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March 11, 2016

NASA's K2 mission: Kepler second chance to shine
Pasadena CA (JPL) Mar 11, 2016
The engineers huddled around a telemetry screen, and the mood was tense. They were watching streams of data from a crippled spacecraft more than 50 million miles away - so far that even at the speed of light, it took nearly nine minutes for a signal to travel to the spacecraft and back. It was late August 2013, and the group of about five employees at Ball Aerospace in Boulder, Colorado, was waiting for NASA's Kepler space telescope to reveal whether it would live or die. A severe malfunction had ... read more

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NASA Announces Winning Concepts to Further its Journey to Mars NASA has announced the winners of two challenges to create new concepts for construction and human habitation on future space exploration missions, including the agency's journey to Mars. The ... more		NASA targets May 2018 launch of Mars InSight mission NASA's Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport (InSight) mission to study the deep interior of Mars is targeting a new launch window that begins May 5, 2018, wi ... more		Sharpest view ever of dusty disc around aging star As they approach the ends of their lives many stars develop stable discs of gas and dust around them. This material was ejected by stellar winds, whilst the star was passing through the red giant st ... more
				Sky is the limit for China's national strategy For thousands of years thinkers have grappled to understand the origins of the universe. Now, this question has been included, alongside more terrestrial topics such as agriculture, in China's new e ... more		China to Launch Over 100 Long March Rockets Within Five Years China in the next five years will launch 110 Long March rockets, a member of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference National Committee said Wednesday. According to Liang Xiaoho ... more

Close comet flyby threw Mars' magnetic field into chaos Just weeks before the historic encounter of comet C/2013 A1 (Siding Spring) with Mars in October 2014, NASA's Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) spacecraft entered orbit around the Red P ... more		China's ambition after space station China will manage to exploit the space between earth and the moon for solar power and other resources after it builds a space station in 2020, Lt Gen. Zhang Yulin, said Monday. The deputy chie ... more		North Korea declares nuclear statehood 'permanently enshrined' ArianeGroup to develop next-generation M51.4 missile for French nuclear deterrent Comtech modem earns first sovereign certification for SES O3b mPOWER network		Ten Years of Discovery by Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter True to its purpose, the big NASA spacecraft that began orbiting Mars a decade ago this week has delivered huge advances in knowledge about the Red Planet. NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) h ... more
				Mission to Mars brings Russia and Europe together Despite the current tensions between Europe and Russia, its business as usual for Roscosmos and ESA on their joint Martian endeavor. Despite the current troubled political situation, Russia's Roscos ... more		Intensive training for Mars voyage With just days to go before the departure of ExoMars, mission teams are in the final stages of their months-long training that ensures everyone knows their job the moment the mission comes alive. Th ... more

Military Network Modernization 2016 - Washington DC - April 25-27

Space Tech Expo - Design - Build - Test - Pasadena CA - May 24-26, 2016

Tempur-Pedic Mattress Comparison & Memory Foam Mattress Review

NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft in thermal vacuum testing The first U.S. mission to collect a sample of an asteroid and return it to Earth for study is undergoing a major milestone in its environmental testing. NASA's Origins, Spectral Interpretation ... more		Mercury's mysterious 'darkness' revealed Scientists have long been puzzled about what makes Mercury's surface so dark. The innermost planet reflects much less sunlight than the Moon, a body on which surface darkness is controlled by the ab ... more		New U.S.-European Sea Level Satellite Will Help Safeguard Ships at Sea Planet captures first light from Pelican-3 satellite as constellation expands Trump signs memorandum to deploy U.S. National Guard troops to Memphis		Dawn's First Year at Ceres: A Mountain Emerges One year ago, on March 6, 2015, NASA's Dawn spacecraft slid gently into orbit around Ceres, the largest body in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Since then, the spacecraft has delivered a ... more
Scientists explain why Mercury's surface is so dark Astronomers have long struggled to explain Mercury's darkness, but new research suggests carbon is responsible for the planet's limited reflectivity. ... more		In emergencies, should you trust a robot In emergencies, people may trust robots too much for their own safety, a new study suggests. In a mock building fire, test subjects followed instructions from an "Emergency Guide Robot" even after t ... more		Life's Building Blocks Form In Replicated Deep Sea Vents Chimney-like mineral structures on the seafloor could have helped create the RNA molecules that gave rise to life on Earth and hold promise to the emergence of life on distant planets. Scientists th ... more		Engineered swarmbots rely on peers for survival Duke University researchers have engineered microbes that can't run away from home; those that do will quickly die without protective proteins produced by their peers. Dubbed "swarmbots" for t ... more

	Multi-scale simulations solve a plasma turbulence mystery Cutting-edge simulations run at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory's National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC) over a two-year period are helping physicists better understand w ... more		Hundred million degree fluid key to fusion Scientists developing fusion energy experiments have solved a puzzle of why their million-degree heating beams sometimes fail, and instead destabilise the fusion experiments before energy is generat ... more

'A better future is possible': Youths sue Trump over climate change

Durham scientists validate superconducting wires for ITER fusion project

Framatome to upgrade Kozloduy nuclear plant electrical systems

100 million-degree fluid essential to fusion		Plasma processing technique takes SNS accelerator to new energy highs		Watch Google's AlphaGo computer take on world's best Go player		Mars robot launch now scheduled for May 2018: NASA		Proton-M carrier rocket assembled ahead of Mars Mission
New photos show 'magic island' on Saturn's moon		Evidence found for unstable heavy element at solar system formation		Aim Higher: China Plans to Send Rover to Mars in 2020		China's lunar probe sets record for longest stay		Japan 'robo' dogs eyed for quake rescue missions

Methane Snow on Pluto's Peaks

Great tilt gave Mars a new face

Space simulation crew hits halfway mark til August re-entry

Versatile Instrument to Scout for Kuiper Belt Objects

China to use data relay satellite to explore dark side of moon

Researchers unveil light-up, stretchable robot skin

Monster volcano gave Mars extreme makeover: study

Automatic programming makes swarm robots safer and more reliable

Microrobots learn from ciliates

Moving in to Tiangong 2

SSL developing robotic sample handling assembly for Mars 2020

Don't Panic: asteroid won't hit Earth but will get close

What if extraterrestrial observers called, but nobody heard

Searching for Extraterrestrials Who Might Have Found Us First

Rover begins contact science of rock target on Knudsen Ridge

Tethys, Janus pose with Saturn's rings in new NASA photo

MAVEN Observes Mars Moon Phobos in the Mid- and Far-Ultraviolet

Underwater robots can be programmed to make independent decisions

Is it life, or merely the illusion of life

Spacepath Communications creates new joint venture with Polarity in US

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