WASHINGTON — Dust accumulation on the solar panels of NASA’s InSight Mars lander is reducing the power to the spacecraft and could force the mission to end within a year.

At a June 21 meeting of NASA’s Mars Exploration Program Analysis Group, Bruce Banerdt, principal investigator for the InSight mission at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said dust accumulating on the lander’s two solar panels has drastically reduced the amount of power they produce, requiring some instruments to be turned off at least temporarily.

WASHINGTON — The Export-Import Bank of the United States has arranged financing for the SpaceX launch of a Hispasat satellite, the first space deal the bank has done in six years.

Washington DC (UPI) Jun 20, 2021
Family members of the Apollo 14 crew that landed on the moon in 1971 marked the 50th anniversary of the historic expedition Saturday at Kennedy Space Center. The three astronauts from Apollo 14 - Alan Shepard, Stuart Roosa and Edgar Mitchell - have died, but their families and several other Apollo-era figures recalled the trip as a triumphant return to the moon after the Apollo 13 acc

Washington DC (UPI) Jun 21, 2021
The U.S. Air Force and the Federal Aviation Administration entered into an agreement to ensure public safety at Space Force bases, both agencies said on Monday. The accord, signed on June 15, also offers the reduction of complications in duplicative processes and approvals for the commercial space sector, officials said. "Assured access to space is vital to our national security,

Tucson AZ (SPX) Jun 22, 2021
A research team led by the University of Arizona has reconstructed in unprecedented detail the history of a dust grain that formed during the birth of the solar system more than 4.5 billion years ago. The findings provide insights into the fundamental processes underlying the formation of planetary systems, many of which are still shrouded in mystery. For the study, the team developed a ne

Baton Rouge LA (SPX) Jun 22, 2021
New findings published this week in Physical Review Letters, Measurement of the Iron Spectrum in Cosmic Rays from 10GeV/n to 2.0TeV/n with the Calorimetric Electron Telescope on the International Space Station, suggest that cosmic ray nuclei of hydrogen, carbon and oxygen travel through the galaxy toward Earth in a similar way, but, surprisingly, that iron arrives at Earth differently. A s

Raleigh NC (SPX) Jun 22, 2021
A new analysis of Venus' surface shows evidence of tectonic motion in the form of crustal blocks that have jostled against each other like broken chunks of pack ice. The movement of these blocks could indicate that Venus is still geologically active and give scientists insight into both exoplanet tectonics and the earliest tectonic activity on Earth. "We've identified a previously unrecogn

San Antonio TX (SPX) Jun 22, 2021
To advance understanding of Earth's nearest neighbor, NASA has selected three new lunar investigations, including a payload suite led by Southwest Research Institute. The Lunar Interior Temperature and Materials Suite (LITMS) is one of two packages that will land on the far side of the Moon, a first for the agency, as part of NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services, or CLPS, initiative. "

Moscow (Sputnik) Jun 22, 2021
US astronauts on board the International Space Station have been complaining of headache, with Russian and US scientists divided on whether an increased concentration of carbon dioxide in the station's atmosphere is the reason, according to a fresh report by Russia's Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre released on Monday. "NASA put forward in 2008 requirements to reduce the level of car

Princeton NJ (SPX) Jun 18, 2021
An international team led by researchers at Princeton University has uncovered a new pattern of ordering of electric charge in a novel superconducting material. The researchers discovered the new type of ordering in a material containing atoms arranged in a peculiar structure known as a kagome lattice. While researchers already understand how the electron's spin can produce magnetism, thes