Moon lander Odysseus has a new home and brings an artistic project along for the ride
Tuesday, 05 March 2024 20:13
The moon lander Odysseus, known as Odie, touched down on the moon's surface on February 22, becoming the first time the U.S. has landed on the moon in more than 50 years and the first commercial moon lander to successfully land on the moon. Along with its science payload, the spacecraft also brought along a fusion of art and space exploration, SETI Institute's Artist in Residence (SETI AIR), Felipe Pérez Santiago's Earthling Project, a collection of global musical compositions representing Earth's cultural diversity and harmony.
Intuitive Machines built Odie, and a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched it. The mission is one of several NASA contracted as part of its Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program.
"These recent commercial missions mark the beginning of a new chapter: humanity's permanent settlement on the moon. This leap forward requires the establishment of industries and services to support the complex infrastructure needed for lunar living.
NASA's SpaceX Crew-8 mission docks with International Space Station
Tuesday, 05 March 2024 20:08
A SpaceX Dragon capsule successfully docked with the International Space Station early Tuesday, more than 24 hours after it launched from the Florida coast with three American astronauts and one Russian cosmonaut onboard.
The spacecraft docked with ISS' forward-facing Harmony module at 2:28 a.m. EST.
The opening of the vehicle's hatch is expected to take less than two hours after Shenzhou 17 astronauts complete China's first in-space repair job
Tuesday, 05 March 2024 20:08
In a significant milestone for China's space exploration efforts, the Shenzhou XVII mission astronauts conducted a critical repair operation during their second spacewalk at the Tiangong space station, marking the first instance of such an endeavor by Chinese astronauts.
The China Manned Space Agency confirmed that mission commander Senior Colonel Tang Hongbo and crew member Lieutenant Col Australia's first orbital launch facility license awarded to Bowen Spaceport
Tuesday, 05 March 2024 20:08
Australia is poised to make a giant leap in its space exploration and commercialization efforts with the green light for its first orbital launch site, the Bowen Orbital Spaceport, located in Queensland. This historic milestone comes with the approval of the country's inaugural orbital launch facility license under the Space (Launches and Returns) Act 2018, setting the stage for domestic and com Agile Space wins contract for deployable satellite processing unit
Tuesday, 05 March 2024 19:48
New NASA astronauts graduate, eying moon—and Mars
Tuesday, 05 March 2024 19:41
After two years of rigorous training, ten Americans officially became astronauts on Tuesday, and are now eligible for planned NASA missions to the International Space Station, the moon, and—if all goes well—to Mars.
Two Emiratis who trained alongside them also graduated Tuesday during a ceremony at the Johnson Space Center in Houston.
Members of the class, nicknamed "The Flies," were selected from more than 12,000 applicants in 2021 and their training included simulated spacewalking, robotics, space station systems, and more.
"You are here because you are exceptional," said NASA associate administrator Jim Free. We ask you to sit on the pointy end of a rocket and risk your life to advance our nation's goal to explore the unknown.
U.S. general warns of Russia’s enduring space threat despite Ukraine woes
Tuesday, 05 March 2024 17:47
Astronauts arrive at International Space Station for swap
Tuesday, 05 March 2024 17:20
Three US astronauts and a Russian cosmonaut arrived Tuesday at the International Space Station for a six-month mission on board the orbiting laboratory.
During their stay, in which they are rotating in to replace departing crew, some 200 scientific experiments are scheduled to be carried out.
The quartet blasted off from Florida late Sunday aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.
The capsule docked with the ISS and its hatch was opened at 3:50 am Tuesday US eastern time (0850 GMT), with the smiling new arrivals hugging their colleagues as they entered, a live feed of the docking showed.
This is the eighth standard ISS crew rotation mission performed by SpaceX for the US space agency NASA, reflected in the mission name: Crew-8.
American Michael Barratt is the only Crew-8 astronaut to have already visited the space station. The ISS stay is the first for Americans Matthew Dominick and Jeanette Epps, and Russian Alexander Grebenkin.
They join seven crew already on board the ISS.
After a transition period of a few days, the four members of Crew-7—from Denmark, Japan, Russia and the United States—will return to Earth aboard another SpaceX capsule.
Study determines the original orientations of rocks drilled on Mars
Tuesday, 05 March 2024 17:13
As it trundles around an ancient lakebed on Mars, NASA's Perseverance rover is assembling a one-of-a-kind rock collection. The car-sized explorer is methodically drilling into the Red Planet's surface and pulling out cores of bedrock that it's storing in sturdy titanium tubes. Scientists hope to one day return the tubes to Earth and analyze their contents for traces of embedded microbial life. NASA Names Winners in Lunar Gateway Packing and Storing Challenge
Tuesday, 05 March 2024 17:13
Humans living in space have confronted the challenge of maximizing the physical space available to them. As NASA works to return astronauts to the Moon with its Artemis campaign and chart a new era of deep space exploration with Gateway, humanity's first space station in lunar orbit, being organized and space-efficient is important.
To help address the iss ispace Europe and CDS Partner to Deploy Advanced Localization Tech on the Moon
Tuesday, 05 March 2024 17:13
ispace EUROPE S.A., a Luxembourg-based subsidiary of ispace, inc., has entered into a strategic memorandum of understanding with Control Data Systems SRL (CDS). This collaboration is aimed at developing localization and telecommunications technology to for Lunar applications in support of the quest for sustainable human presence and infrastructure development on Earth's natural satellite. NASA uses ORNL supercomputers to plan smooth landing on Mars
Tuesday, 05 March 2024 17:13
A U.S. mission to land astronauts on the surface of Mars will be unlike any other extraterrestrial landing ever undertaken by NASA.
Although the space agency has successfully landed nine robotic missions on Mars since its first surface missions in 1976 with the Viking Project, safely bringing humans to Mars will require new technologies for flight through the Martian atmosphere. But these Curiosity successfully drills 40 holes on Mars
Tuesday, 05 March 2024 17:13
Earth planning date: Friday, March 1, 2024: The "Mineral King" drill hole did not quite reach the target depth that we typically desire to ensure that we have enough sample in the drill stem to deliver to our internal CheMin and SAM instruments.
However, based on the information we did have (see details in the Sol 4110 blog), we proceeded with delivery to CheMin, and got the good news yest NASA's Juno Mission Measures Oxygen Production at Europa
Tuesday, 05 March 2024 17:13
Scientists with NASA's Juno mission to Jupiter have calculated the rate of oxygen being produced at the Jovian moon Europa to be substantially less than most previous studies. Published on March 4 in Nature Astronomy, the findings were derived by measuring hydrogen outgassing from the icy moon's surface using data collected by the spacecraft's Jovian Auroral Distributions Experiment (JADE) instr