NASA
NASA picks Venus as hot spot for two new robotic missions
NASA is returning to sizzling Venus, our closest yet perhaps most overlooked neighbor, after decades of exploring other worlds.
The space agency’s new administrator, Bill Nelson, announced two new robotic missions to the solar system’s hottest planet, during his first major address to employees Wednesday.
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“These two sister missions both aim to understand how Venus became an inferno-like world capable of melting lead at the surface,” Nelson said.
One mission named DaVinci Plus will analyze the thick, cloudy Venusian atmosphere in an attempt to determine whether the inferno planet ever had an ocean and was possibly habitable. A small craft will plunge through the atmosphere to measure the gases.
It will be the first U.S.-led mission to the Venusian atmosphere since 1978.
The other mission, called Veritas, will seek a geologic history by mapping the rocky planet’s surface.
Read:Forecast: 40% chance Earth to be hotter than Paris goal soon
“It is astounding how little we know about Venus,” but the new missions will give fresh views of the planet’s atmosphere, made up mostly of carbon dioxide, down to the core, NASA scientist Tom Wagner said in a statement. “It will be as if we have rediscovered the planet.”
NASA’s top science official, Thomas Zurbuchen, calls it “a new decade of Venus.” Each mission — launching sometime around 2028 to 2030 — will receive $500 million for development under NASA’s Discovery program.
The missions beat out two other proposed projects, to Jupiter’s moon Io and Neptune’s icy moon Triton.
The U.S. and the former Soviet Union sent multiple spacecraft to Venus in the early days of space exploration. NASA’s Mariner 2 performed the first successful flyby in 1962, and the Soviets’ Venera 7 made the first successful landing in 1970.
Read: Cosmic 2-for-1: Total lunar eclipse combines with supermoon
In 1989, NASA used a space shuttle to send its Magellan spacecraft into orbit around Venus.
The European Space Agency put a spacecraft around Venus in 2006.
Navigation error sends NASA’s Mars helicopter on wild ride
A navigation timing error sent NASA’s little Mars helicopter on a wild, lurching ride, its first major problem since it took to the Martian skies last month.
The experimental helicopter, named Ingenuity, managed to land safely, officials at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory reported Thursday.
The trouble cropped up about a minute into the helicopter’s sixth test flight last Saturday at an altitude of 33 feet (10 meters). One of the numerous pictures taken by an on-board camera did not register in the navigation system, throwing the entire timing sequence off and confusing the craft about its location.
Ingenuity began tilting back and forth as much as 20 degrees and suffered power consumption spikes, according to Havard Grip, the helicopter’s chief pilot.
Also read: 4th flight fizzles for NASA’s Mars helicopter, retry Friday
A built-in system to provide extra margin for stability “came to the rescue,” he wrote in an online status update. The helicopter landed within 16 feet (5 meters) of its intended touchdown site.
Ingenuity became the first aircraft to make a powered flight on another planet in April, two months after landing on Mars with NASA’s rover Perseverance.
The 4-pound (1.8-kilogram) helicopter aced its first five flights, each one more challenging than before. NASA was so impressed by the $85 million tech demo that it extended its mission by at least a month.
Saturday’s troubled flight was the first for this bonus period. Engineers have spent the past several days addressing the problem.
Cosmic 2-for-1: Total lunar eclipse combines with supermoon
The first total lunar eclipse in more than two years coincides with a supermoon this week for quite a cosmic show.
This super “blood” moon will be visible Wednesday across the Pacific — offering the best viewing — as well as the western half of North America, bottom of South America and eastern Asia.
Better look quick: The total eclipse will last about 15 minutes as Earth passes directly between the moon and the sun. But the entire show will last five hours, as Earth’s shadow gradually covers the moon, then starts to ebb. The reddish-orange color is the result of all the sunrises and sunsets in Earth’s atmosphere projected onto the surface of the eclipsed moon.
“Hawaii has the best seat in the house and then short of that will be California and the Pacific Northwest,” said NASA’s Noah Petro, project scientist for the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. New Zealand and Australia also will have prime viewing.
Read:Solar eclipse on the longest day of the year
Circling the moon for 12 years, the orbiter will measure temperatures changes on the lunar surface during the eclipse. Telescopes atop Hawaii’s Mauna Kea also will monitor the moon, Petro said.
The moon will be setting and the sun rising along the U.S. East Coast, leaving skygazers — Petro in Virginia included — pretty much out of luck. Europe, Africa and western Asia will miss everything. There will be livestreams available.
Everyone everywhere, though, can still soak in the brighter than usual moon, weather permitting.
The moon will be more than 220,000 miles (357,460 kilometers) away at its fullest. It’s this proximity, combined with a full moon, that qualifies it as a supermoon, making it appear slightly bigger and more brilliant in the sky.
Last month’s supermoon, by contrast, was 96 miles (155 kilometers) more distant.
Read: 2-for-1: Total lunar eclipse comes with supermoon bonus
Unlike a solar eclipse, there’s no harm in looking at an eclipsed moon.
More lunar shows are on the horizon.
“For people who might feel like we’re missing out, set your calendars for Nov. 19 of this year,” Petro said. This will be a nearly total eclipse where the moon dims but doesn’t turn red.
The next total lunar eclipse will be May 2022. The last one was January 2019.
SpaceX capsule departs station with 4 astronauts, heads home
A SpaceX capsule carrying four astronauts departed the International Space Station late Saturday, aiming for a rare nighttime splashdown to end the company’s second crew flight.
It would be the first U.S. splashdown in darkness since Apollo 8′s crew returned from the moon in 1968.
