Medicine & TechnologyNASA's Curiosity Mars rover is on the move this month, but it continues to make observations as it traverses the Red Planet's terrain. On April 16, the mission passed 10 kilometers (6.214 miles) of total driving including 310 meters (one-fifth of a mile) so far this month.
On Tuesday, Elon Musk's SpaceX tried and failed for a third time to land their Falcon 9 rocket after blast off. Musk has now offered to the public the explanation as to what happened that caused this latest attempt to fail.
For months now everyone has been waiting to catch a detailed glimpse at the dwarf planet Ceres. Once Dawn entered orbit around Ceres, it spent its first month on the dark side of the dwarf planet sending back no images, of course. Now, however, the wait is over and Dawn has sent back one of the sharpest ever looking images of the previously unexplored world and the images will only get better from here.
The exploration to space has been paved with litter as missions after mission and satellite after satellite has left much of Earth's orbit as nothing more than a glorified garbage dump. Now, scientists have proposed a new way to deal with the trash problem - blast it.
It appears that, as usual, everyone is excited about coffee on a Friday morning. Yes the International Space Station now has an espresso machine for the Americans, but the Italians won the race to the first ISSpresso in space and that’s not even the most important stuff that arrived today thanks to SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft. And though the coffee may claim the spotlight, the nanotech, food and mice (yes, we said mice in space) are the really important things aboard this NASA payload.
While SpaceX continues to try to land a rocket for reuse later, Boeing and Lockheed Martin have unveiled what they believe will be a better and cheaper booster recycling solution.
The first spacecraft ever to orbit Mercury will crash into the surface of the small planet located closest to the sun in just two short weeks from now.
In July, NASA's New Horizons spacecraft will make its closest pass of Pluto, giving us a closer look at a body living in a little known region of our solar system. While it still has millions of miles left to go, New Horizons still has a treat for everyone as it has taken the first ever color image of Pluto and its largest moon, Charon.
Just because the first stage of the Falcon 9 went up in flames when it returned back to Earth, doesn’t mean that the entire mission wasn’t a success. In fact, even though the near miss may have made headlines all this week, as the second attempt by SpaceX proved to be as unsuccessful as the first, the Dragon cargo capsule is still on its way to the International Space Station for its resupply mission, and it’s carrying quite a few surprises in store, as well.
Close, but no cigar. Though you’d expect from the fire and the smoke to find something at the scene of the Falcon 9 rocket’s landing site. After multiple delays and promising weather conditions this Tuesday April 14, an unmanned Falcon 9 rocket developed by SpaceX was launched from Florida’s Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in transit towards the International Space Station, full of supplies. But in the second attempt that the company has pursued in trying to recapture the rocket’s first stage by landing it on an autonomous drone ship, SpaceX encountered yet another failure even after making monumental changes since the Jan. 10 crash landing, earlier this year.
Space agencies from around the world including NASA, the Russians and even the Europeans are planning trips to Venus that could provide valuable insight into the universe and perhaps even give scientists clues about how life originally formed right here on Earth.
It’s first attempt was a failure, but in hopes of creating a more sustainable spaceflight industry, private spaceflight company SpaceX is going to try landing one of their rockets again. And this time you can watch the mission live, no delays and no interruptions like before.
NASA's Curiosity rover on Mars has detected perchlorate compounds that are able to lower the freezing point of water, allowing it to remain in liquid form near the surface. Based on the data collected from the rover, researchers believe that liquid salt water may actually exist close to the surface.
Think that you know how today’s Falcon 9 launch and landing are going to play out? Think again! With some new improvements, and a lot of learning through trial and error, SpaceX thinks that they’ve worked out a plan for success, and we’re hoping that they stick the landing in grace.