NASA is continuing to diagnose a problem with the payload computer on the Hubble Space Telescope after completing another set of tests on June 23 and 24. The payload computer halted on June 13 and the spacecraft stopped collecting science data. The telescope itself and its science instruments remain in good health and are currently in a safe configuration.

The spacecraft has two payload computers, one of which serves as a backup, that are located on the Science Instrument and Command and Data Handling (SI C&DH) unit. There are various pieces of hardware which make up both payload computers, including but not limited to:

• a Central Processing Module (CPM), which processes the commands that coordinate and control the science instruments
• a Standard Interface (STINT), which bridges communications between the computer's CPM and other components
• a communications bus, which contains lines that pass signals and data between hardware
• and one active memory module, which stores operational commands to the instruments. There are three additional modules which serve as backups.

Additional tests performed on June 23 and 24 included turning on the backup computer for the first time in space.

Ever wondered how Mars rovers take a selfie? Color video from NASA's Perseverance shows how the rover captured the historic April 6, 2021, image of itself beside the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter. As a bonus, the rover's entry, descent, and landing microphone captured the sound of the arm's motors whirring during the process.

Astronauts finished unfurling a new pair of solar panels outside the International Space Station on Friday, making their third spacewalk in just over a week.

NASA's Shane Kimbrough and France's Thomas Pesquet successfully installed the second in a series of powerful solar wings that should keep the space station running the rest of this decade, as space tourism ramps up with visitors beginning in the fall.

There will be all sorts of risks for any future colonists on Mars, such as extreme weather and temperatures, radiation, and the human physiological problems associated with living in with decreased gravity. But another issue is that colonists on Mars will have to be on a constant lookout above their heads.

While Mars and Earth are both hit by space debris regularly—dust, small rocks and bigger meteoroids—on our planet, meteors usually vaporize in the atmosphere.

"On Mars however, with a surface pressure one 100th that of the Earth, the impactors generally make it to the surface," says the team from the HiRISE camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).