NASA has announced the winners of the 2023 Human Exploration Rover Challenge (HERC) with Escambia High School in Pensacola, Florida, winning first place in the high school division, and the University of Alabama in Huntsville, capturing the college and university title. The complete list of award winners a as follows:
Read MoreMonth: April 2023
Mars helicopter Ingenuity snaps incredible aerial photo of Perseverance rover during 51st flight
With over 50 Mars flights under its belt, NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter continues to impress. During its 51st flight on Saturday (April 22), Ingenuity took a photo of its companion robot, the Perseverance rover, from 40 feet (12 meters) above the Martian surface. In the photo, Perseverance can be seen motionless in the planet’s red soil in the background, nearly indistinguishable from the large rocks strewn across the Red Planet landscape. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) shared the image on Twitter (opens in new tab) on Monday (April 24), adding that…
Read MoreNASA is about to lock these 4 researchers in a simulated Mars outpost for a year
When we think about sending astronauts to Mars, many of us first think of the hardware — the rocket, for instance, or the habitat. But NASA must also consider the human factors involved with Mars missions, which is why the agency is running a series of long-duration analogs here on Earth, called the Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog (CHAPEA). The first mission is set to commence in June, when four crewmembers will enter a 1,700-square-foot (158 square meters) habitat and live there for an entire year to simulate a Mars…
Read MoreNASA needs sharper diversity focus to boost representation, audit finds
NASA’s diversity statistics are staying much the same despite a decade of efforts to increase representation, a new audit finds. NASA‘s Office of the Inspector General (OIG) found at most a 2% increase in representation in groups such as women, African-Americans and Hispanics, a new audit revealed on April 20. “Despite support from agency leaders and multiple initiatives to increase diversity, we found NASA has made little progress in increasing the representation of women and minorities in its civilian workforce or leadership ranks,” OIG officials wrote in the report (opens…
Read MoreNASA Selects 12 Companies to Collaborate on Key Technology Development
NASA has selected 16 proposals from 12 companies under the 2022 Announcement of Collaboration Opportunity (ACO) to advance capabilities and technologies related to NASA’s Moon to Mars Objectives. The cadre of U.S. industry-led teams will test a new lunar rover tire design, develop a robotically assembled power system, build an electrically actuated
Read MoreNASA Announces Student Winners of Power to Explore Challenge
NASA selected three winners out of nine finalists in the second annual Power to Explore Challenge, a national competition for elementary through high school students featuring the power of radioisotopes for space exploration.
Read MoreThis is our 1st detailed look at Mars’ most mysterious moon Deimos (photos)
Deimos, a moon of Mars, is seen in front of the red planet in a high-resolution image from the United Arab Emirates’ Emirates Mars Mission spacecraft. (Image credit: Emirates Mars Mission) A moon of Mars showed off its pockmarked face in an unprecedented closeup view. Deimos, one of the small moons of Mars, was imaged by the Hope Mars mission from as close as 60 miles (100 km), the closest look yet. The flashy new imagery was released Monday (April 24) as the community seeks to learn more about this…
Read MoreWhy did SpaceX Starship’s debut launch cause so much damage to the pad?
The most powerful rocket ever built did a number on its launch pad last week. SpaceX’s gigantic Starship vehicle lifted off Thursday (April 20) from the company’s Starbase facility in South Texas on its first-ever fully stacked test flight. The 394-foot-tall (120 meters) rocket-spacecraft combo performed relatively well on its debut test flight, reaching a maximum altitude of 24 miles (39 kilometers) before several issues forced SpaceX to order the vehicle’s destruction high over the Gulf of Mexico. But the picture at ground level was a bit grimmer. When the…
Read MoreSpaceX launches world’s 1st 5G satellite to bring global connectivity to Internet of Things
SpaceX has launched what is reportedly the first satellite in low Earth orbit (LEO) to operate on the 5G cellular standard. Known as “The GroundBreaker,” the relatively small, 22-pound (10-kilogram) orbital data relay, designated Sateliot_0, is the first of a constellation of over 250 spacecraft designed to communicate with terrestrial cell towers and fill gaps in data networks worldwide. A Falcon 9 rocket launched the satellite on April 15 from SpaceX’s launch facility at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. Barcelona-based Sateliot, the company behind The GroundBreaker and the Sateliot_X…
Read MoreNASA, Rocket Lab Set Coverage for Tropical Cyclones Mission
NASA and Rocket Lab are targeting 9 p.m. EDT, Sunday, April 30 (1 p.m. New Zealand Standard Time, Monday, May 1), to launch two storm tracking CubeSats into orbit.
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