7 things to know about the NASA rover about to land on Mars
Wednesday, 06 January 2021 12:54
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With only about 50 million miles (80 million kilometers) left to go in its 293-million-mile (471-million-kilometer) journey, NASA's Mars 2020 Perseverance rover is nearing its new planetary home. The spacecraft has begun its approach to the Red Planet and in 43 days, on Feb. 18, 2021, Perseverance will blaze through Mars' atmosphere at about 12,100 mph (19,500 kph), touching down gently on the surface about seven minutes later.
"We're working on our last adjustments to put Perseverance in perfect position to land in one of the most interesting places on Mars," said Fernando Abilleira, deputy mission manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.
A new NASA space telescope, SPHEREx, is moving ahead
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NASA's upcoming space telescope, the Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer, or SPHEREx, is one step closer to launch. The mission has officially entered Phase C, in NASA lingo. That means the agency has approved preliminary design plans for the observatory, and work can begin on creating a final, detailed design, as well as on building the hardware and software.
Managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, SPHEREx is scheduled to launch no earlier than June 2024 and no later than April 2025. Its instruments will detect near-infrared light, or wavelengths several times longer than the light visible to the human eye. During its two-year mission, it will map the entire sky four times, creating a massive database of stars, galaxies, nebulas (clouds of gas and dust in space), and many other celestial objects.
Image: A good GRASP on the New Year
Wednesday, 06 January 2021 12:53 Write a comment
NASA astronaut Mike Hopkins performs the Grasp experiment in the Columbus module of the International Space Station ahead of the New Year. The experiment studies how the central nervous system, specifically hand-eye coordination, adapts to microgravity.
Grasp stands for Gravitational References for Sensimotor Performance and seeks to better understand how the central nervous system integrates information from different senses, such as sight, sound and touch, to coordinate hand movements and determine what role gravity plays.
How does the experiment work? Mike dons virtual reality (VR) gear that is coupled with a laptop and driven by an audio/graphics system. The VR headset simulates a series of tasks for the him, while a 3-D motion tracker updates the display in real time in response to his hand, body and arm movements. Measurements are taken on ground and during spaceflight.
ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet was the first to use the VR gear to perform the experiment during his 2016 mission. ESA astronauts Alexander Gerst and Luca Parmitano followed suit during their respective missions. Watch a video of Alexander performing the experiment.
Researchers suspect that, on Earth, the brain uses gravity as a reference.
Momentus delays first Vigoride launch
Wednesday, 06 January 2021 11:48 Write a comment
WASHINGTON — In-space transportation provider Momentus is delaying its first operational mission, which was to fly on a SpaceX Falcon 9 later this month, because of delays completing an interagency review.
In a Jan.
China gears up for space station, cargo and crewed mission launches
Wednesday, 06 January 2021 10:34 Write a comment
HELSINKI — China is preparing to launch three major missions in the next few months to initiate the construction phase of the country’s space station project.
The Sun in 2020
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The Sun in 2020 Warning: Neutron Star Collision Imminent
Wednesday, 06 January 2021 08:52 Write a comment
On 17 August 2017, an alert went out roughly 40 minutes after the LIGO observatory detected gravitational waves from a pair of colliding neutron stars. This alert sent telescopes worldwide slewing rapidly in an all-hands-on-deck effort to image the fireworks show accompanying the merger.
But what if that alert had gone out before the collision?
b>When Stars Collide br> /b>
When neu Rocket Lab's to launch communications satellite for OHB Group in first 2021 mission
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Rocket Lab, the global leader in dedicated small satellite launch, has announced its first Electron launch of the new year will be a dedicated mission for European space technology company OHB Group.
This dedicated mission, named 'Another One Leaves the Crust,' is scheduled for lift-off during a 10-day launch window opening on January 16th NZT/UTC. Encapsulated inside Electron's fairing wi New funding for innovative space tech to help solve problems on Earth
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Through the UK Space Agency, the government is giving a cash injection to 5 projects specifically designed to bring together UK business expertise with universities to help build space solutions to global problems, on UK soil.
One of the projects, involving the University of Southampton, will use artificial intelligence to automatically detect buried archaeological remains on satellite ima NASA prepares Orion simulator for lunar mission training
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NASA is setting up a high-tech simulator, made by Lockheed Martin, to teach astronauts how to operate the Orion capsule during planned moon missions.
Weak funding from Congress has cast doubt over the schedule for such lunar missions, but NASA is moving forward with preparations, officials have said.
Lockheed delivered the Orion simulator to Johnson Space Center in mid-December, Northrop Grumman's NG-14 Cygnus Spacecraft completes primary mission to ISS
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Northrop Grumman reports that the company has completed the first phase of its 14th cargo resupply mission to the International Space Station under NASA's Commercial Resupply Mission (CRS-2) contract. Cygnus was released by the station's robotic arm at 10:11 a.m. ET, carrying more than 4,000 pounds of disposable cargo and will remain in orbit for approximately two weeks for the secondary phase o NASA explores upper limits of global navigation systems for Artemis
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The Artemis generation of lunar explorers will establish a sustained human presence on the Moon, prospecting for resources, making revolutionary discoveries, and proving technologies key to future deep space exploration.
To support these ambitions, NASA navigation engineers from the Space Communications and Navigation (SCaN) program are developing a navigation architecture that will provid Brown student satellite ends its mission after 14,000 orbits of Earth
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After performing valiantly for two-and-a-half years in the extreme environment of low Earth orbit, a small satellite designed and built by Brown University undergraduates re-entered the atmosphere on Saturday, Dec. 26, burning up after one final pass over North America.
Amateur radio operators in Michigan and New Jersey picked up the last two transmissions from the satellite, called EQUiSa Chinese space enterprise gears up for record-breaking 40-plus launches in 2021
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The China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC), the leading force of the country's space industry, has released a plan for more than 40 space launches for 2021, a new high following the already busy and fruitful 2020.
The construction of China's space station, the key space mission in the year, will enter a crucial stage, according to the CASC.
The country plans to lau Space Station, Cygnus test technology for 5G communications, other benefits
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A Northrop Grumman Cygnus supply craft carried a load of new scientific experiments to the International Space Station in early October. That is only one of the jobs the craft has, though. Once it undocks from the station Cygnus will continue operations by hosting a two-week test of emerging technologies known as SharkSat.
Developed internally at Northrop Grumman, SharkSat is just one exam