NASA seeks faster, more affordable Mars sample return mission
Wednesday, 05 June 2024 20:57
NASA officials want a new Mars sample return mission plan that is faster, costs less and isn't as complex than one scrapped in April.
The space agency doesn't want to wait until 2040 and spend $11 billion to return core samples being collected on Mars, which the recently scrapped plan would have required.
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson in April canceled the lengthy mission plan, saying he Seeking Water Worlds: NASA's Solid State Quantum Magnetometers
Wednesday, 05 June 2024 20:57
"Follow the water!" The solar system contains water in various forms, from the Sun's water vapor to Pluto's ice. Water is essential not only for life but also for its geological properties and potential uses. For instance, lunar and Martian ice could support human exploration, and comets may have brought water to Earth. The icy comets and rings of Saturn illustrate solar system evolution. Hubble trouble: Veteran space telescope forced to take it easy
Wednesday, 05 June 2024 20:57
The venerable Hubble Space Telescope, which has revolutionized astronomical discovery since its launch in 1990, will ease into retirement with a scaled-back observing schedule, NASA officials said Tuesday.
One of the three gyroscopes that control the direction in which the telescope points has become unstable in recent months, leading to intermittent "safe mode" episodes - most recently on ESA's OPS-SAT CubeSat Mission Concludes
Wednesday, 05 June 2024 20:57
ESA's experimental OPS-SAT CubeSat mission ended on the night of May 22-23, 2024 (CEST).
Launched on December 18, 2019, OPS-SAT aimed to make spacecraft operations accessible to a wide audience, offering a fast, free, and non-bureaucratic experiment service for European and Canadian industry and academia.
The mission involved experimenters from companies, universities, and public ins European Team Validates Flow Models in Zero Gravity
Wednesday, 05 June 2024 20:57
For years, various models have been developed to describe a key class of mixing effects in flows, such as those in chemical reactors. Experimental validation has lagged due to gravity's influence. A European research team, including the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) and partners at the University of Szeged and Universite libre de Bruxelles (ULB), has addressed this with experiments Kate Darling to Highlight Robotics at ISSRDC 2024 Keynote
Wednesday, 05 June 2024 20:57
Kate Darling, an expert in robotics and society, will deliver a keynote address on Wednesday, July 31, 2024, at the International Space Station Research and Development Conference (ISSRDC).
Darling, known as the "Mistress of Machines," researches ethical issues related to intelligent robots at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). She leads the Boston Dynamics AI Institute's stu WVU Astrophysicist leads development of new gravitational wave detector
Wednesday, 05 June 2024 20:57
A theoretical astrophysicist at West Virginia University is spearheading efforts in the development of a pioneering space probe to detect and measure gravitational waves - ripples in the fabric of space and time.
Sean McWilliams, associate professor of physics and astronomy in the WVU Eberly College of Arts and Sciences, was part of a team that first detected these ripples in 2015, confirm Flying saucers and alien abductions: New book explores history of UFOs
Wednesday, 05 June 2024 20:57
The end of the Second World War marked the beginning of an era dominated by new technologies, the Cold War, nuclear threats, and the first UFO sightings.
Strange aerial events have been noted since ancient times, but the term "unidentified flying object" represents both a concept and a theory, according to Greg Eghigian, professor of history and bioethics at Penn State. In his new book, "A Reconnaissance of potentially habitable worlds with Webb
Wednesday, 05 June 2024 19:20
Webinar: U.S. – Japan Perspectives on Space Sustainability
Wednesday, 05 June 2024 19:06
What to know about Boeing's first spaceflight carrying NASA astronauts
Wednesday, 05 June 2024 18:23
NASA astronauts practice next giant leap for Artemis
Wednesday, 05 June 2024 16:02
The physics remain the same, but the rockets, spacecraft, landers, and spacesuits are new as NASA and its industry partners prepare for Artemis astronauts to walk on the moon for the first time since 1972.
NASA astronaut Doug "Wheels" Wheelock and Axiom Space astronaut Peggy Whitson put on spacesuits, developed by Axiom Space, to interact with and evaluate full-scale developmental hardware of SpaceX's Starship HLS (Human Landing System) that will be used for landing humans on the moon under Artemis. The test, conducted April 30, marked the first time astronauts in pressurized spacesuits interacted with a test version of Starship HLS hardware.
NASA has a new database to predict meteoroid hazards for spaceflight
Wednesday, 05 June 2024 15:43
There are plenty of problems that spacecraft designers have to consider. Getting smacked in the sensitive parts by a rock is just one of them, but it is a very important one.
A micrometeoroid hitting the wrong part of the spacecraft could jeopardize an entire mission, and the years of work it took to get to the point where the mission was actually in space in the first place.
But even if the engineers who design spacecraft know about this risk, how is it best to avoid them? A new programming library from research at NASA could help.
Admittedly, engineers already have a tool for this purpose. NASA's Meteoroid Engineering Model (MEM) allows them to plug in a planned trajectory for their spacecraft and receive an output that defines where and from which direction they are likely to encounter micrometeoroids.
Firefly inks multi-launch deal with Lockheed Martin for Alpha rocket rides
Wednesday, 05 June 2024 15:11
Boeing launches NASA astronauts for the first time after years of delays
Wednesday, 05 June 2024 14:51
Boeing launched astronauts for the first time Wednesday, belatedly joining SpaceX as a second taxi service for NASA.
A pair of NASA test pilots blasted off aboard Boeing's Starliner capsule for the International Space Station, the first to fly the new spacecraft.
The trip by Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams was expected to take 25 hours, with an arrival Thursday.