nasa

Sapa Profiles Inc. falsified certification tests and used fraudulent materials sold to NASA and others. Satellite retention clamshells did not open correctly on climate missions in 2009 and 2011. “When testing results are altered and certifications are provided falsely, missions fail,” said Jim...

NASA rover "Opportunity" was laid to rest on Tuesday night as attempts to make contact with the long-lived, space explorer wrapped up. Eight months ago, a ferocious, fast-moving Martian dust storm is thought to have covered the solar panels on the rover and cutoff the vital supply of sunlight...

NASA landed their "InSight" probe on Mars in November last year, and it brought a suite of sensors and gizmos with it. Among other things, NASA wants to dig into the Martian soil with InSight, but deploying the equipment needed to do that is a painfully slow, and risky, process. But yesterday...

The New Horizons probe blew past "Ultima Thule" on News Year's Day in 2019, and managed to snap an image of the object on the way. Unfortunately, bandwidth is limited when the probe is so far away that radio signals take 6 hours to reach Earth, so scientists only got a partial, fuzzy image in...

The Chang'e-4 team from China has successfully soft landed a combination lander-rover on the far side of the moon. Because the far side of the moon's view is blocked from Earth, a Queqiao relay satellite was launched in May 2018 to pass information from Chang'e-4 to Earth. The mission carried an...

NASA's New Horizons spacecraft, which launched way back in 2006 and took some gorgeous shots of Pluto in 2015, is set to make a close flyby of a Kuiper Belt object close to New Year's Eve. According to SpaceFlightNow, New Horizons will pass by Ultima Thule at 12:33AM EST, but the data will take...

NASA has sent out a memo to inform employees of a possible data breach that may have exposed the Social Security numbers and other personally identifiable information (PII) to hackers. The space agency does not believe that Agency mission data was affected by the cyber incidents. Agency...

NASA's InSight Mars Lander is scheduled to touch down on the red planet at around 2PM CST today. The craft has traveled over 300 million miles over the course of 7 months, and with the planet in the sights of the spacecraft's cameras, engineers have already made the last major course corrections...

NASA and SpaceX have enjoyed a very fruitful business relationship, but a controversial interview where Elon Musk smoked weed and drank whiskey is allegedly endangering it. The Washington Post reports that the interview prompted a safety review of SpaceX. While NASA didn't specifically confirm...

In a press release, NASA announced the landing site for the upcoming Mars 2020 Rover mission. The ancient, dry river basin outside the Jezero Crater is a science treasure trove, but NASA says that landing in the area was cost prohibitive until now. Scientists claim that signs of organic...

Following the failure of a manned launch to the ISS, the future of Earth's only manned space station has been brought in to question. The US. and Russia simultaneously launched unmanned resupply missions to the ISS over the weekend, and fortunately, both of them made it to the space station...

The Parker Solar Probe left Earth and started barreling towards the Sun back in August, and NASA reports that it just recently survived its first close encounter with the Sun. The spacecraft came within 15 million miles of its surface, smashing the previous record of f 26.55 million miles set in...

In a piece on Spectrum, NASA detailed their plans to mine dust on heavenly bodies in our solar system, and turn it into rocket fuel. That already sounds difficult, but according to NASA "Swamp Works" team leader Kurt W. Leucht, mining on Mars is even harder than you'd think. For example, it...

On Wednesday, NASA tested an umbrella like, foldable heatshield. NASA says the "Adaptable Deployable Entry Placement Technology" is a game changer, allowing rockets to carry heatshields far larger than the diameter of the rocket itself. Check out a video of the tech here. Spacecraft typically...

According to a report, NASA officials are considering selling advertising rights for rockets and spacecraft. Astronauts might be permitted to appear in commercials and on cereal boxes. NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine had this to say, "I'd like to see kids growing up, instead of maybe...

NASA really hit it out of the park when they designed and built the Opportunity rover. This bot has wandered all over Mars for the last 15 years even though NASA figured the rover would only make it through a 90-day mission window. Opportunity has been out of contact for some time now because of...

NASA has been thinking about the Moon for a while now, but they haven't really presented a way forward. However, they are moving forward now and have released their most detailed plan on how they will go about it. They are going to put a Deep Space Gateway in orbit around the Moon by 2024. It...

NASA has signed off on the load-and-go procedure for crew launches that SpaceX uses with their Falcon 9 rocket to get more fuel onboard and increase rocket thrust. This is an important step in gaining final approval for the Dragon capsule and Falcon 9 rocket configuration. In the event there is...

JPL has announced a new project that will allow anyone to build a smaller COTS copy of the Curiosity rover that landed on Mars. They based the plans on a smaller educational model of the Curiosity rover called the ROV-E that was used as an educational tool. They claim the rover will cost as...

