Tag: Mars
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Arriving at Titan: How Dragonfly’s Entry, Descent, and Landing will differ from Mars missions
Since the focus on Martian exploration ramped up in the mid-1990s, most of the familiarity with the Entry, Descent, and Landing (EDL) sequence of landers and rovers to the surface of other planets has taken place against the backdrop of Mars. But when NASA‘s upcoming Dragonfly mission arrives at Titan for its own EDL, it…
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InSight’s importance: Seismic measurements, new terrain highlight ground-breaking mission
NASA’s InSight lander, formally known as the Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy, and Heat Transport mission, wrapped a four-year scientific expedition on Mars in December 2022 after the lander succumbed to low power levels. Throughout its mission, InSight studied Mars extensively, collecting a plethora of ground-breaking science on the planet’s interior and exterior geologic…
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InSight Principal Investigator talks Mars lander’s final days
On Dec. 21, 2022, NASA announced that its InSight lander mission on Mars had ended after efforts to regain contact with the spacecraft failed. InSight did not respond to communications beginning on Dec. 18, 2022. The end of the mission capped an intrepid science mission that lasted just over four years, which was two years…
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NASA calls an end to Mars InSight lander mission, with Aerojet getting in on tributes
One of the InSight lander’s last selfies was sent back from Mars in April. (NASA Photo) Four years after engineers cheered the landing of the robotic InSight spacecraft on Mars, NASA today declared an end to the $830 million quake-detecting mission. In a mission update, NASA said the control team at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory…
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Curiosity marks 10 years on Mars as discoveries continue
After successfully landing on Mars on August 6, 2012 (UTC), Curiosity continues to unlock the secrets of the Red Planet as the vehicle explores Gale Crater. Since landing, the rover has traveled over 17.5 miles (28.1 km) and made multiple scientific discoveries. Curiosity is now in the process of exploring and traversing Mount Sharp, the…
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NASA, ESA unveil advanced architecture for Mars Sample Return
On July 27, NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) unveiled new advanced mission architecture for the upcoming Mars Sample Return mission. Additionally, NASA completed its system requirements review for the mission, bringing the ambitious project one step closer to the completion of its conceptual design phase. The new mission architecture takes advantage of new…
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Relativity to launch Impulse Space’s Mars Lander as early as 2024
Impulse Space has announced that the company will launch the first commercial payload to Mars on board Relativity Space’s Terran R rocket. Under the new partnership, Relativity will launch Impulse’s Mars Cruise Vehicle and Mars Lander from Cape Canaveral, Florida, as part of an exclusive agreement until 2029. The earliest anticipated launch window occurs between…
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InSight teams push for more science in lander’s final months, Curiosity continues trek around Gale Crater
In May 2022, members of NASA’s InSight Mars lander team announced that power levels on the lander were diminishing and that they expected the lander to become inoperative by December 2022. However, InSight’s teams want to push the lander to do as much as possible in its final months and have chosen to operate the…
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How Lockheed Martin, NASA will send a rocket to Mars to launch samples off the planet to a waiting European Orbiter
It’s an ask never before attempted: Launch samples off the surface of another planet for return to Earth — using a rocket you first have to launch from Earth using a bigger rocket and then land on Mars. Yet this is exactly the contract Lockheed Martin has won from NASA for their Mars Ascent Vehicle…
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Mars 2020 continues science in Jezero, Mars Odyssey solves Martian frost mystery
In late April, Perseverance and Ingenuity arrived at the edge of Jezero Crater’s ancient river delta — an area of the crater that was likely once formed by flowing water, and a major focus of the Mars 2020 mission. Perseverance‘s arrival at the delta marked the beginning of the rover’s second science campaign in the…