Exploration of Mars

On Sunday, four researchers donned black jumpsuits and entered into a red world where they will spend a year living and working in a simulated Martian environment. Is Google's New $1,800 Pixel Phone Worth It? | Gizmodo ReviewNASA’s CHAPEA habitat, or Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog, welcomed its volunteer guests this week, who are set to spend 378 days in the enclosed, Mars-like world to help the space agency prepare for future missions to the Red Planet.“I feel incredibly lucky and blessed to be a part of…

NASA’s Martian explorer, MAVEN, captured Earth’s neighboring planet in fascinating detail, revealing the changing seasons on Mars as it orbits around the Sun. Astronomers Could Soon Get Warnings When SpaceX Satellites Threaten Their ViewThe Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN mission, MAVEN for short, views the planet in ultraviolet light (which has wavelengths shorter than that of visible light). Using its Imaging Ultraviolet Spectrograph (IUVS) instrument, the spacecraft snapped global views of Mars in 2022 and 2023,…

To commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Mars Express Orbiter, the European Space Agency broadcast the first-ever Mars livestream, in a historic event that unfolded over an hour on Friday, June 3. A newly released animation shows a sped-up version of how the livestream unfolded.Astronomers Could Soon Get Warnings When SpaceX Satellites Threaten Their ViewDuring the live stream, images arrived once every 50 seconds, as the orbiter’s onboardVisual Monitoring Camera (VMC) captured the photos from Mars orbit. There is,…

Arresting views of Mars taken from high above the planet’s surface by the Mars Express orbiter have been stitched into a mosaic image of the planet’s surface.Three Astronauts May Be Stranded on the ISS After Disturbing Soyuz Coolant LeakMars Express is a European Space Agency (ESA) spacecraft that launched for Mars in 2003, and since its arrival the orbiter has set records for data transmission and for being the first spacecraft to livestream from another world, besides its regularly-scheduled programming of imaging the…

For the past 20 years, the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Mars Express has been orbiting the Red Planet and sending back precious data that reveal the Martian landscape. Our views of Mars, however, have always suffered from a slight technical delay, taking hours or sometimes days to transmit their way back to Earth. That’sset to change with the first Martian livestream beamed directly from the red planet.Astronomers Could Soon Get Warnings When SpaceX Satellites Threaten Their ViewOn Friday, ESA will stream a live feed of…

The Ingenuity helicopter paved new ground (air?) in April 2019, when it communicated data of its first flight—the first powered, controlled flight on another planet—to NASA scientists on Earth.Astronomers Could Soon Get Warnings When SpaceX Satellites Threaten Their ViewBut now, it seems Ingenuity isn’t interested in communicating with its engineering team at all; as of late, the Mars helicopter has only communicated with NASA scientists intermittently and unpredictably.The communication breakdown is making it difficult…

A commercial landing on Mars will have to wait a little longer as two private space companies updated their plan to touchdown on the Red Planet, delaying it by two years for reasons not made explicitly clear.Astronomers Could Soon Get Warnings When SpaceX Satellites Threaten Their ViewSpeaking at the Humans to Mars Summit, which was held from May 16 to 18 in Washington, D.C., executives from private space companies Impulse Space and Relativity Space announced that their joint venture to Mars is now slated for launch…

China’s Zhurong rover has found evidence of liquid water on present-day Mars, according to a team that reviewed data from the rover’s cameras.China's Plan to Land Astronauts on the MoonTo be clear, the team claims they’ve collected evidence of liquid water on Mars—not the liquid water itself. Water was once plentiful on Mars. NASA, the European Space Agency, and others have found a plethora of evidence for ancient water on the planet; it’s proving the recent presence of water that’s trickier.The (currently malfunctioning)…

The Chinese rover snapped a selfie on Mars next to its lander shortly after arriving at the Red Planet. Image: China National Space AdministrationAbout a year ago, China’s Zhurong rover hunkered down on the Martian surface to avoid the harsh winter season on the dusty planet. Regrettably, Zhurong has so far failed to revive itself from hibernation mode. A mission designer recently revealed that an accumulation of dust on the rover’s solar panels may be the reason forits unresponsive state.Astronomers Could Soon Get…

NASA’s quest to return rocky samples from the surface of Mars to Earth in 2033 is already running up the bill, with the project needing a lot more money than what was allocated to the mission for 2023. Better Mobility & Cameras: NASA & Axiom's New Spacesuits | TechmodoDuring a recent hearing of the Senate Appropriations Committee’s Commerce, Justice and Science subcommittee, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson revealed that the Mars Sample Return mission needs an additional $250 million in the current fiscal year, plus…