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April 01, 2015

Flash Reformatted and Marathon Completed
Pasadena CA (JPL) Apr 01, 2015
The Opportunity mission is now the first human enterprise to exceed marathon distance of travel on another world. Opportunity is on the west rim of Endeavour Crater near 'Marathon Valley', a putative location for abundant clay minerals. The rover is approaching a feature called 'Spirit of St. Louis Crater' at the entrance to Marathon Valley. On Sol 3964 (March 19, 2015), the flash-memory file system was reformatted using new flight software. The reformat was successful. The rover is again us ... read more

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Comet dust: Planet Mercury's 'invisible paint' A team of scientists has a new explanation for the planet Mercury's dark, barely reflective surface. In a paper published in Nature Geoscience, the researchers suggest that a steady dusting of carbo ... more		Stop blaming the moon "It must be a full moon" is a common refrain when things appear more hectic than usual. The moon is even blamed when things get crazy at hospital emergency rooms or birth wards. "Some nurses ascribe ... more		Goddard releases open source core flight software suite to public The Innovative Technology Partnerships Office at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, announced the release of its core Flight System (cFS) Application Suite to the public. The ... more
				New Horizons Sampling 'Space Weather' on Approach to Pluto As NASA's New Horizons spacecraft approaches the Pluto system, its space plasma (also called charged particle) instruments - SWAP and PEPSSI - have already been taking measurements and assessing the ... more		Saturn Spacecraft Returns to the Realm of Icy Moons A dual view of Saturn's icy moon Rhea marks the return of NASA's Cassini spacecraft to the realm of the planet's icy satellites. This follows nearly two years during which the spacecraft's orbits ca ... more

Human 2 Mars Conference Mat 5-7 2015 - Washington DC

Nuclear Decommissioning Conference Europe May 2015

Earthlike 'Star Wars' Tatooines may be common Luke Skywalker's home in "Star Wars" is the desert planet Tatooine, with twin sunsets because it orbits two stars. So far, only uninhabitable gas-giant planets have been identified circling such bin ... more		Rover Amnesia Event Follows Latest Memory Reformatting The team operating NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity learned Thursday that the long-lived rover experienced a brief amnesia event related to its flash memory, the first since a reformatting ... more				MESSENGER Completes 4,000th Orbit of Mercury On March 25, the MESSENGER spacecraft completed its 4,000th orbit of Mercury, and the lowest point in its orbit continues to move closer to the planet than ever before. The orbital phase of the MESS ... more
				Help Name New Features on Pluto In partnership with NASA's New Horizons mission and the SETI Institute, the IAU is endorsing a campaign that will allow the public to participate in naming newly discovered features on Pluto and its ... more		Chinese scientists mull power station in space The battle to dispel smog, cut greenhouse gases and solve the energy crisis is moving to space. Chinese scientists are mulling the construction of a solar power station 36,000 kilometers above groun ... more

Cluster satellite catches up One of the four Cluster satellites has shifted its orbit to ensure a safe reentry when the time comes, as well as providing a rare opportunity to study how a satellite's exhaust plume interacts with ... more		Scuttling satellites to save space It takes a lot of ingenuity - not to mention a massive quantity of sheer force - to get satellites into orbit. Now space engineers are applying comparable ingenuity to the challenge of getting their ... more				Tiny bio-robot is a germ suited-up with graphene quantum dots As nanotechnology makes possible a world of machines too tiny to see, researchers are finding ways to combine living organisms with nonliving machinery to solve a variety of problems. Like oth ... more
Soyuz Installed at Baikonur, Expected to Launch Wednesday The Soyuz-2.1A carrier rocket has been successfully installed at the launch site at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan and is scheduled for launch on October 29, the press service of the Russian ... more		A new spin on Saturn's peculiar rotation Tracking the rotation speed of solid planets, like the Earth and Mars, is a relatively simple task: Just measure the time it takes for a surface feature to roll into view again. But giant gas planet ... more		NASA plans to bring boulder into moon orbit NASA plans to launch a craft to capture a boulder from a nearby asteroid and move it into orbit around the Earth's moon for exploration by astronauts, the space agency said Wednesday. ... more		Curiosity Rover Finds Biologically Useful Nitrogen on Mars A team using the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument suite aboard NASA's Curiosity rover has made the first detection of nitrogen on the surface of Mars from release during heating of Martian s ... more

	Next Steps on Journey to Mars: Progress on Asteroid Initiative NASA Wednesday announced more details in its plan for its Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM), which in the mid-2020s will test a number of new capabilities needed for future human expeditions to deep s ... more		NASA Reformats Memory of Longest-Running Mars Rover After avoiding use of the rover's flash memory for three months, the team operating NASA's 11-year-old Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity has reformatted the vehicle's flash memory banks and resumed ... more

NASA's Opportunity Mars Rover Passes Marathon Distance		Ancient Martian lake system records 2 water-related events		Snake robots learn to turn by following the lead of real sidewinders		Europa's Elusive Water Plume Paints Grim Picture For Life		Surviving in hostile territory
NASA rover completes 11-year Mars marathon		Want to snag a satellite? Try a net		Mars has nitrogen, key to life: NASA		India's frugal Mars mission extended by six months		Planets in the habitable zone around most stars, calculate researchers

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