Tag: NASA
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Fog and flames: Up-close photos from the Mars InSight mission’s launch pad
VANDENBERG AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. — As thick fog enveloped Space Launch Complex 3 early this morning, the Mars InSight lander roared off the launch pad aboard an Atlas 5 rocket, starting its journey to the Red Planet. My three remote cameras were 300 to 400 feet away from the launch pad, and you can see…
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Video: InSight blasts off through the fog
Credit: NASA TV A United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket took off Saturday from California with the InSight spacecraft heading for Mars. The 188-foot-tall (57-meter) Atlas 5 launcher lifted off powered by an RD-180 main engine at 4:05 a.m. PDT (7:05 a.m. EDT; 1105 GMT) Saturday, heading south-southeast from Vandenberg Air Force Base, a military…
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All systems go for launch of InSight, a mission to reveal the inside of Mars
Artist’s illustration of the InSight spacecraft on the surface of Mars. Credit: Lockheed Martin Scientists eager for answers to long-standing questions about the geology of Mars will get a lift Saturday with the blastoff from California of an Atlas 5 rocket with NASA’s InSight mission, a robotic landing craft that will take the pulse and…
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It’s showtime for launch of NASA’s Mars lnSight lander (and its piggyback probes)
An artist’s impression shows the Mars InSight lander and a cutaway view of Mars’ subsurface, with the lander’s heat probe deployed underground. (NASA Illustration) NASA’s Mars InSight lander is being prepped for a launch that will send some magical science and engineering toward the Red Planet, including two pint-sized piggyback probes and a seismometer that…
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NASA’s Kilopower project demonstrates a nuclear reactor that’s made for space
Kilopower lead engineer Marc Gibson and Vantage Partner’s Jim Sanzi install hardware on the Kilopower assembly at the Nevada National Security Site during testing in March. (NNSS Photo) That’s one small step for nuclear reactors on the moon and Mars, and several giant leaps to go. Eventually, the technology pioneered by NASA’s Kilopower project could…
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2020 or bust? GAO watchdogs foresee further delays for orbital spaceships
An artist’s conception shows NASA’s Orion capsule in flight. (NASA Illustration) The Government Accountability Office issued a downbeat report on NASA’s major space projects today, saying that cost and schedule performance has deteriorated over the past year. The full extent of the cost issues is unknown, primarily due to uncertainties surrounding the effort to build…
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NASA cancels lunar rover, shifts focus to commercial moon landers
The Resource Prospector prototype searches for a buried sample tube at the Johnson Space Center rock yard in August 2015. Credit: NASA As NASA turns up support for future commercial lunar landers, the space agency last week canceled a mission that would have placed a rover on the moon to survey resources, such as water…
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NASA is reworking its moon rover mission amid outcry from lunar advisory group
A prototype for the Resource Prospector rover undergoes field testing. (NASA via YouTube) An influential group of advisers on lunar exploration says NASA is canceling its Resource Prospector mission to explore the moon’s surface in the 2020s — and urged the agency’s newly sworn-in administrator, Jim Bridenstine, to reverse the decision. In response, NASA pledged today…
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NASA’s new administrator, Jim Bridenstine, touts bipartisanship after divisive debate
Vice President Mike Pence stands behind NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine after his swearing-in ceremony. (GeekWire Photo / Alan Boyle) WASHINGTON — Just hours after his resignation from the House took effect, Jim Bridenstine was sworn in today as NASA’s 13th administrator and signaled that he’d try to mend the partisan divisions that marked his nomination.…
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Acting NASA administrator’s parting words: Accept risk wisely, with ‘eyes wide open’
Acting NASA Administrator Robert Lightfoot is dwarfed by a chart showing Earth, the moon and Mars at the Space Symposium in Colorado Springs. “I realize it’s not to scale,” Lightfoot said. “It is to scale, though, in priority.” (GeekWire Photo / Alan Boyle) COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — NASA should rethink its approach to the risks of…