NASA Retires Mineral Mapping Instrument on Mars Orbiter
Wednesday, 26 April 2023 04:10
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One of six instruments aboard the agency's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, CRISM produced global maps of minerals on the Red Planet's surface. NASA switched off one of its oldest instruments studying Mars on April 3, a step that's been planned since last year. Riding aboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, CRISM, or the Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars, revealed minerals such Curiosity: Move slowly and don't break things: Sols 3810-3811
Wednesday, 26 April 2023 04:10 Write a comment
As the blog for sols 3807-3809 noted, we have cleared the canyon! The accompanying Left Navcam image shows the view back down the canyon, showing all those tricky rocks we had to climb over. You can even spot some wheel tracks further back down if you peer vey closely. We don't exactly have free-wheeling territory up ahead in our drive direction, but it is a little flatter.
This hopefully NASA extracts oxygen from lunar soil simulant
Wednesday, 26 April 2023 04:10 Write a comment
As NASA works toward sending astronauts to the Moon through Artemis missions, one of the agency's primary goals is to establish a long-term presence on the lunar surface. Resources like oxygen are crucial building blocks for making that vision a reality. In addition to using oxygen for breathing, it can also be used as a propellant for transportation, helping lunar visitors stay longer and ventu Pioneering research sheds new light on the origins and composition of planet Mars
Wednesday, 26 April 2023 04:10 Write a comment
A new study has uncovered intriguing insights into the liquid core at the centre of Mars, furthering understanding of the planet's formation and evolution.
The research, led by the University of Bristol and published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the US, reveals the first-ever detections of sound waves travelling into the Martian core. Measurements from China releases first panoramic images of Mars
Wednesday, 26 April 2023 04:10 Write a comment
China published on Monday the first global panoramic images of Mars taken by the country's Tianwen 1 mission.
The color images include the Robinson projection, Mercator projection, azimuthal projection and orthographic projection of the Eastern and Western hemispheres of Mars, with a spatial resolution of 76 meters.
The images were jointly released by the China National Space Adminis China lunar samples gifted to Russia, France
Wednesday, 26 April 2023 04:10 Write a comment
China has gifted lunar samples retrieved by the Chang'e 5 mission to Russia and France to boost lunar research, according to the China National Space Administration.
The administration announced on Monday that 1.5 grams of lunar samples were presented to Russia during President Vladimir Putin's visit to China in February 2022. In return, Russia gave China a reciprocal amount from the 1970 China plans to retrieve Martian soil by 2030
Wednesday, 26 April 2023 04:10 Write a comment
China's Chang'e 5 robotic mission created history when it brought back samples from the lunar surface in 2020, and now, Chinese space scientists have set their sights on another celestial body - Mars.
According to Wu Yanhua, chief designer of China's deep-space exploration programs, the nation plans to bring Martian soil back to Earth around 2030. The mission has been named Tianwen 3, whic China to launch Tianwen 2 mission to explore asteroid
Wednesday, 26 April 2023 04:10 Write a comment
HEFEI - China plans to launch the Tianwen 2 mission around 2025 to collect samples from a near-Earth asteroid and explore a comet, a senior space expert said Monday.
The main goal of the Tianwen 2 mission is to send a probe to a near-Earth asteroid coded 2016HO3 to retrieve samples, Zhang Rongqiao, the chief designer of China's planetary exploration program and chief designer of the Tianwe Scientist lays out plans for international lunar station and 3D luanr printing
Wednesday, 26 April 2023 04:10 Write a comment
China is proposing to establish a multinational organization to take charge of the construction and operation of the International Lunar Research Station.
Wu Weiren, an academician at the Chinese Academy of Engineering and chief planner of the country's lunar programs, said on Tuesday in Hefei, Anhui province, the organization will be responsible for planning, building and running the luna Astrobotic purchases Falcon Heavy for third lunar lander mission
Wednesday, 26 April 2023 01:03 Write a comment
Lunar lander developer Astrobotic announced April 25 it will launch a third mission to the moon in 2026 on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy.
AST SpaceMobile conducts first direct-to-device voice test
Tuesday, 25 April 2023 23:11 Write a comment
AST SpaceMobile announced April 25 it made the first voice call last week with a standard smartphone using its BlueWalker 3 test satellite in low Earth orbit.
SpaceX to take over West Coast launch pad previously used by ULA
Tuesday, 25 April 2023 18:51 Write a comment
SpaceX is getting a second launch pad on the West Coast after gaining approval to lease Space Launch Complex 6 (SLC-6) at Vandenberg Space Force Base, California, a historic pad previously occupied by United Launch Alliance.
Norway irked over Swedish rocket crash on its turf
Tuesday, 25 April 2023 18:48 Write a comment
The Norwegian foreign ministry expressed irritation Tuesday with Sweden for not immediately informing it of a research rocket that crashed in Norway, in a rare spat between the two neighbours.
The rocket, which was launched early Monday from the Esrange Space Centre in Kiruna, northern Sweden, plunged into a mountainside in the Malselv municipality in Norway's far north, about 10 kilometres (six miles) from the closest inhabited area.
No one was injured and no material damage was reported.
"The crash of a rocket like this is a very serious incident that can cause serious damage," the foreign ministry in Oslo said.
"When such a border violation occurs, it is crucial that those responsible immediately inform the relevant Norwegian authorities through the proper channels," it said.
The rocket was carrying out experiments in zero gravity at an altitude of 250 kilometres.
"The rocket took a slightly longer and more westerly trajectory than calculated and landed after a completed flight 15 kilometres (9.3 miles) into Norway," the Swedish Space Corporation said in a statement on Monday.
"Work on retrieving the payload is underway," it added.
SpaceX Starship clobbered Texas launch pad; future Space Coast launches prompt contingency plans
Tuesday, 25 April 2023 17:32 Write a comment
The most powerful rocket to ever launch from Earth left a crater at the SpaceX launch site last week, but Elon Musk said teams could be ready to try another Starship launch in as little as one to two months.
Meanwhile, SpaceX continues to build out a backup site for human launches on the Space Coast to assuage NASA fears of potential Starship damage for when it starts flying from Kennedy Space Center.
Those launches won't come until SpaceX completes testing from SpaceX's Starbase launch site in Boca Chica, Texas where the first integrated launch of the Starship and its Super Heavy booster took place last Thursday.
While it didn't make it to space, the booster's 33 Raptor engines that can produce more than 17 million pounds of thrust was able to clear the launch tower. About four minutes after flying only to about 24 miles and tumbling back to Earth, SpaceX sent the self-destruct command resulting in the rocket exploding over the Gulf of Mexico.
"The vehicle experienced multiple engines out during the flight test, lost altitude, and began to tumble," reads an update on the SpaceX website.
Japan firm's pioneering Moon landing fails
Tuesday, 25 April 2023 17:20 Write a comment
A Japanese startup attempting the first private landing on the Moon said Wednesday it had lost communication with its spacecraft and assumed the lunar mission had failed.
Ispace said that it could not establish communication with the unmanned Hakuto-R lunar lander after its expected landing time, a frustrating end to a mission that began with a launch from the United States over four months ago.
"We have not confirmed communication with the lander," a company official told reporters about 25 minutes after the expected landing.
"We have to assume that we could not complete the landing on the lunar surface," the official said.
Officials said they would continue to try and establish contact with the spacecraft, which was carrying payloads from several countries, including a lunar rover from the United Arab Emirates.
Ispace founder and CEO Takeshi Hakamada said after the apparent failed landing that they had acquired data from the spacecraft all the way up to the planned landing and would be examining that for signs of what happened.