NASA has two interactive tools that enable the public to follow its Mars Perseverance rover as it makes its way around the Red Planet. One of the tools is designed to follow the rover "as though you were standing on the surface of Mars," according to the space agency, while the other tool shows Perseverance and Ingenuity's current location and the stops from their past journeys.
Elon Musk has always envisioned space travel to be as economical as air travel, though naturally still more expensive. SpaceX's mission is to make that true not just for government-funded missions and research but also for commercial space tourism. The company has already gotten most launches and landings down to a "T," but there are still some goals to be checked off from its list. At least two of those have been completed now that the Inspiration4 mission is underway, transporting four civilians around the Earth for about three days at a record-breaking altitude.
NASA says that a region of Mars known as Arabia Terra once experienced thousands of massive eruptions from volcanoes, ones that were so powerful they were able to alter the Red Planet's climate for decades after. The explosions took place over the course of 500 million years, according to the space agency, where researchers recently published a scientific paper on the topic.
NASA's Artemis lander concept process reached a point where 5 companies were awarded further millions to mature sustainable human landing system concepts. The awards will be given under the Next Space Technologies for Exploration Partnerships (NextSTEP-2) Appendix N broad agency announcement, and represent a combined total of $146 million USD for work over the next 15 months.
NASA has confirmed that it is extending the length of time two astronauts will remain on the ISS. The two crewmembers are having their time aboard the station extended to nearly a year. The announcement of extended stays for the astronauts comes as work aboard the orbiting laboratory has increased. NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei and cosmonaut Pyotr Dubrov will continue to live aboard the space station until March of next year.
NASA is looking into the factors behind fatigued driving and how new automation technologies may both help -- and exacerbate -- the problem. Drowsy driving is responsible for many vehicular accidents and deaths every year, according to the NHTSA, but partially automated vehicles equipped with smart features may make this issue worse, not better.
Only two days after successfully acquiring its first Mars rock sample for storage in a titanium tube, NASA collected and stored a second sample -- and it is already scouting for the perfect place from which to drill its third core. The space agency has named these first two samples "Montdenier" and "Montagnac," and they've already revealed some details about the Martian planet.
The crew aboard the ISS has had a rough few months with a few potentially significant issues happening in the Russian segment of the space station. When Russia connected the new laboratory module to the space station, the thrusters on the segment fired unintendedly, pushing the entire station out of its normal orientation. Russian cosmonauts also recently discovered cracks in one of their modules.
NASA's X-59 Quiet SuperSonic Technology aircraft may be futuristic in more ways than one. In addition to offering supersonic travel without the loud booms typical to these aircraft, the X-59 may also swap out the cockpit window in favor of a large 4K display. The screen would overcome the issue presented by the plane's design, which reduces visibility out of a traditional cockpit window.
NASA has announced the details for its next annual Human Exploration Rover Challenge. The competition's registration is now open to student teams located in the US, giving budding engineers and designers the chance to build their own lightweight rover and demonstration its suitability for exploring other worlds. Some of the teams may win awards for their work.
One of the key features Earth has that is critical to life as we know it is a protective bubble of atmosphere and a magnetic field that prevents radiation from the solar system from reaching the planet's surface. Without that protective layer, radiation from space might have prevented life from ever forming on our planet. The Mars we know today has no protective magnetosphere or atmosphere, so all of the radiation from the sun and space directly impacts the planet's surface.
NASA has set a launch date for the James Webb Space Telescope, setting the long-anticipated successor to Hubble on its final countdown to unprecedented views of our galaxy and the greater universe beyond. It's been a long road to get to a 2021 launch window for Webb, which has been in development since 1996.