Washington DC (UPI) Sep 17, 2021
Scientists believe some of the recently-collected rock samples taken by NASA's Perseverance Mars rover likely contain organic matter. The four most recent samples are all sedimentary rocks from an ancient river delta in the Red Planet's Jezero Crater, NASA confirmed this week. They mark the first-ever sedimentary rocks gathered from another planet. "The rocks that we have

Pasadena CA (JPL) Sep 18, 2022
The SHERLOC and PIXL proximity science instruments on Perseverance have enabled more detailed observations of Martian chemistry and minerology than ever before. PIXL can isolate features as small as a grain of sand. To achieve this, these instruments on the end of the robotic arm must be placed at a precise distance from the feature of interest - very close, but not too close. PIXL even has a "h

Charlottesville VA (SPX) Sep 18, 2022
In 1919 astronomers Arthur Eddington and Andrew Crommelin captured photographic images of a total solar eclipse. The Sun was in the constellation Taurus at the time, and a handful of its stars could be seen in the photographs. But the stars weren't quite in their expected place. The tremendous gravity of the Sun had deflected the light of these stars, making them appear slightly out of place. It

Beijing (XNA) Sep 18, 2022
Crew members on the Shenzhou XIV mission stepped out of their spacecraft for the second spacewalk on Saturday afternoon, according to the China Manned Space Agency. The agency said in a brief news release that Senior Colonel Cai Xuzhe opened an extravehicular activity hatch on the Tiangong space station at 1:35 pm and then floated out of the station. He was followed by mission commander Se

A major arm of China’s state-owned space contractor is looking at developing a series of partially and fully-reusable launch vehicles apparently in response to SpaceX’s Starship.

NASA has released a request for proposals for a second human lunar lander for the Artemis program to join the Starship lander under development by SpaceX.

The post NASA requests proposals for second Artemis crewed lunar lander appeared first on SpaceNews.

The Space Systems Command, the Space Development Agency and the Missile Defense Agency have formed a new program office to coordinate disparate procurements of satellites to detect ballistic and hypersonic missiles.

The post New tri-agency office to coordinate U.S.

Week in images: 12-16 September 2022

Discover our week through the lens

Satellite radar startups disagree over how much of their resources should be moved to meet anticipated demand from commercial customers and away from governments, which today provide the bulk of revenues.