between contac

Pasadena CA (JPL) Apr 16, 2021
April 16, on the 154th anniversary of Wilbur Wright's birth, the Ingenuity flight team received information that the helicopter was able to complete a rapid spin test. The completion of the full-speed spin is an important milestone on the path to flight as the team continues to work on the command sequence issue identified on Sol 49 (April 9). How did we get to this milestone? As with any

Beijing (XNA) Apr 16, 2021
China has completed an upgrade of the ground system for its first-generation relay satellite, Tianlian I, according to the Beijing Space Information Transmission Center on Friday. The system upgrade marks a major advance for China in the space-based tracking, telemetry and control (TT&C) sector, said the center. The four-year upgrade was successfully completed following maintenance d