Lifeboat Foundation

Shortly thereafter, China National Space Agency (CNSA) shared the first images taken by the Tianwen-1 lander.

By May 22, the Zhurong rover descended from its lander and drove on the Martian surface for the first time. Since then, the rover has spent 63 Earth days conducting science operations on the surface of Mars and has traveled over 450 meters (1475 feet).

On Friday, July 9, and again on July 15, the CNSA released new images of the Red Planet that were taken by the rover as it made its way across the surface.

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Before Saturday, Ingenuity had already flown nearly one mile in total, so its 10th flight helped it hit that threshold.

The flight should have lasted about 2 minutes, 45 seconds. During that time, Ingenuity is expected to have visited 10 distinct waypoints, snapping photos along the way.

Continue reading “NASA’s Mars helicopter nailed its 10th flight — double what engineers had hoped Ingenuity would do” »

The now iconic spacecraft’s 35th three-hour flyby of Jupiter comes close to the 10th anniversary of its launch. Here are the best and newest phots from its JunoCam imager.

Ingenuity, the helicopter that arrived on the Red Planet on the Mars Perseverance rover, has made nine flights on Mars.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzVQ_R0BZaY

On July 20th, 2021 NASA’s Perseverance Mars Rover transmitted new images from Red Planet trying to collect first sample. Rover currently studying geological features of “Crater Floor Fractured Rough” area. While the rocks located in this geologic unit are not great time capsules for organics, NASA’s scientists believe they have been around since the formation of Jezero Crater and incredibly valuable to fill gaps in our geologic understanding of this region – things we’ll desperately need to know if we find life once existed on Mars. Photo of tube located in Mars rock was taken by Perseverance Rover on Sol 148.

Credit: nasa.gov, NASA/JPL-Caltech, NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU

Continue reading “Perseverance Rover left this in Mars rock trying to get first sample on Red Planet” »

The search for life beyond Earth is on.

NASA’s newest Mars rover is getting ready to collect its first rock sample from the surface of Mars and stow it away for a future return mission to Earth, where NASA will test it for signs of ancient microbial life.

Continue reading “Perseverance’s hunt for ancient life reveals 2 Red Planet discoveries” »

Circa 2015

It’s no TIE fighter, but the Dawn probe is driven by the future of spacecraft propulsion: ion engines.

Continue reading “Dawn of a new era: the revolutionary ion engine that took spacecraft to Ceres” »

(NEXSTAR) — An asteroid about the size of a stadium — or three times the size of the Taj Mahal — is set to speed past Earth on Saturday.

The asteroid, called “2008Go20,” is hurtling towards Earth at 18000 mph, according to NASA. Nevertheless, the agency says there’s no reason to worry.

NASA’s Juno spacecraft is “listening” in on radio emissions from Jupiter’s volcanic moon Io, allowing researchers to discover what triggers the strange radio waves.

Of all the planets in our solar system, Jupiter has the largest and most powerful magnetic field, which extends so far that some of the planet’s moons orbit within it. Because Io is closest to the planet, the moon is “caught in a gravitational tug-of-war” between Jupiter and two other large moons, according to NASA. These opposing pulls cause massive internal heat, which has led to hundreds of volcanic eruptions across the moon’s surface.