Day: March 5, 2025

Varda space capsule returns to Earth in 1st commercial landing in Australian Outback (photos)

NeRD

Varda Space has successfully landed a reentry capsule in Australia, delivering critical data that could advance in-space manufacturing and hypersonic technologies. California-based startup Varda’s Winnebago-2 (W-2) capsule launched along with 130 other payloads on Jan. 14 atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, on the Transporter 12 rideshare mission. After six weeks in orbit, the capsule made a fiery plunge through Earth’s atmosphere, landing Feb. 28 at Koonibba Test Range in South Australia, which is operated by Southern Launch. W-2 contained a spectrometer from the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) and…

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ROAMX testing in the Planetary Aeolian Laboratory (PAL) at NASA Ames Research Center 

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Rotor Optimization for the Advancement of Mars eXploration (ROAMX) hover test stand with ROAMX blades installed in the Planetary Aeolian Laboratory (PAL) low-pressure chamber at NASA Ames Research Center. NASA During 2024-2025, helicopter blades optimized for Mars were tested in the Planetary Aeolian Laboratory (PAL) at NASA Ames Research Center as part of the Rotor Optimization for the Advancement of Mars eXploration (ROAMX) project.  The experimental test-chamber of the PAL can be depressurized to create atmospheric air pressures of different planetary bodies such as Mars. The full-scale ROAMX blades were…

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Hubble Telescope discovers a new ‘3-body problem’ puzzle among Kuiper Belt asteroids (video)

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NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has discovered that a system of asteroids in the distant Kuiper Belt may be triplets, not twins as previously suspected. If so, the stable trio of icy space rocks would be just the second example of three gravitationally bound space rocks found in the Kuiper Belt, the doughnut-shaped region of icy bodies that lurks out beyond the orbit of Neptune. The discovery could also challenge our understanding of how Kuiper Belt objects (KBOs) form. An illustration of the 148780 Altjira system of two or maybe three…

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Sols 4471-4472: Marching Through the Canyon

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Curiosity Navigation Curiosity Home Mission Overview Where is Curiosity? Mission Updates Science Overview Instruments Highlights Exploration Goals News and Features Multimedia Curiosity Raw Images Images Videos Audio Mosaics More Resources Mars Missions Mars Sample Return Mars Perseverance Rover Mars Curiosity Rover MAVEN Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Mars Odyssey More Mars Missions Mars Home 2 min read Sols 4471-4472: Marching Through the Canyon NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity acquired this image using its Mast Camera (Mastcam), a close-up of the rover’s Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS), an instrument that measures the abundance of…

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The US will ‘plant the American flag on the planet Mars and even far beyond,’ Trump tells Congress

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President Donald Trump told lawmakers that U.S. astronauts will one day carry the American flag to Mars and beyond during a speech before the joint session of Congress late Tuesday (March 5). “We are going to conquer the vast frontiers of science, and we are going to lead humanity into space and plant the American flag on the planet Mars and even far beyond,” Trump told Congress during his speech to a joint Senate and House of Representatives on Tuesday night. “And through it all, we are going to rediscover…

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NASA Sets Coverage for Agency’s SpaceX Crew-10 Launch, Docking

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The crew of NASA’s SpaceX Crew-10 mission pictured during an equipment test at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Credit: SpaceX Editor’s Note: This advisory was updated March 5, 2025, to correct that media may ask questions by phone only during the mission overview teleconference. NASA will provide coverage of the upcoming prelaunch and launch activities for the agency’s SpaceX Crew-10 mission to the International Space Station. Liftoff is targeted for 7:48 p.m. EDT, Wednesday, March 12, from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The…

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