Latest on Mars

  Thought I would add a nice Gif of a rocket launching in case anyone wanted it.

  For two years now, NASA’s InSight probe has sat on the surface of Mars, attempting to dig 5 meters (16 feet) deep in order to install the lander’s heat probe. The instrument was going to effectively take the planet’s temperature and tell scientists more about the internal thermal activity and geology of Mars.  InSight never even got close to realizing that goal. On January 14, NASA announced that it was ending all attempts to place the heat probe underground. Affectionately referred to as “the mole,” the probe is designed to dig underground with a hammering action. But after the first month of its mission, it  was unable to burrow more than 14 inches into the ground before getting stuck. NASA has been working since to come up with some kind of solution, including using InSight’s robotic arm to pin the mole down with added weight to help it loosen up some dirt and get back to burrowing. The Martian dirt has proved to be unexpectedly prone to clumping up, diminishing the ...

  A Falcon 9 rocket with a sooty first stage booster flown on seven previous launches arrived at the deck of pad 39A Sunday night. Credit: Spaceflight Now SpaceX rolled out a Falcon 9 rocket Sunday night to pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida for liftoff with the next 60 Starlink internet satellites, but officials have pushed back the launch until Wednesday. The mission is now scheduled to take off at 8:02 a.m. EST (1302 GMT) Wednesday from pad 39A, two days later than SpaceX originally announced. There is an instantaneous launch window Wednesday, when forecasters from the U.S. Space Force’s 45th Weather Squadron predict a 90% chance of good conditions for liftoff. SpaceX announced Sunday night that the flight would be delayed from Monday to Tuesday to await improved weather in the offshore booster recovery zone. Another update from SpaceX Monday night said the mission had been pushed back again until Wednesday morning to “allow additional time for pre-launch inspecti...

  can take seven months –   or more   – to get to Mars. NASA can send supplies to the International Space Station if need be, but the same isn’t true of the distant planet. Instead, astronauts spending any time on Mars will have to rely on what’s known as in-situ resource utilization (ISRU) – using what’s around to replace objects brought from Earth. That includes food, which will eventually have to be grown there, to support any long-term residents. Instead of hauling bags of fertilizer in the spacecraft, researchers are trying to figure out how to make do with what’s on the ground, that is, Martian soil. Thanks to NASA’s rovers and landers, scientists know about the  pH  and mineral makeup of the planet’s soil, which is known as regolith. Mars gets its red color from the oxidation of its rocks, regolith, and dust. Below the dust is the crust, which contains iron, magnesium, calcium, potassium, and more elements,  according to NASA . But their presence isn...

  The latests Starship by SpaceX had a shocking ending, so how much did the SN8 cost? SpaceX is Elon Musk’s privately funded space company which aims to eventually build a space Starship rocket which combines with a super-heavy booster to stand at 394ft. The spaceship will be completely reusable, making space travel far more affordable and routine in the future. If all goes to plan, Starship will eventually fly NASA astronauts to the moon and take humans to Mars. While on earth it could be used to make round-the-world travel quicker. At the moment however, SpaceX’s Starship is in the creation process still and the company is testing out prototypes of the rocket. SN8 is SpaceX’s latest Starship prototype which seemingly went oh-so-wrong. Take a deeper dive however and you’ll realise it didn’t go as wrong as it may seem. WHAT HAPPENED TO THE STARSHIP? On December 10th, SpaceX launched the SN8 in Texas, pushing boundaries with how high the rocket goes and how advanced the prototype wa...

  After CEO Elon Musk shared new details about its in-development Starship spacecraft on Saturday, SpaceX has updated its website with a   new section dedicated to the fully reusable cargo and passenger vehicle . The new Starship website also provides a bunch of info about Super Heavy, the first-stage booster that will propel Starship to orbital altitudes and beyond. Starship, once complete, will be “world’s most powerful launch vehicle,” according to SpaceX, with a cargo capacity of 100 metric tons (that’s over 220,000 lbs) to Earth orbit. With orbital refueling, it’ll also be able to take its freight — and passengers — to the Moon, Mars and beyond. Per the new Starship site, the final vehicle will be 160 feet tall (without the booster) and 30 feet in diameter, with a propellant capacity of 1,200 metric tons of liquid methane and liquid oxygen. Payload, and crew depending on configuration, will occupy the top third of the rocket, while the bottom two-thirds will house the pro...

  This panorama, made up of 122 individual images stitched together, was taken by NASA's Curiosity Mars rover on Nov. 18, 2020, the 2,946th Martian day, or sol, of the mission. Don't forget about NASA's Mars rover curiosity  just because its younger cousin is about to land on the Red Planet. The car-sized Curiosity marked 3,000 Mars days, or sols, on the Red Planet Tuesday (Jan. 12), a mere five weeks before NASA's Perserverance rover is scheduled to touch down. (A sol is slightly longer than an Earth day, lasting about 24 hours and 40 minutes.) To celebrate the milestone, the Curiosity team released a gorgeous panorama that the rover captured on Nov. 18, 2020. The photo, which consists of 122 stitched-together images, shows an intriguing series of rock "benches" on the slopes of Mount Sharp, which Curiosity has been climbing since September 2014. "Our science team is excited to figure out how they formed and what they mean for the ancient environment wit...