NASA’s Next Mars Rover Sports Brawn, Brains, and Even a Helicopter

With eight successful Mars landings, NASA is upping the ante with its newest rover.

The spacecraft Perseverance — set for liftoff this week — is NASA’s biggest and brainiest Martian rover yet.

It sports the latest landing tech, plus the most cameras and microphones ever assembled to capture the sights and sounds of Mars. Its super-sanitized sample return tubes — for rocks that could hold evidence of past Martian life — are the cleanest items ever bound for space. A helicopter is even tagging along for an otherworldly test flight.

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Chinese Craft First To Land On Moon’s Far Side

A Chinese spacecraft Thursday made the first-ever landing on the far side of the moon in the latest achievement for the country’s growing space program. The relatively unexplored far side of the moon faces away from Earth and is also known as the dark side. A photo taken by the lunar explorer Chang’e 4 at 11:40 a.m. and published online by the official Xinhua News Agency shows a small crater and a barren surface that appears to be illuminated by a light from the probe. Chang’e 4 touched down on the surface at 10:26 a.m., the China National Space Administration said. The landing was announced by state broadcaster China Central Television at the top of its noon news broadcast. Growing ambitions in space The landing highlights China’s growing ambitions as a space power. In 2013, Chang’e 3, the predecessor craft to the current mission, made the first moon landing since the then-Soviet Union’s Luna 24 in 1976. The United States is the only other country that has carried out moon landings. The work of Chang’e 4, which is carrying a rover, includes carrying out astronomical observations and probing the structure and mineral composition of the terrain. “The far side of…

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NASA Makes Space History with Distant Fly-By

Just 33 minutes into the New Year, NASA’s New Horizons probe made space exploration history, flying by the most distant body ever visited by a spacecraft from earth. The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, which built and operates the spacecraft, said Tuesday it had “zipped past” the object known as 2014 MU69, or Ultima Thule. About 10 hours later, Mission Operations Manager Alice Bowman said “We’ve just accomplished the most distant flyby,” to enthusiastic applause from colleagues. New Horizons, which is the size of a baby grand piano and part of an $800 million mission launched in 2006, collected data for four hours after the flyby. Scientists said it will take almost two years for the probe to send back all the data it collected during its encounter with Ultima Thule. Early blurry images showed and oblong shaped object nearly 35 kilometers long and more than 14 kilometers wide. More images and data were expected to begin arriving later Tuesday, giving scientists the first close look at a building block of the planets in our solar system. “Everything we are going to learn about Ultima … are going to teach us about the original formation conditions of objects in…

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Trump Issues Commercial Space Policy Directive on Eve of Anniversary of JFK’s Space Program Speech

by Ginny Montalbano   President Donald Trump on Thursday signed a space policy directive, calling for “updating and refocusing” those policies in a bid to promote innovation and modernize American commercial space policy. The White House said the move “reforms America’s commercial space regulatory framework, ensuring our place as a leader in space commerce.” This is the second space policy directive the president has issued, after taking into account recommendations made by the National Space Council. Trump revived the council, which disbanded in 1993. His first directive, signed on Dec. 11, ordered a restart for manned missions to the moon and future manned missions to Mars. [ The liberal Left continue to push their radical agenda against American values. The good news is there is a solution. Find out more ] Space is a topic that Trump frequently references. He has discussed his hopes for future space exploration on multiple occasions—even contemplating a military “space force.” It dovetails with the vision of former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who shares the president’s interest in space exploration. During his 2012 presidential run, he spoke of routine flights to Mars and envisioned base camps on the moon. Gingrich, who spoke at The Heritage Foundation this week, discussed the…

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NASA Discovers Mars Has a Magnetic Tail Twisted by Solar Wind

Artist’s conception of the complex magnetic field environment at Mars. Yellow lines represent magnetic field lines from the Sun carried by the solar wind, blue lines represent Martian surface magnetic fields, white sparks are reconnection activity, and red lines are reconnected magnetic fields that link the surface to space via the Martian magnetotail. Credit: Anil Rao/Univ.…

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A Timeline of Cassini’s Plunge of Fiery Doom on Friday

Here’s how the planned crash into Saturn will go down. Cassini’s last moments were meticulously planned out. NASA/JPL-Caltech After almost 20 years of exploration, discoveries and gorgeous pictures, it’s time to say goodbye to Cassini. Launched in 1997, it took the Cassini spacecraft seven years to reach it’s ultimate destination—Saturn. For thirteen years, it has sent…

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