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Thursday, 07 March 2024 13:27

Rover Kinesthetics: Sols 4116-4117

Pasadena CA (JPL) Mar 07, 2024
Earth planning date: Monday, March 4, 2024: It has been a busy and exciting week for Curiosity and its science team. Our intrepid rover successfully drilled its 40th sample on Mars and today followed it up with an intensive campaign to characterize the tailings expelled while drilling "Mineral King." When APXS analyzes a target, it receives signals from the top millimeter or less of the sample (
Tokyo, Japan (SPX) Mar 07, 2024
GITAI USA Inc. (GITAI), a leader in space robotics innovation, has successfully showcased its advanced robotics technology through the construction of a 5-meter-high communication tower. This achievement was realized in a desert environment meticulously designed to simulate the lunar surface, representing a "first of its kind" demonstration in space robotics. GITAI, in a collaborative effo
Wednesday, 06 March 2024 16:39

More planets than stars: Kepler's legacy

More planets than stars: Kepler's legacy
The 42 CCDs of the Kepler focal plane are approximately one square foot in size. There are four fine guidance modules in the corners of the focal plane that are much smaller CCDs compared to the 42 CCDs used for science. Those smaller CCDs were used to track Kepler’s position and relay that information to its guidance system to keep the spacecraft accurately pointed.
Back on earth: NASA's Orion capsule put to the test before crewed mission
The Orion spacecraft from Artemis I—now known as the Orion Environmental Test Article—arrives at NASA's Neil Armstrong Test Facility in Sandusky, Ohio, ahead of eight months of testing. Credit: NASA/Jordan Salkin

The Orion spacecraft that traveled around the moon and back during 2022's Artemis I mission completed a different round trip when it recently returned to Ohio for testing.

Now known as the Orion Environmental Test Article, the spacecraft is undergoing ground testing at NASA's Neil Armstrong Test Facility in Sandusky, Ohio. This testing is crucial to the safety and success of Artemis II—a 10-day scheduled for 2025, during which four astronauts will demonstrate the spacecraft's capabilities in the lunar vicinity. The flight will be the first crewed mission under NASA's Artemis campaign.

What Are Hubble and Webb Observing Right Now? NASA Tool Has the Answer
Credit: NASA

It's not hard to find out what NASA's Hubble and James Webb space telescopes have observed in the past. Barely a week goes by without news of a cosmic discovery made possible using images, spectra, and other data captured by NASA's prolific astronomical observatories.

But what are Hubble and Webb looking at right this minute? A shadowy pillar harboring nascent stars? A pair of colliding galaxies? The atmosphere of a distant planet? Galactic light, stretched and distorted on a 13-billion-year journey across space?

NASA's Space Telescope Live, a web application originally developed in 2016 to deliver real-time updates on Hubble targets, now affords easy access to up-to-date information on current, past, and upcoming observations from both Hubble and Webb.

Designed and developed for NASA by the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, this exploratory tool offers the public a straightforward and engaging way to learn more about how astronomical investigations are carried out.

With its redesigned user interface and expanded functionality, users can find out not only what planet, star, nebula, galaxy, or region of deep space each telescope is observing at the moment but also where exactly these targets are in the sky; what are being used to capture the images, spectra, and other data; precisely when and how long the observations are scheduled to occur; the status of the observation; who is leading the research; and most importantly, what the scientists are trying to find out.

Two previous Starship test flights have ended in spectacular explosions, though the company has adopted an approach of rapid trial and error in order to accelerate development 
Two previous Starship test flights have ended in spectacular explosions, though the company has adopted an approach of rapid trial and error in order to accelerate development .

Elon Musk's SpaceX on Wednesday announced it was eyeing March 14 as the earliest date for the next test launch of its giant Starship rocket, with which it hopes to one day colonize Mars.

Two previous attempts have ended in spectacular explosions, though the company has adopted a rapid trial-and-error approach in order to accelerate development.

"The third flight test of Starship could launch as soon as March 14, pending regulatory approval," SpaceX posted on X, the social media platform also owned by Musk.

A statement on its website said the rocket, to launch from Boca Chica, Texas, would splash down in the Indian Ocean.

Study find potential benefits in AI–based systems for spotting hard-to-detect space debris
Simplified block diagram of a generic pulse-doppler radar system and consequent digital processing, with the introduction of YOLO-based moving target detector after the matched filter. Credit: IET Radar, Sonar & Navigation (2024). DOI: 10.1049/rsn2.12547

An increasing number of space objects, debris, and satellites in Low Earth Orbit poses a significant threat of collisions during space operations. The situation is currently monitored by radar and radio-telescopes that track space objects, but much of space debris is composed of very small metallic objects that are difficult to detect.

In a study published in IET Radar, Sonar & Navigation, investigators demonstrate the benefits of using —a form of artificial intelligence—for small space object detection by radar.

Ottawa, Canada (SPX) Mar 01, 2024
For a long time, it was thought that amorphous solids do not selectively absorb light because of their disordered atomic structure. However, a new uOttawa study disproves this theory and shows that amorphous solids actually exhibit dichroism, meaning that they selectively absorb light of different polarizations. Researchers at the University of Ottawa have found that using helical light be
Boston MA (SPX) Mar 05, 2024
In the predawn hours of Sept. 5, 2021, engineers achieved a major milestone in the labs of MIT's Plasma Science and Fusion Center (PSFC), when a new type of magnet, made from high-temperature superconducting material, achieved a world-record magnetic field strength of 20 tesla for a large-scale magnet. That's the intensity needed to build a fusion power plant that is expected to produce a net ou
Pasadena CA (SPX) Mar 04, 2024
Jellyfish can't do much besides swim, sting, eat, and breed. They don't even have brains. Yet, these simple creatures can easily journey to the depths of the oceans in a way that humans, despite all our sophistication, cannot. But what if humans could have jellyfish explore the oceans on our behalf, reporting back what they find? New research conducted at Caltech aims to make that a realit
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