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SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk just gave us a great look at the “launch and catch tower” for the company’s huge Starship Mars rocket. Musk shared a drone video of the tower on Twitter Monday (Jan. 9), showing the massive structure backdropped by the testing area at Starbase, SpaceX’s facility near the South Texas … Read more
Dr. Michaela Musilova is the director of Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation (HI-SEAS) program, which conducts analog missions to the moon and Mars for scientific research at a habitat on the volcano Mauna Loa. Currently, she is in command of the two-week Valoria 3 Martian mission and contributed this report to Space.com’s Expert Voices: … Read more
NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover has some rocks stuck in its throat. Perseverance drilled and collected its sixth Red Planet rock sample late last month, but the car-sized rover hasn’t been able to seal up the titanium tube containing the material yet. “I recently captured my sixth rock core and have encountered a new challenge. Seems … Read more
NASA’s Mars helicopter Ingenuity is poised to make its first flight of 2022. The 4-pound (1.8 kilograms) Ingenuity’s next Red Planet sortie — its 19th overall — will take place as early as Friday (Jan. 7), mission team members said in a blog post on Tuesday (Jan. 4). Ingenuity will cover 207 feet (63 meters) … Read more
High above the red planet, China’s Mars orbiter Tianwen 1 has captured a series of incredible, alien images of our neighboring planet. The shots were captured by a small camera that was deployed by Tianwen 1. Released on New Year’s Day, they show Tianwen 1, looking lonely above the red planet, as well as Mars’ … Read more
China’s Tianwen 1 spacecraft at Mars pulled a big New Year’s surprise with stunning new images captured by a small camera that flew free of the orbiter to snap epic selfies above the Red Planet. The new images published by the China National Space Administration show Tianwen 1 above Mars’ north pole, with its solar … Read more
A detailed new image provides a great look at the Perseverance Mars rover’s Red Planet home and shows why the mission team is so excited to explore it. Perseverance landed inside the 28-mile-wide (45 kilometers) Jezero Crater on Feb. 18, 2021, kicking off a surface mission that centers on hunting for signs of ancient Mars … Read more
Mars exploration took some big steps forward in 2021. During this very eventful year, two nations joined the Mars club, a helicopter plied Red Planet skies for the first time ever and humanity kicked off an ambitious interplanetary sample-return campaign. A lot of the action took place in February, which saw the arrival of three … Read more
We’ll have to wait a bit longer for the orbital debut of SpaceX’s Starship Mars rocket. SpaceX had been aiming to launch Starship on its first orbital test flight in January or February, provided that the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) wrapped up a programmatic environmental assessment (PEA) of the company’s South Texas launch site … Read more
By Leah Crane The Psyche spacecraft’s propulsion system undergoes inspection NASA/JPL-CALTECH IF ALL goes well, the first major space mission of 2022 will be the launch of the Space Launch System rocket in February. After many budget and schedule overruns, NASA’s colossal rocket is finally set for its first uncrewed flight, which will carry several … Read more