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Copernical Team
Up up up and finally over: Sols 3873-3875
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ISRO's Chandrayaan-3 Set for Mid-July Launch, Reveals ISRO Chief
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Gullies on Mars could have been formed by recent periods of liquid meltwater
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Long history and bright future of space sample deliveries
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SpaceX Dragon begins return to Earth with experiments, samples from ISS
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Virgin Galactic finally takes its first paying customers to space
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The Mars Sample Return mission is starting to look expensive
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![Credit: CC0 Public Domain mars](https://scx1.b-cdn.net/csz/news/800a/2018/5-mars.jpg)
Getting to space is hard. It's even more hard to do new and interesting things in space. And when projects get hard, that usually means they cost more money. That is certainly the case for one of the most anticipated missions on NASA's current docket—the Mars Sample Return (MSR) mission. And it's not looking like it's going to get any easier anytime soon.
A recent report from Casey Dreier, the Planetary Society's Chief of Space Policy, looks at some of the challenges the mission faces. Arguably, the mission itself has already started, with Perseverance busily capturing, analyzing, and then dropping off samples to be returned to the laboratories on Earth. But three other main mission components still need to be completed for those samples ever to see the light of day (or the light of a sealed laboratory chamber) on Earth.
NASA is responsible for two of those components—the Sample Return Lander (SLR) and the Mars Ascent Vehicle (MAV). Each is appropriately named, as the SLR is designed to land, collect the samples that Perseverance has been collecting, and then return them to the MAV.
Italian researchers reach the edge of space flying aboard Virgin Galactic's rocket-powered plane
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![This Thursday, June 29, 2023, image provided by Virgin Galactic shows Italian Air Force Col. Walter Villadei holding up an Italian flag as he and other Italian researchers experience a few moments of weightlessness aboard Virgin Galactic's rocket-powered spaceplane before gliding back down to Spaceport America in southern New Mexico. With the research flight complete, Virgin Galactic plans to begin commercial flights with paying ticket holders in August. Credit: Virgin Galactic via AP Italian researchers reach the edge of space, flying aboard Virgin Galactic's rocket-powered plane](https://scx1.b-cdn.net/csz/news/800a/2023/italian-researchers-re-1.jpg)
Virgin Galactic launches first commercial spaceflight
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Media session from ESA’s 316th Council in Sweden
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Watch the replay of the media briefing following the 316th ESA Council which takes place on 28 and 29 June in Stockholm. ESA Council Chair Anna Rathsman (Sweden) and ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher will share the outcome of the meeting and provide an update on the launch of new ESA Earth observation missions, upcoming astronaut missions, the Space Summit planned for 6-7 November 2023 in Sevilla (Spain), as well as the decision on the public release of official ESA documents.