NASA is running a multi-year contest to design 3D-printable habs for Mars using on-planet materials. The contest is in the first part of the third phase and the teams are putting together designs with Building Information Modeling software. This ensures the structures are functional and you have...

NASA has developed a new plan to detect and deflect asteroids that might hit the earth. They plan to enhance our capability to detect near-Earth asteroids and improve our prediction abilities so we have a better idea of when they will strike and where they will strike. Additionally, they are...

A new study released by NASA reveals that there are large organic molecules on Mars. This data was gathered by the Curiosity rover in Mars's Gale Crater where it found the 3.5B year old molecules. These results don't mean there was life on Mars, but they do show where more advanced missions...

Earlier this month SpaceX launched its new Block 5 Falcon 9 and this new rocket is supposed to fly 10 times each with minimal refurb in between. Further, the rocket is supposed to be crew capable, but the recent launch didn't include crucial changes required to gain certification. The back story...

NASA is testing a new technology for nuclear reactors that promises to significantly reduce their size, increase capacity, and longevity. The reactor is called KRUSTY or Kilopower Reactor Using Stirling TechnologY and It uses uranium instead of plutonium. The fission reaction (AKA heat)...

Researchers have begun using imaging tech originally developed for NASA to examine fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls and found that some of the fragments contain a hidden script that wasn't visible to the naked eye. The imaging technique resulted in the discovery of new letters and words and may...

NASA's lunar "Gateway" project begins early next year (Warning auto play video) when they will award a contract to build power and propulsion elements for the orbital platform. This platform will orbit the moon and will be one of the first steps to putting man on the moon in permanent bases. The...

NASA is going back to some old plans they shelved back in the 70's and is looking at using an atomic rocket to get to Mars. Believe it or not this makes a lot of sense because the spacecraft would have the capability to get there faster and as a by-product this would increase astronaut safety...

The satellite that NASA hadn't heard from in 13 years that powered up randomly last week is apparently working well. NASA has stated that the IMAGE spacecraft's battery is fully charged, and that overall, the satellite itself seems to be in good shape. NASA is putting together a small control...

NASA has announced that they have made contact that had not heard from in 13 years. in 2000 NASA launched the Imager for Magnetopause-to-Aurora Global Exploration or IMAGE. IMAGE was to orbit earth and take photos of the magnetosphere, however in 2005 it failed to make contact, and after a 2007...

Researchers from NASA, Los Alamos National Laboratory, and the Department of Energy announced they have successfully tested a small nuclear reactor. These reactors range in power from 1 kilowatt to 10 kW. NASA states that to run a habitat on Mars and create fuel, about 40 kW would be needed...

NASA has released their target dates for Boeing and SpaceX manned flights and they will occur in November and December respectively. However, all is not rosy because a recent report by the Aerospace Safety and Advisory Panel states the capsules may not be able to be certified because Boeing and...

For the first time since 2003 the US led the world in space launches last year. Previous to this the Russians were the clear leaders year over year and in 2016 the US tied with China for the lead. What this means is that the US is starting to get back to a leadership role in space exploration...

SpaceX has lifted the new Falcon Heavy from a horizontal position and placed it on the launchpad at Cape Canaveral. The first launch is scheduled in a few weeks and Elon Musk has promised his own Tesla is going to be onboard as cargo. However, Elon isn't real optimistic about this flight, but...

NASA has been using space suits on the ISS that were originally expected to only make it in service until 1993. However, with operations beginning to pick up on the ISS over the years NASA has had to refurbish these suits multiple times. The latest report to Congress sets the stage for another...

Back on October 12th Nasa's JPL raced their autonomous drone against Ken Loo, one of the top drone pilots in the world. They did this to see how well they could do after 2 solid years of development of their AI powered drone. When it was all over Ken Loo dominated, but the NASA drone put in a...

NASA noticed that the Curiosity has been wearing out tires over it's mission life and decided it was time to do something about it so they looked at some old school chainmail and found that it might make a good material to resist damage. After looking at their video I would say NASA might be...

According to a research paper published by NASA's Edgar Zapata, the space agency has actually saved a considerable amount of money and resources by choosing to invest in SpaceX. A commercial partnership is now the best option for space exploration. However, I know some of you (I'm one) out...

Sierra Nevada Corp.’s Dream Chaser spacecraft underwent a successful free-flight test on November 11, 2017 at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center, Edwards, California. The test verified and validated the performance of the Dream Chaser in the critical final approach and landing phase of...

In 2020, NASA plans on launching an SUV sized rover to Mars that contains a total of 23 cameras. This number of cameras is larger than any other rover. What makes this one unique is its ability to take better pictures at a faster rate because it reduces the prep and processing time back on...

NASA has posted an animated video depicting its Space Launch System that will eventually take astronauts back to the moon and then onto Mars. We're getting closer and closer to reestablishing an American manned space program and I can't wait to see us begin moving into the solar system. Check...