Posts tagged nasa
Rough Roving: Curiosity’s Wheels Show Damage
Recent photos from Curiosity show dents, scratches and suspect punctures in the wheels’ aluminum skin. Is it a serious problem? Discovery News finds out from Curiosity’s lead rover driver Matt Heverly.
Space Station Crew Prepare for Emergency Spacewalk
After the discovery of a leak of ammonia coolant supplying one of the International Space Station solar arrays on Thursday, NASA managers have decided to plan for an unscheduled spacewalk on Saturday to repair the problem. The final decision about whether to go ahead with the extravehicular activity will be made late on Friday. Read more.
NASA has also released a video showing the ammonia flakes drifting into space.
Kepler 2.0: Next-Gen Exoplanet Hunter Approved
Sure, Kepler is awesome, but the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) sounds pretty darned epic. And it’s got funding. And it’ll launch in 2017. And it’s going to survey 400 times more space for transiting exoplanets. See? Epic.
Curiosity, Interrupted: Sun Makes Mars Go Dark
NASA has stopped sending commands to Mars rover Curiosity and will soon follow suit for rover Opportunity, Odyssey and the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). But don’t worry, government cutbacks haven’t severed interplanetary communications, you can blame the sun. Read more.
Dragon’s Bounty: SpaceX Mission Complete
After delivering its bounty of fresh food, supplies and experiments to the orbiting outpost, the SpaceX Dragon capsule completed its mission when it splashed down off the Baja California coast this morning (March 26, 2013). Here’s a photo diary of some of the Dragon’s voyage to low-Earth orbit and back.
Mars Was a Suitable Environment for Life
The first analysis of powder drilled out from the inside of water-soaked rock shows Mars was a suitable place for microbial life to evolve, scientists with NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity mission said Tuesday.
The ingredients may be there… but was life? Read more
Ancient Flood Channels Cut Deep into Mars
Relatively recently, water blasted out from an underground aquifer on Mars, carving out deep flood channels in the surface that were later buried by lava flows, radar images complied from an orbiting NASA probe shows.
71 Percent of U.S. See Humans On Mars By 2033
In the wake of the wildly successful landing of NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity rover on Aug. 6, 2012, it may come as no surprise that the American public are currently feeling rather enthusiastic about exploring Mars. This sentiment has now been bolstered by a recent poll carried out for the non-profit corporation Explore Mars by the global communications company Phillips & Company. After surveying 1,101 people, 71 percent of the participants said they feel confident the U.S. will land a human on Mars within the next two decades. Read more.
Curiosity Collects First Mars Bedrock Sample
In a first, the Mars rover Curiosity has penetrated a rock on the Red Planet and collected a sample from its interior, the US space agency announced Saturday. Using a drill at the end of its robotic arm, Curiosity bore a hole 0.6 inches (1.6 centimeters) wide and 2.5 inches (6.4 centimeters) deep into the rock, generating powder for evaluation, NASA said in a statement. Read more.
Kepler: Nearest ‘Second Earth’ May Be Right Next Door
“Nevertheless, statistically that would mean six percent of all red dwarf stars should have a Earth-sized planet, Dressing said, adding that since 75 percent of the closest stars are red dwarfs, the nearest Earth-like world may be just 13 light-years away.”
Byzantine NASA: Pioneering Spirit Lost?
“The Byzantine Empire once ruled the world. As the empire grew in size, so did its bureaucracy and structural complexity. This resulted in diminishing efficiency, until the empire reached the point where it collapsed under its own weight. Thus was created the pejorative adjective “Byzantine.”
“There are those who argue that organizations naturally grow in size and complexity, such that they inevitably become Byzantine. There are those who would argue that NASA has already reached that point.” — Dr. Leroy Chiao, NASA astronaut, ISS commander. Read more…
Curiosity goes to Mars for a little privacy and what did she get? A goddamn orbiting paparazzi!
