Tag: NASA
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NASA looks into buying more Russian Soyuz trips to orbit … through Boeing
A Russian Soyuz craft approaches the International Space Station. (Credit: NASA) NASA is considering a convoluted arrangement to reserve five more seats on Russian Soyuz capsules heading to and from the International Space Station, with the Boeing Co. as the middleman. The plan to reserve more trips to orbit would give NASA additional breathing room…
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Spacewalkers finish swapping batteries
NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson helps Thomas Pesquet (left) and Shane Kimbrough (right) suit up for a spacewalk. (NASA Photo) Two astronauts made quick work of a battery upgrade today during the International Space Station’s second spacewalk in a week. NASA’s Shane Kimbrough and French astronaut Thomas Pesquet installed three new adapter plates and hooked up…
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NASA shows off robots, a VR trip to Mars, and more at CES
LAS VEGAS — NASA doesn’t make consumer electronics per say, but it does enough geeky stuff that it was right at home during last week’s CES. Maria Bualat, a robotics engineer, was manning the NASA booth to show visitors a prototype robot the space agency uses to develop autonomy software. Bualat and her team test…
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There’s no place like home: New image shows Earth and moon from Mars orbiter
The Earth and moon as seen from Mars. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona Photo) There’s a lot of talk in our modern space race about getting to Mars, so every once in a while it’s nice to see what we’d be leaving behind if we did eventually make it to the Red Planet. Thankfully, images from the High Resolution…
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Asteroid fans get psyched up over NASA’s new Psyche and Lucy space missions
Artist’s conceptions show the Lucy probe visiting a rocky asteroid at left, and the Psyche probe visiting a metallic asteroid at right. (NASA Illustrations) Today is a great day for asteroid miners: NASA announced that it will provide full funding under its Discovery Program for two missions focusing on different types of asteroids. A mission…
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NASA picks IXPE: Space telescope will study X-ray fingerprints of black holes
An artist’s conception shows the accretion disk around an active black hole. (NASA Illustration) NASA is committing $188 million to build and launch a space telescope to observe patterns in the X-ray radiation emanating from black holes, neutron stars and pulsars. The Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer, or IXPE, was chosen from a field of three…
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Boeing and SpaceX win four more NASA orders for space taxis, with one big ‘if’
An artist’s conception shows a straight-on view of Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner space taxi. (Boeing / NASA Photo) NASA has awarded four more contracts to Boeing and to SpaceX for space taxi trips to and from the International Space Station – dependent on certification that the spacecraft are safe. SpaceX is working on a crew-capable version of its…
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Mannequin Challenge jumps the shark in zero-G, courtesy of space station crew
Russian cosmonaut Oleg Novitsky stays immobile as he floats in a Superman pose for an out-of-this-world Mannequin Challenge. (ESA via Twitter / Thomas Pesquet) Standing still for a Mannequin Challenge video is a faddish feat, but floating still in zero-G raises the degree of difficulty to the level of a true challenge. And the crew…
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NASA’s Curiosity rover fleshes out geological picture of Mars’ past habitability
This schematic illustrates how the creation and disappearance of a Martian lake created different layers of rock in the region being explored by NASA’s Curiosity rover. (NASA / JPL Graphic) Scientists say they’re putting together the puzzle pieces provided by NASA’s Curiosity rover to get a better picture of how the outlook for habitability on…
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NASA confirms delay in commercial crew flights to 2018, pushing the envelope
An artist’s conception shows SpaceX’s crew-capable Dragon approaching a port on the International Space Station with a cargo Dragon in the foreground. (NASA Photo) NASA has confirmed that the commercial space taxis being developed by SpaceX and the Boeing Co. will start carrying astronauts to the International Space Station no earlier than 2018, and there’s…