Tag: Mars

Ingenuity team says goodbye to pioneering Mars helicopter

NeRD

Saying goodbye is never easy, especially from a world away.  The Ingenuity Mars helicopter team convened one last time on Tuesday (April 16) to oversee a transmission from the little rotorcraft, the first robot ever to explore the skies of a world beyond Earth. The meeting, in a control room at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California, came nearly three months after Ingenuity’s 72nd and final flight. The 4-pound (1.8 kilograms) chopper damaged its rotors while landing that day, consigning it to a stationary existence from now on…

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NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter Team Says Goodbye … for Now

NeRD

NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter, right, stands near the apex of a sand ripple in an image taken by Perseverance on Feb. 24, about five weeks after the rotorcraft’s final flight. Part of one of Ingenuity’s rotor blades lies on the surface about 49 feet (15 meters) west of helicopter (left of center in the image). NASA/JPL-Caltech/LANL/CNES/CNRS The final downlink shift by the Ingenuity team was a time to reflect on a highly successful mission — and to prepare the first aircraft on another world for its new role. Engineers working…

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NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover begins exploring possible dried-up Red Planet river

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Currently in the twelfth year of its mission, NASA’s Curiosity rover continues to press on while treading the world of Mars, delving into areas no rover has gone before. The latest phase of Curiosity’s adventure has brought it to what some scientists believe is the desiccated bed of an ancient river.  As Curiosity prepares to follow Gediz Vallis, as scientists call this winding and boulder-choked channel, it will try to give scientists a look back through time so they can discover how the landform came to be in the first…

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Giant Mars asteroid impact creates vast field of destruction with 2 billion craters

NeRD

Over two million years ago, a giant asteroid slammed into Mars, scarring the surface with one massive crater and around two billion smaller individual craters. These secondary craters appear across a region of 1,000 miles (1,800 kilometers), making this asteroid event one of the biggest impacts seen on the Red Planet in relatively recent history.  Asteroids massive enough to create widespread destruction like this are estimated to impact Mars just once every 3 million years. The impact occurred at the equator of Mars in a region humanity has named Elysium…

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Drilling for water ice on Mars: How close are we to making it happen?

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Things are looking up for digging deep on Mars. Progress is palpable on how best to extract subsurface ice to generate drinkable water, rocket fuel and other useful resources on the Red Planet. But boring down from the topside of Mars to reach available icy reservoirs is no slam dunk. Tackling that challenge is the company Honeybee Robotics, which calls its approach the RedWater concept.  Related: Mars ice deposits could pave the way for human exploration Dual purposes  Honeybee Robotics’ ice drilling hardware for Mars encompasses coiled tubing and the…

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NASA Delivers Science Instrument to JAXA’s Martian Moons Mission

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3 min read NASA Delivers Science Instrument to JAXA’s Martian Moons Mission On March 14, NASA delivered its gamma-ray and neutron spectrometer instrument to JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) for integration onto JAXA’s MMX (Martian Moons eXploration) mission spacecraft and final system-level testing.   U.S. and Japanese team members gather around and discuss the gamma-ray spectrometer portion of the MEGANE instrument during its development at Johns Hopkins APL. NASA/JAXA/Johns Hopkins APL/Ed Whitman NASA’s Mars-moon Exploration with Gamma Ray and Neutrons (MEGANE) instrument, developed by the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL)…

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Do you want to spend a year inside a mock Mars base for science? If so, NASA wants you.

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Applications are open for NASA’s next year-long mock Mars mission, which simulates the challenges crews may face during future expeditions on the Red Planet.  The ground-based mission, called CHAPEA (Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog), consists of four volunteer crewmembers living and working inside an isolated 1,700-square-foot (158 square meters), 3D-printed habitat. Located at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, the Mars Dune Alpha habitat includes an adjoining 1,200-square-foot (111 square meters) enclosure used for simulated spacewalks.  “As NASA works to establish a long-term presence for scientific discovery and exploration…

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India plans to include a helicopter on its next Mars mission

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India’s next Mars mission could include a helicopter that follows in the footsteps of NASA’s pioneering Ingenuity drone. The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is currently working on the concept, which would fly along with an Indian Mars lander sometime around the start of the 2030s. India’s first mission to the Red Planet — the Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM), also nicknamed “Mangalyaan” — launched in November 2013 and entered orbit around Mars in September 2014. The spacecraft conducted science in orbit around the Red Planet for eight years before contact…

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Astronauts may accidentally threaten Mars missions with their gut bacteria, scientists warn

NeRD

As space agencies plan for future crewed missions to Mars, with NASA hoping to have humans step foot on the Red Planet as soon as the 2030s, scientists warn that astronauts themselves could be carrying a threat to these missions.  This threat may very well live within their bodies. New research using simulated Mars conditions — such as the planet’s lack of water, harsh ultraviolet radiation and exposure to toxic salts — suggests four strains of bacteria that can be carried in the human gut may not only survive in…

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Water ice buried at Mars’ equator is over 2 miles thick

NeRD

A European Space Agency (ESA) probe has found enough water to cover Mars in an ocean between 4.9 and 8.9 feet (1.5 and 2.7 meters) deep, buried in the form of dusty ice beneath the planet’s equator. The finding was made by ESA’s Mars Express mission, a veteran spacecraft that has been engaged in science operations around Mars for 20 years now. While it’s not the first time that evidence for ice has been found near the Red Planet’s equator, this new discovery is by far the largest amount of…

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