One year ago yesterday, SpaceX suffered a major launch failure of its Falcon 9 system with the loss of a booster carrying the a Dragon spacecraft to ISS on the CRS-7 resupply mission. The cause of the accident was traced as being most likely due to a faulty second stage support strut which buckled well […]
Press Release from NASA.Gov June 28, 2016 RELEASE 16-069 NASA’s Space Launch System Booster Passes Major Milestone on Journey to Mars A booster for the most powerful rocket in the world, NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS), successfully fired up Tuesday for its second qualification ground test at Orbital ATK’s test facilities in Promontory, Utah. This […]
After four years of studiosly ignoring what might be the most interesting destinations on its path due to concerns over planetary protection, NASA is consideing letting its Curisoity Rover operating in Mars’ Gale Crater, have a bit more leash. “Pending approval of a mission extension, NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover will continue to climb to […]
A new study of Pluto’s massive chasms strongly suggests that the former planet is concealing a liquid water ocean beneath its bizarre and wildly varying surface. From the abstract in Geophysical Research Letters: The New Horizons spacecraft has found evidence for geologic activity on the surface of Pluto, including extensional tectonic deformation of its water […]
Last week, astronomers announced the discovery of a small “quasi satellite” of Earth, asteroid 2016 HO3, which is locked into a rather rare orbit which has it circling our planet at a variable distance in a dance between the Earth and the Sun. While not totally stable, it could last for some time. The complete […]
As much of the space community waits for September and the promised big reveal of SpaceX’s Mars colonization plans, company founder Elon Musk is finding it difficult to keep from spilling the beans about what is coming. In this interview in the Washington Post, an interesting venue considering the paper’s owner, Musk shares a bit […]
After a slow start brought about by a combination of extreme caution on NASA’s part, Bigelow Aerospace’s BEAM was successfully expanded to its full dimensions on Saturday. From NASA.gov: “Pressurization of the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM) began at 4:34 p.m. EDT, and the eight tanks filled with air completed full pressurization of the module […]
Congress Give’s President ARM the Finger What may ultimately go down as one of the the strangest and most half-hearted space policy proposals in American history is finally just going down. As spacepolicyonline reports in its usual excruciating detail, a Congressional committee has essentially de-funded the Obama Administration’s Asteroid Redirect Mission, or ARM. Yesterday, the […]
And so it has come to this. From AL.com: NASA administrator says Space Launch System ‘protected’ against next president “The Space Launch System (SLS) being developed by NASA in Alabama is “a protected program” the next president won’t be able to cancel, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden Jr. said Friday in Huntsville. “It’s a protected program […]
NASA has released the above image of Mars, taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. Although the complete story is included below, it really is worth following this link to see image in full screen. Bright, frosty polar caps, and clouds above a vivid, rust-colored landscape reveal Mars as a dynamic seasonal planet in this NASA […]
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