Technical challenges abound when doing space exploration. Some areas are so remote or isolated that engineers need to build a special purpose-made vehicle to visit them. That is certainly the case for some of the more remote parts of the moon – especially the as-yet unexplored caves on the moon. Now a graduate student at the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL) seems to have developed just such an access system.
Continue reading “Lunar Rovers Could be Dropped Into Lava Tubes to Explore Their Depths”NASA Releases Details on how Starship Will be Part of its Return to the Moon
The path back to the moon is long and fraught with danger, both in the real, physical sense and also in the contractual, legal sense. NASA, the agency sponsoring the largest government-backed lunar program, Artemis, has already been feeling the pain on the contractual end. Legal battles have delayed the development of a critical component of the Artemis program – the Human Landing System (HLS). But now, the ball has started rolling again, and a NASA manager recently reported the progress and future vision of this vital part of the mission to the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers at a conference.
Continue reading “NASA Releases Details on how Starship Will be Part of its Return to the Moon”Here are the 7 Best Places to Search for Life in the Solar System
If humanity is ever going to find life on another planet in the solar system, it’s probably best to know where to look. Plenty of scientists have spent many, many hours pondering precisely that question, and plenty have come up with justifications for backing a particular place in the solar system as the most likely to hold the potential for harboring life as we know it. Thanks to a team led by Dimitra Atri of NYU Abu Dhabi, we now have a methodology by which to rank them.
Continue reading “Here are the 7 Best Places to Search for Life in the Solar System”LEGO Releases the new Rocket Launch Center set, Recreating the Artemis Moon Missions
One way to inspire kids to get interested in STEM is to introduce them to it at an early age. Lego is one of the best gateways to that interest, and the company has been busy churning out space-themed toys for most of its existence. Now another entry has joined that long, distinguished line of interlocking brick system designs – the Rocket Launch Center, #60351.
Continue reading “LEGO Releases the new Rocket Launch Center set, Recreating the Artemis Moon Missions”40 Telescopes Watched the Sun as the Parker Solar Probe Made its Most Recent Flyby
Sometimes in space, even when you’re millions of kilometers from anything, you’re still being watched. Or at least that’s the case for the Parker Solar Probe, which completed the 11th perihelion of its 24 perihelion journey on February 25th. While the probe was speeding past the Sun, it was being watched by over 40 space and ground-based telescopes.
Continue reading “40 Telescopes Watched the Sun as the Parker Solar Probe Made its Most Recent Flyby”According to a US Auditor, Each Launch of the Space Launch System Will Cost an “Unsustainable” $4.1 Billion
This will likely come as a surprise to no one who has closely watched the development of NASA’s next giant rocket, the Space Launch System (SLS), but it’s going to be expensive to use. Like, really expensive – to the tune of $4.1 billion per launch, according to the NASA Inspector General. That’s over double the original expected launch cost.
Continue reading “According to a US Auditor, Each Launch of the Space Launch System Will Cost an “Unsustainable” $4.1 Billion”Future Mars Explorers Could be Farming Oxygen From Landscapes Like This
Viking’s biochemistry experiments have been among the most hotly debated scientific results of all time. The lander famously collected samples from the Red Planet in 1976, in an experiment called “Label Release.” Scientists watched with bated breath as oxygen was released from the sample after it was subjected to a liquid slurry. They were then left scratching their heads as that oxygen production continued after the sample was sterilized via 160 degree C heat. Scientists now really agree that the oxygen production that Viking noticed was an abiotic process. But that also leads to a potential opportunity as some scientists think we can make oxygen farms out of a system similar to that used on Viking itself.
Continue reading “Future Mars Explorers Could be Farming Oxygen From Landscapes Like This”A Meteorite Recently Crashed Into Australia. A Drone Scoured the Area and Found it
Drones have become more and more ubiquitous in recent years. From recently discovering the Endurance to participating in wars, drones have made history in more ways than one. Now they have a new job title to add to their resume – meteorite hunter.
Continue reading “A Meteorite Recently Crashed Into Australia. A Drone Scoured the Area and Found it”Testing an Antenna That Will Float in the Atmosphere of Venus
Radar is finicky. It is extraordinarily useful for a multitude of tasks, but testing it for some particular tasks is complicated since almost everything interferes with it. That challenge is particularly acute when testing an antenna that is supposed to be used in space, which is why a team from the SENER engineering group in Spain decided to take a novel approach to testing the radar antenna the European Space Agency (ESA) plans to use for EnVision – they suspended it from a balloon.
Continue reading “Testing an Antenna That Will Float in the Atmosphere of Venus”If Russia Backs out of the ISS, SpaceX Could Help Keep the Station Operational
The ongoing conflict in Ukraine has wide-reaching implications, not only in the geopolitical sphere but also outside of the atmosphere. On the International Space Station (ISS), Russians work alongside astronauts from other countries that are currently imposing economic and trade sanctions in an attempt to force their country to stop their invasion of their neighbor. It was only a matter of time before that conflict escalated to the point of arguments over the ISS, but this time an unlikely hero appeared to defend the interests of Western nations – Elon Musk.
Continue reading “If Russia Backs out of the ISS, SpaceX Could Help Keep the Station Operational”