This illustration depicts NASA’s Psyche spacecraft (Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU)
WASHINGTON (NASA PR) — NASA announced Friday the Psyche asteroid mission, the agency’s first mission designed to study a metal-rich asteroid, will not make its planned 2022 launch attempt.
Due to the late delivery of the spacecraft’s flight software and testing equipment, NASA does not have sufficient time to complete the testing needed ahead of its remaining launch period this year, which ends on Oct. 11. The mission team needs more time to ensure that the software will function properly in flight.
WASHINGTON (National Academies PR) — A new decadal survey from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine identifies scientific priorities and opportunities and makes funding recommendations to maximize the advancement of planetary science, astrobiology, and planetary defense in the next 10 years.
The recommendations by the steering committee for the decadal survey draw on input from the scientific community through the advice of six panels, hundreds of white papers, invited speakers, outreach to advisory groups and professional society conferences, and work with mission-design teams.
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (Space Foundation PR) — Space Foundation, a nonprofit advocate organization founded in 1983, today announced a new partnership between its Space Commerce Institute and the MILO Space Science Institute led by Arizona State University to offer Space Studio Accelerator a 12-week program designed to increase participation in space exploration and commerce. The program prepares teams for space missions and commercialization efforts, teaching participants how to become a successful part of the new space economy.
Space Studio participants from universities, startups, and public-private partnerships engage with space industry to create new collaborations, ventures and acquisitions. The program’s goal is to train teams to better understand the lifecycle of the global space industry, to advance the supply chain, and to focus on problem solving and project management. Teams will learn how to develop innovative solutions that create sustainable pathways to contribute to their regional space ecosystems.
Graphic depiction of Breathing Mars Air: Stationary and Portable O2 Generation. (Credits: Ivan Ermanoski)
by Douglas Messier Managing Editor
NASA is funding research into a system capable of generating oxygen on Mars far more efficiently than the one the space agency tested aboard the Curiosity rover.
WASHINGTON (NASA PR) — NASA has awarded nearly $1.2 million to seven university teams through the 2022 Breakthrough, Innovative and Game-changing (BIG) Idea Challengeto design, develop, and demonstrate innovative and cost-effective robotic systems that go beyond traditional wheeled rovers and move in different ways – including rovers that hop, slither, and roll.
As NASA expands its space exploration to more extreme terrain on the Moon, solutions to moving in harsh environments are integral. The BIG Idea Challenge spurs development of innovative technologies to meet the agency’s Artemis program goals to explore more of the lunar surface than ever before and use what we learn on the Moon to send humans to Mars.
The ability to move in different ways, or adaptive locomotive modality, is vital to enabling extreme terrain exploration. The capability to explore areas that are currently inaccessible will open new opportunities for science and in-situ resource utilization operations. The selected teams will develop integrated robotic solutions, with prototypes incorporating a minimal level of sensing, autonomy, and other necessary elements needed for a relevant test.
Orbital Reef commercial space station (Credit: Orbital Reef)
Louisville, Colo., December 2, 2021 (Sierra Space PR) — Orbital Reef, led by partners Blue Origin and Sierra Space, was selected today by NASA for a funded Space Act Agreement for collaboration to design a commercially owned and operated space station in low Earth orbit (LEO). NASA’s Commercial LEO Development program aims to shift NASA’s research and exploration activities in LEO to commercial space stations, helping stimulate a growing space economy before the International Space Station is retired. The Orbital Reef team includes Boeing, Redwire Space, Genesis Engineering Solutions, and Arizona State University.
Northrop Grumman’s free flyer commercial destination design leverages flight proven elements to provide the base module for extended capabilities including science, tourism, industrial experimentation, and building of infrastructure beyond initial design. (Credits: Northrop Grumman)
WASHINGTON (NASA PR) — NASA has signed agreements with three U.S. companies to develop designs of space stations and other commercial destinations in space. The agreements are part of the agency’s efforts to enable a robust, American-led commercial economy in low-Earth orbit.
Nova-C lander on the lunar surface. (Credit: Intuitive Machines)
By Hillary Smith NASA’s Langley Research Center
HAMPTON, Va. — In late 2022, NASA will send an ice-mining experiment attached to a robotic lander to the lunar South Pole on a ridge not far from Shackleton crater – a location engineers and scientists have assessed for months. NASA and Intuitive Machines, an agency partner for commercial Moon deliveries, announced the location selection Nov. 3.
