Bay St. Louis MS (SPX) Jul 22, 2021
NASA conducted a fifth RS-25 single-engine hot fire July 14 as a continuation of its ongoing seven-part test series, supporting development and production of engines for the agency's Space Launch System (SLS) rocket on future missions to the Moon. Operators fired the engine for more than eight minutes (500 seconds) on the A-1 Test Stand at Stennis Space Center near Bay St. Louis, Mississip

Washington (AFP) July 21, 2021
Tesla founder Elon Musk said Wednesday he personally has invested in bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies but that he does not manipulate or "dump" the digital currencies. In a wide-ranging online panel discussion that included Twitter and Square founder Jack Dorsey, Musk said he believes in cryptocurrencies as a way to "increase the power of the individual in relation to government," and that

Tokyo, Japan (SPX) Jul 22, 2021
Little is known about the weather at night on Venus as the absence of sunlight makes imaging difficult. Now, researchers have devised a way to use infrared sensors on board the Venus orbiter Akatsuki to reveal the first details of the nighttime weather of our nearest neighbor. Their analytical methods could be used to study other planets including Mars and gas giants as well. Furthermore, the st

Washington DC (SPX) Jul 22, 2021
NASA initiated collaboration with industry in the agency's first formal step in establishing regular crewed transportation to the lunar surface as a part of Artemis. In a request for information (RFI), NASA is asking U.S. companies for feedback to inform the agency's plan for purchasing human landing system services to ferry astronauts from Gateway in lunar orbit to the surface of the Moon.

Washington (AFP) July 21, 2021
The Perseverance Mars rover is preparing to collect its first rock sample from the site of an ancient lake bed, as its mission to search for signs of past life begins in earnest, NASA said Wednesday. The milestone is expected to take place within two weeks in a scientifically interesting region of the Jezero Crater called the "Cratered Floor Fractured Rough." "When Neil Armstrong took t

Pasadena CA (JPL) Jul 22, 2021
NASA is making final preparations for its Perseverance Mars rover to collect its first-ever sample of Martian rock, which future planned missions will transport to Earth. The six-wheeled geologist is searching for a scientifically interesting target in a part of Jezero Crater called the "Cratered Floor Fractured Rough." This important mission milestone is expected to begin within the next

Tempe AZ (SPX) Jul 22, 2021
The ASU-led team that built NASA's Lunar Polar Hydrogen Mapper, or "LunaH-Map" for short, has safely delivered their spacecraft to NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida in preparation for a launch expected later this year on NASA's Space Launch System (SLS) Artemis I rocket. LunaH-Map is a fully functional interplanetary spacecraft about the size of a large cereal box and weighing about 3

Tempe AZ (SPX) Jul 22, 2021
Arizona State University is partnering with Intuitive Machines on a mini extreme mobility lunar vehicle, called Micro-Nova, that will hop around the moon's surface and take the first-ever pictures inside craters close to the lunar south pole. On July 16, 2021, NASA awarded the project a $41.6 million "Tipping Point" contract to develop, fly and operate a deployable lunar "hopper lander" on

Washington DC (UPI) Jul 21, 2021
After years of delays, Russia launched a new multipurpose laboratory module named Nauka to the International Space Station on Wednesday from Kazakhstan. A Russian Proton-M rocket carrying the module lifted off about10:58 a.m. EDT from Russia's Baikonur Cosmodrome. The mission reached a successful orbit, according to NASA. Besides a laboratory, whose name means "science" in Englis