NASA’s Mike Hopkins, Victor Glover and Shannon Walker, and Japan’s Soichi Noguchi, headed home in the same Dragon capsule that delivered them to the space station last November. The ride back was expected to take just 6 1/2 hours.
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“Thanks for your hospitality,” Hopkins radioed as the capsule undocked 260 miles (420 kilometers) above Mali.
SpaceX targeted a splashdown around 3 a.m. Sunday in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Panama City, Florida. Despite the early hour, the Coast Guard deployed extra patrols — and spotlights — to keep any night-owl sightseers away. The capsule of the first SpaceX crew was surrounded by pleasure boaters last summer, posing a safety risk.
Hopkins, the spacecraft commander, rocketed into orbit with his crew on Nov. 15 from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. Their replacements arrived a week ago aboard their own Dragon capsule — the same one that launched SpaceX’s first crew last spring.
The four should have been back by now, but high offshore wind kept them at the space station a few extra days. SpaceX and NASA determined the best weather would be before dawn.
The delays allowed Glover to celebrate his 45th birthday in space Friday.
Read Also: Biggest space station crowd in decade after SpaceX arrival
“Gratitude, wonder, connection. I’m full of and motivated by these feelings on my birthday, as my first mission to space comes to an end,” Glover tweeted.
Saturday night’s undocking left seven astronauts at the space station: three Americans, two Russians, one Japanese and one French.
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4th flight fizzles for NASA’s Mars helicopter, retry Friday
NASA’s Mars helicopter fizzled Thursday on its fourth flight attempt.
The 4-pound (1.8-kilogram) helicopter named Ingenuity was supposed to lift off on its longest, fastest flight yet, after three successes. But the chopper remained on the ground.
Flight controllers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California will attempt a redo on Friday.
Also read: NASA’s Mars helicopter takes flight, 1st for another planet
Ingenuity’s took flight for the first time at Mars on April 19 — becoming the first powered aircraft to soar at another planet — after controllers fixed a software error.
Managers said the solution would work 85% of the time. After three successful flights, Thursday’s attempt was not one of them.
The helicopter team has until early next week to test Ingenuity in the Martian skies. Two more flights are planned before NASA’s Perseverance rover shoves off on its primary mission: seeking signs of past life in the Martian rocks. The rover will collect core samples and set them aside for pickup by a future robotic craft, for eventual return to Earth.
Also read: NASA releases Mars landing video: 'Stuff of our dreams'
Perseverance and Ingenuity arrived at Mars on Feb. 18, landing in an ancient river delta.
Two space fans get seats on billionaire's private flight
A billionaire's private SpaceX flight filled its two remaining seats Tuesday with a scientist-teacher and a data engineer whose college friend actually won a spot but gave him the prize.
The new passengers: Sian Proctor, a community college educator in Tempe, Arizona, and Chris Sembroski, a former Air Force missileman from Everett, Washington. They will join flight sponsor Jared Isaacman and another passenger for three days in orbit this fall.
Isaacman also revealed some details about his Inspiration4 mission, as the four gathered Tuesday at NASA's Kennedy Space Center. He's head of Shift4 Payments, a credit card-processing company in Allentown, Pennsylvania, and is paying for what would be SpaceX's first private flight while raising money for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee.
Their SpaceX Dragon capsule will launch no earlier than mid-September, aiming for an altitude of 335 miles (540 kilometers). That's 75 miles (120 kilometers) higher than the International Space Station and on a level with the Hubble Space Telescope.
Isaacman, 38, a pilot who will serve as spacecraft commander, still won't say how much he's paying. He's donating $100 million to St. Jude, while donors so far have contributed $13 million, primarily through the lottery that offered a chance to fly in space.
Hayley Arceneaux, 29, was named to the crew a month ago. The St. Jude physician assistant was treated there as a child for bone cancer.
That left two capsule seats open. Proctor, 51, beat out 200 businesses and nabbed the seat reserved for a customer of Isaacman's company. An independent panel of judges chose her space art website dubbed Space2inspire.
"It was like when Harry Potter found out he was a wizard, a little bit of shock and awe," Proctor told The Associated Press last week. "It's like, 'I'm the winner?'"
Sembroski, 41, donated and entered the lottery but wasn't picked in the random drawing earlier this month — his friend was. His friend declined to fly for personal reasons and offered the spot to Sembroski, who worked as a Space Camp counselor in college and volunteered for space advocacy groups.
"Just finding out that I'm going to space was an incredible, strange, surreal event," he said.
Proctor, who studied geology, applied three times to NASA's astronaut corps, coming close in 2009, and took part in simulated Mars missions in Hawaii. She was born in Guam, where her late father — a "Hidden Figure" in her mind — worked at NASA's tracking station for the Apollo moonshots, including Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin's.
She plans to teach from space and create art up there, too.
"To me, everything that I've done ... has brought me to this moment."
NASA completes engine test firing of moon rocket on 2nd try
NASA completed an engine test firing of its moon rocket Thursday, after the first attempt in January ended prematurely.
US astronaut launching next month may spend year in space
NASA may soon chalk up another one-year space mission thanks to an out-of-this-world Russian movie-making deal.
NASA’s new Mars rover hits dusty red road, 1st trip 21 feet
NASA’s newest Mars rover hit the dusty red road this week, putting 21 feet on the odometer in its first test drive.
NASA releases Mars landing video: 'Stuff of our dreams'
NASA on Monday released the first high-quality video of a spacecraft landing on Mars, a three-minute trailer showing the enormous orange and white parachute hurtling open and the red dust kicking up as rocket engines lowered the rover to the surface.