Space Tourism, Space Transport and Space Exploration News

April 06, 2015

New explanation for Mercury's dark surface
Livermore CA (SPX) Apr 05, 2015
Peering into space, the surface of Mercury appears dark and unreflective, an observation that has long puzzled planetary scientists due to the planet's very low surface abundance of iron (less than 2 percent). Iron is an important darkening material in airless bodies like the moon and asteroids.While the intense space weathering environment on Mercury, which efficiently converts the small amount of available iron into submicroscopic metallic iron, contributes to its dark surface, this effect is no ... read more

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Soft Landing on the Moon an Extraordinary Challenge Chinese Chang'e 3 spacecraft on Dec. 14, 2013 became the first probe to soft land on the Moon since the Soviet Union's Luna 24 in 1976. Other missions could follow its footsteps soon as the commerci ... more		OSIRIS-REx Mission Passes Critical Milestone NASA's groundbreaking science mission to retrieve a sample from an ancient space rock has moved closer to fruition. The Origins Spectral Interpretation Resource Identification Security Regolith Expl ... more		Soft, energy-efficient robotic wings Dielectric elastomers are novel materials for making actuators or motors with soft and lightweight properties that can undergo large active deformations with high-energy conversion efficiencies. Thi ... more
				Computer sharing of personality in sight: inventor The world has only touched the surface of technological progress and computers may soon be able to transmit the complexities of human personalities, a prominent inventor says. ... more		Curiosity Sniffs Out History of Martian Atmosphere NASA's Curiosity rover is using a new experiment to better understand the history of the Martian atmosphere by analyzing xenon. While NASA's Curiosity rover concluded its detailed examination of the ... more

Space Tech Expo - Design - Build - Test - Long Beach CA - May 19-21, 2015

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

Warm or cold? Mars' history takes a watery new twist A new, six-year analysis of water on Mars suggests that the Red Planet has lost the equivalent of an ocean's worth of water over the past four billion years. However, the question of whether Mars wa ... more		Curiosity Eyes Prominent Mineral Veins on Mars Two-tone mineral veins at a site NASA's Curiosity rover has reached by climbing a layered Martian mountain offer clues about multiple episodes of fluid movement. These episodes occurred later than t ... more		U.S. defense in free fall Saudi Arabia and Pakistan sign mutual defense pact Brazil, Chile sign defense agreement		Media Spun Up on NASA Cutting-edge Mars Landing Technology NASA's Low-Density Supersonic Decelerator (LDSD) project will be flying a rocket-powered, saucer-shaped test vehicle into near-space from the Navy's Pacific Missile Range Facility on Kauai, Hawaii, ... more
				Flash Reformatted and Marathon Completed 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 p ... more		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

Army Network Modernization 2015 - Washington DC June 23-25

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		GUARDIAN Tsunami Detection Tech Catches Wave in Real Time Galileo daughter mission named Celeste to strengthen navigation resilience How quantum computers can be validated when solving unsolvable problems		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
Researchers build brain-machine interface to control prosthetic hand A research team from the University of Houston has created an algorithm that allowed a man to grasp a bottle and other objects with a prosthetic hand, powered only by his thoughts. The technique, de ... 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		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		Artificial hand able to respond sensitively using smart metal wires Engineers at Saarland University have taken a leaf out of nature's book by equipping an artificial hand with muscles made from shape-memory wire. The new technology enables the fabrication of flexib ... more

	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

Ohio State scientists advance focus on nuclear propulsion

Mixing neutrinos of colliding neutron stars changes how merger unfolds

China launches experimental satellites to enhance mobile space internet

MESSENGER Completes 4,000th Orbit of Mercury		Chinese scientists mull power station in space		Tiny bio-robot is a germ suited-up with graphene quantum dots		Cluster satellite catches up		Scuttling satellites to save space
A new spin on Saturn's peculiar rotation		Help Name New Features on Pluto		NASA plans to bring boulder into moon orbit		Curiosity Rover Finds Biologically Useful Nitrogen on Mars		Next Steps on Journey to Mars: Progress on Asteroid Initiative

NASA Reformats Memory of Longest-Running Mars Rover

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

Spacecraft Power Systems

Robot finds bodily posture may affect memory and learning

Our Solar System May Have Once Harbored Super-Earths

Search for extraterrestrial intelligence extends to new realms

Mars One's CEO Bas Lansdorp answers questions about mission feasibility

Ground broken for Space Fence installation

China completes second test on new carrier rocket's power system

Unusual Asteroid Suspected of Spinning to Explosion

Name the features on Pluto and its moon Charon

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