Washington DC (SPX) Dec 31, 2023
The VIPER team is hard at work building the flight vehicle that will be going to the surface of the Moon this time next year! In fact, we're about halfway through the build, and you can interactively watch the process and hear from experts on the team, in various livestreams throughout the process. All the science instrument teams have delivered their payloads to the VIPER Systems Integrat

Pasadena CA (JPL) Dec 31, 2023
Earth planning date: Friday, December 22, 2023: Many of us over the holidays like to celebrate with friends and family over a lengthy meal, looking back over the year that has been, and forward to the year to come. Curiosity's holiday plans could be thought of as similar, albeit instead of food, with a steady diet of science. The eleven (!) sol holiday plan is built like a finely-constructed gou

Houston TX (SPX) Dec 31, 2023
As 2023 comes to a close, the International Space Station (ISS) National Laboratory wraps up a banner year supporting research and technology development (R and D) in low Earth orbit (LEO). The ISS National Lab and NASA work in unison to utilize the orbiting outpost to its fullest capacity, and the achievements from this year demonstrate the increasing demand for access to space for R and D amon

West Lafayette IN (SPX) Dec 31, 2023
The year 2023 proved to be an important one for space missions, with NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission returning a sample from an asteroid and India's Chandrayaan-3 mission exploring the lunar south pole, and 2024 is shaping up to be another exciting year for space exploration. Several new missions under NASA's Artemis plan and Commercial Lunar Payload Services initiative will target the Moon.

Boston MA (SPX) Jan 01, 2024
Scientists at MIT, the University of Birmingham, and elsewhere say that astronomers' best chance of finding liquid water, and even life on other planets, is to look for the absence, rather than the presence, of a chemical feature in their atmospheres. The researchers propose that if a terrestrial planet has substantially less carbon dioxide in its atmosphere compared to other planets in th

Washington DC (UPI) Dec 28, 2023
Less than three hours after the launch of a mysterious space plane atop a Falcon Heavy rocket, SpaceX launched a second launch Thursday night, at 11:01 p.m. EST, deploying its latest batch of Starlink internet satellites into low-Earth orbit. The secretive space plane went into orbit earlier in the evening via a Falcon Heavy rocket as part of a payload that also includes scores of livin

Los Angeles CA (SPX) Dec 28, 2023
SpaceX has successfully launched the USSF-52 mission using its Falcon Heavy rocket, marking a significant achievement in the ongoing collaboration between Space Systems Command (SSC) and SpaceX. The launch occurred at 8:07 p.m. ET from Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) at NASA's Kennedy Space Center, demonstrating the capabilities and resilience of the Falcon Heavy rocket. This successful launch

Image: It’s all relative

Los Angeles CA (SPX) Dec 28, 2023
Amazon Web Services (AWS), a leader in cloud computing and a subsidiary of Amazon, has announced an expansion of its AWS Ground Station service. The company has launched its 12th antenna location in the US West (Alaska) region, marking a notable extension of its global network. This development is set to offer satellite operators, governments, businesses, and universities enhanced opportunities

Washington DC (SPX) Dec 19, 2023
DARPA's Underexplored Systems for Utility-Scale Quantum Computing (US2QC) program seeks to determine whether an underexplored approach to quantum computing can achieve utility-scale operation - meaning its computational value exceeds its cost - faster than conventional predictions. In the initial phase, each company presented a design concept describing their plans to create a utility-scal