The technology of things that fly
Boeing will invest $20 million in Virgin Galactic to “broaden commercial space access and transform global travel technologies” the companies announced on 8 October. Both companies have discussed the potential for super-fast commercial flight through hypersonic aircraft or flight through space. Leanne Caret, chief executive of Boeing’s space division, says in a statement that “together we will change how people
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President Donald Trump’s call on NASA to land American astronauts on the Moon by 2024 is the latest episode in a long-running saga of making grand promises about human spaceflight.
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China on Thursday became the first nation to land a spacecraft on the far side of the moon with the goal of unlocking the mysteries of the lunar surface region that never faces Earth, including how the moon formed billions of years ago.
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NASA on Monday said the asteroid Bennu was once in contact with water, based on molecules containing hydrogen and oxygen bonded together detected by the OSIRIS-Rex spacecraft in numerous places on the asteroid. Bennu may have once belonged to a much larger asteroid that carried water, the agency announced in a press release, adding these measurements are a promising start.
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Teams in mission control rooms at NASA-funded Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California and its contractor Lockheed Martin in Colorado erupted in applause on Monday as InSight became the eighth lander to reach the surface of Mars undamaged. Viewers online watched a livestream of their moment of victory as controllers at NASA’s JPL shared the first image of InSight’s landing zone
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Engineers and scientists who spent years preparing the InSight lander for its journey to Mars will have to sit and wait on Nov. 26 while the vehicle carrying the lander descends from space to the surface of the red planet at about 20,000 kilometers per hour.
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UPDATE: NASA has delayed the launch of the Northrop Grumman Antares rocket originally scheduled for Thursday because of snow and rain. The launch of cargo to the space station is now scheduled for 4:01 a.m. ET on Saturday.
Read moreThe Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency confirmed on its website Sept. 22 that both Minerva-2 rovers had landed on the asteroid Ryugu and “are in good condition and are transmitting images and data.” Full story by Tom Risen online at Aerospace America.
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