Israel and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) will collaborate on a mission to the moon, analyze data from an Israeli-French Earth observation satellite, and launch a joint education satellite under a landmark agreement signed last week to cooperate on a range of space projects, the Israel Space Agency (ISA) announced.
The two nations will collaborate on Genesis 2, an $100 million Israeli mission to launch an orbiter to the moon and deploy landers at two different locations on the lunar surface. The mission, which is to be half funded with foreign contributions, is scheduled to launch in 2024.
New funding builds on a unique partnership between Bloomberg Philanthropies, Carbon Mapper, Planet, the State of California, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the University of Arizona, Arizona State University (ASU), High Tide Foundation, and RMI to develop and deploy a constellation of satellites to help tackle potent methane emissions.
Investment will deliver powerful, advanced emissions data in support of the newly signed Global Methane Pledge
NEW YORK and SAN FRANCISCO (Bloomberg Philanthropies PR) – Today, Bloomberg Philanthropies, Carbon Mapper, and partners announced the Carbon Mapper Accelerator program, to accelerate the deployment of emerging remote sensing technologies needed to effectively pinpoint, quantify, and diagnose sources of high-emission methane and carbon dioxide (CO2) globally. The new initiative provides immediate support to governments committed to the Global Methane Pledge, an unprecedented agreement led by the United States and the European Union to reduce global methane emissions by 30% by 2030, which yesterday gained 24 new country signatories.
Venus hides a wealth of information that could help us better understand Earth and exoplanets. NASA’s JPL is designing mission concepts to survive the planet’s extreme temperatures and atmospheric pressure. This image is a composite of data from NASA’s Magellan spacecraft and Pioneer Venus Orbiter. (Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech)
Fresh off the success of the Hope Mars orbiter, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the University of Colorado Boulder’s Laboratory for Atmospheric Science and Physics (LASP) will team again on an ambitious mission to explore Venus and seven asteroids.
State of California, NASA JPL, and Planet team up with University of Arizona, ASU, RMI, High Tide Foundation and Bloomberg Philanthropies in unique coalition to fight climate change
SAN FRANCISCO, April 15, 2021 (Carbon Mapper PR) — Carbon Mapper, a new nonprofit organization, and its partners – the State of California, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (NASA JPL), Planet, the University of Arizona, Arizona State University (ASU), High Tide Foundation and RMI – today announced a pioneering program to help improve understanding of and accelerate reductions in global methane and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. In addition, the Carbon Mapper consortium announced its plan to deploy a ground-breaking hyperspectral satellite constellation with the ability to pinpoint, quantify and track point-source methane and CO2 emissions.
In late March of 2021, a main component of NASA’s Psyche spacecraft was delivered to JPL, where assembly, test, and launch operations are underway. (Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech)
Set to launch next year, the agency’s Psyche spacecraft will explore a metal-rich asteroid in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.
PASADENA, Calif. (NASA PR) — A major component of NASA’s Psyche spacecraft has been delivered to the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, where the phase known as assembly, test, and launch operations is now underway. Over the next year, the spacecraft will finish assembly and undergo rigorous checkout and testing before it’s shipped to Cape Canaveral, Florida, for an August 2022 launch to the main asteroid belt.
An artist’s concept of the Lucy Mission. (Credit: SwRI)
GREENBELT, Md. (NASA PR) — NASA’s Lucy mission is one step closer to launch as L’TES, the Lucy Thermal Emission Spectrometer, has been successfully integrated on to the spacecraft.
“Having two of the three instruments integrated onto the spacecraft is an exciting milestone,” said Donya Douglas-Bradshaw, Lucy project manager from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “The L’TES team is to be commended for their true dedication and determination.”
This artist’s concept depicts the spacecraft of NASA’s Psyche mission near the mission’s target, the metal asteroid Psyche. (Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Arizona State Univ./Space Systems Loral/Peter Rubin)
TEMPE, Az. (ASU PR) — The Arizona State University-led NASA Psyche mission, which is planned to launch in 2022, will travel to an asteroid named Psyche, orbiting the sun between Mars and Jupiter. This asteroid is of particular interest in that it is rich in metal and may be the exposed nickel-iron core of an early planet, one of the building blocks of the sun’s planetary system.
