China's Mars rover starts roaming the Red Planet
Saturday, 22 May 2021 08:02
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China's Mars rover drove from its landing platform and began exploring the surface on Saturday, state-run Xinhua news agency said, making the country only the second nation to land and operate a rover on the Red Planet.
The launch last July of the Tianwen-1 Mars probe, which carried the Zhurong rover, marked a major milestone in China's space program.
Tianwen-1 touched down on a vast northern lava plain known as the Utopia Planitia a week ago and beamed back its first photos of the surface a few days later.
The Mars probe and rover are expected to spend around three months taking photos, harvesting geographical data, and collecting and analyzing rock samples.
The six-wheeled, solar-powered, 240-kilogram (530-pound) Zhurong is named after a Chinese mythical fire god.
Starfish Space testing software for constellation-managing Otter space tugs
Friday, 21 May 2021 15:44 Write a comment
TAMPA, Fla. — Starfish Space, a startup founded by former Blue Origin and NASA engineers, is developing space tugs to help manage rapidly growing megaconstellations.
SpaceX is planning to launch tens of thousands of Starlink broadband satellites to join the more than 1,600 it already has in orbit, and a growing number of constellation operators are following suit.
Op-ed | Multiple Providers Limit Risk in Returning to the Moon
Friday, 21 May 2021 13:10 Write a comment
It’s certainly been an eventful few weeks for America’s space program with the recent return of astronauts from the International Space Station and confirmation of NASA Administrator Bill Nelson.
ESA extends deadline for astronaut applications as new Associate Member joins
Friday, 21 May 2021 13:06 Write a comment
Aspiring astronauts now have until 18 June 2021 to submit an application for ESA’s astronaut selection. The three-week extension comes as ESA welcomes Lithuania as a new Associate Member state.
When will the first baby be born in space?
Friday, 21 May 2021 12:50 Write a comment
When the first baby is born off-Earth, it will be a milestone as momentous as humanity's first steps out of Africa. Such a birth would mark the beginning of a multi–planet civilization for the human species.
For the first half-century of the Space Age, only governments launched satellites and people into Earth orbit. No longer. Hundreds of private space companies are building a new industry that already has US$300 billion in annual revenue.
I'm a professor of astronomy who has written a book and a number of articles about humans' future in space. Today, all activity in space is tethered to the Earth. But I predict that in around 30 years people will start living in space—and soon after, the first off-Earth baby will be born.
The players in space
Space started as a duopoly as the United States and the Soviet Union vied for supremacy in a geopolitical contest with loud military overtones.
Super blood moon: Your questions answered
Friday, 21 May 2021 12:17 Write a comment
Week in images: 17 - 21 May 2021
Friday, 21 May 2021 12:10 Write a comment
Week in images: 17 - 21 May 2021
Discover our week through the lens
Landing on Mars is difficult, often fails, and will never be risk-free
Friday, 21 May 2021 11:53 Write a comment
China's rover Zhurong, named after the mythological fire god, successfully touched down on Mars on May 14—the first time that China has successfully landed a rover on the red planet.
On May 19, China's National Space Administration issued the first images the rover had taken on Mars.
After a summer of Mars launches in 2020, and with 2021 shaping up to be a successful one for landers and orbiters, it might seem like landing on Mars is routine.
Yet to understand why a first successful landing is such a huge achievement, we need to look back at the complicated history and legacy of landing on Earth's smaller neighbor.
Seven minutes of terror
"Mars is hard" has become a meme now, thrown around during Mars landings. It's also terrifyingly true. Three things make Mars landings difficult—the planet's gravity, Mars' atmosphere and our distance from the red planet.
FIRST PHOTOS FROM THE CHINESE MARS ROVER ZHURONG IS OUT! pic.twitter.com/6K8RQQqjPy
— Cosmic Penguin (@Cosmic_Penguin) May 19, 2021
Mars is less massive than Earth, but its atmosphere is also perilously thin.
Swarms of robots could dig underground cities on Mars
Friday, 21 May 2021 11:18 Write a comment
Underground habitats have recently become a focal point of off-planet colonization efforts. Protection from micrometeorites, radiation and other potential hazards makes underground sites desirable compared to surface dwellings. Building such subterranean structures presents a plethora of challenges, not the least of which is how to actually construct them. A team of researchers at the Delft University of Technology (TUD) is working on a plan to excavate material and then use it to print habitats. All that would be done with a group of swarming robots.
The idea stems from a grant opportunity posted by the European Space Agency. Students at the Robotic Building lab (RB) at TU Delft, led by Dr. Henriette Bier, were enthusiastic to participate in the challenge that focuses on in-situ resource utilization for off-Earth construction.
New ExoMars parachute ready for high altitude drop
Friday, 21 May 2021 11:00 Write a comment
A series of ground-based high-speed extraction tests confirm the readiness of a new and upgraded parachute and bag system for a high-altitude drop test in early June, part of critical preparations to keep the ExoMars 2022 mission on track for its next launch window.
ESA awards study contracts for lunar communications and navigation systems
Friday, 21 May 2021 10:39 Write a comment
WASHINGTON — The European Space Agency has issued contracts to two European industry groups to begin concept studies of lunar satellite systems that would provide communications and navigation services.
ESA announced the awards May 20 to two consortia, one led by Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd.
Salts could be important piece of Martian organic puzzle, scientists find
Friday, 21 May 2021 10:31 Write a comment
A NASA team has found that organic salts are likely present on Mars. Like shards of ancient pottery, these salts are the chemical remnants of organic compounds, such as those previously detected by NASA's Curiosity rover. Organic compounds and salts on Mars could have formed by geologic processes or be remnants of ancient microbial life.
Besides adding more evidence to the idea that there once was organic matter on Mars, directly detecting organic salts would also support modern-day Martian habitability, given that on Earth, some organisms can use organic salts, such as oxalates and acetates, for energy.
Arctic sea ice succumbs to Atlantification
Friday, 21 May 2021 08:45 Write a comment
With alarm bells ringing about the rapid demise of sea ice in the Arctic Ocean, satellite data have revealed how the intrusion of warmer Atlantic waters is reducing ice regrowth in the winter. In addition, with seasonal ice more unpredictable than ever, ESA’s SMOS and CryoSat satellites are being used to improve sea-ice forecasts, which are critical for shipping, fisheries and indigenous communities, for example.
NASA's S-MODE takes to the air and sea to study ocean eddies
Friday, 21 May 2021 08:24 Write a comment
After being delayed over a year due to the pandemic, a NASA field campaign to study the role of small-scale whirlpools and ocean currents in climate change is taking flight and taking to the seas in May 2021.
Using scientific instruments aboard a self-propelled ocean glider and several airplanes, this first deployment of the Sub-Mesoscale Ocean Dynamics Experiment (S-MODE) mission will dep First modernized SBIRS Missile Warning Satellite under Space Force control
Friday, 21 May 2021 08:24 Write a comment
Following a successful launch from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida earlier Tuesday, the U.S. Space Force's Space Delta 4 operations team is now "talking" with the fifth Space Based Infrared System Geosynchronous Earth Orbit (SBIRS GEO-5) satellite.
As planned, SBIRS GEO-5-built by Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT)-is responding to the Delta's commands. Signal acquisition was confir