Copernical Team
NASA's Curiosity team names Martian hill that serves as mission gateway
The team of scientists and engineers behind NASA's Curiosity rover named a hill along the rover's path on Mars in honor of a recently deceased mission scientist. A craggy hump that stretches 450 feet (120 meters) tall, "Rafael Navarro mountain" is located on Mount Sharp in northwest Gale Crater. The inspiration for the name is award-winning scientist Rafael Navarro-Gonzalez; he died on Jan
More potential air leak locations found at ISS
Russian cosmonauts on board the International Space Station (ISS) have identified another three possible air leak locations in the Russian Zvezda module, a space industry source told Sputnik. "This week, the cosmonauts found another three possible air leak locations in the intermediate chamber of the Zvezda module," the source said, adding that on Friday and Saturday, the Russian crew patc
NASA's Mars Helicopter Survives First Cold Martian Night on Its Own
NASA's Ingenuity Mars Helicopter has emerged from its first night on the surface of Mars. Evening temperatures at Jezero Crater can plunge as low as minus 130 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 90 degrees Celsius), which can freeze and crack unprotected electrical components and damage the onboard batteries required for flight. Surviving that first night after being deployed from where it was attac
NASA's Curiosity team names Martian hill that serves as mission 'gateway'
The team of scientists and engineers behind NASA's Curiosity rover named a hill along the rover's path on Mars in honor of a recently deceased mission scientist. A craggy hump that stretches 450 feet (120 meters) tall, "Rafael Navarro mountain" is located on Mount Sharp in northwest Gale Crater.
NASA's Ingenuity helicopter dropped on Mars' surface ahead of flight
NASA's Ingenuity mini-helicopter has been dropped on the surface of Mars in preparation for its first flight, the US space agency said.
The ultra-light aircraft had been fixed to the belly of the Perseverance rover, which touched down on the Red Planet on February 18.
"MarsHelicopter touchdown confirmed!" NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory tweeted Saturday.
"Its 293 million mile (471 million kilometer) journey aboard @NASAPersevere ended with the final drop of 4 inches (10 centimeter) from the rover's belly to the surface of Mars today. Next milestone? Survive the night."
A photograph accompanying the tweet showed Perseverance had driven clear of the helicopter and its "airfield" after dropping to the surface.
Ingenuity had been feeding off the Perseverance's power system but will now have to use its own battery to run a vital heater to protect its unshielded electrical components from freezing and cracking during the bitter Martian night.
Hawkeye 360 announces commissioning of second satellite cluster
HawkEye 360 Inc., the first commercial company to use formation-flying satellites to create a new class of radio frequency (RF) data and data analytics, today announced that its recently-launched "Cluster 2" satellites have achieved initial operating capability. The trio of satellites, which entered orbit aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket in January, have completed functional testing, moved
Carbon's interstellar journey to Earth
We are made of stardust, the saying goes, and a pair of studies including University of Michigan research finds that may be more true than we previously thought. The first study, led by U-M researcher Jie (Jackie) Li and published in Science Advances, finds that most of the carbon on Earth was likely delivered from the interstellar medium, the material that exists in space between stars in a gal
Getting the CubeSats moving at ESA
ESA's M-Argo mission will be the first CubeSat to traverse interplanetary space under its own power. Due to launch in 2024-5, the suitcase-sized spacecraft will travel to a near-Earth asteroid, up to 150 million km away. CubeSats are small, cheap satellites assembled from standardised parts in 10 cm boxes - M-Argo is a 12-unit CubeSat. Originally intended for educational purposes and techn
BioSentinel team prepares cubesat for deep space flight
BioSentinel gets a step closer to flight. Having completed assembly and a battery of tests, the BioSentinel team at NASA's Ames Research Center in California's Silicon Valley is in the final stretch of preparations to ship the spacecraft to NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida for launch. BioSentinel's deep space flight will go past the Moon and into an orbit around the Sun. It's one of
BWXT Awarded Additional Nuclear Thermal Propulsion Work for NASA
BWX Technologies, Inc. reports that it is continuing its groundbreaking Nuclear Thermal Propulsion (NTP) design, manufacturing development, and test support work for NASA. NTP is one of the technologies that is capable of propelling a spacecraft to Mars, and this contract continues BWXT's work that began in 2017. Under the terms of a $9.4 million, one-year contract awarded to its BWXT Adva