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Mars Base

Opportunity Discovers Clays Favorable to Martian Biology and Sets Sail for Motherlode o... - 0 views

www.universetoday.com/...il-for-motherlode-of-new-clues

scibyte95 opportunity

shared by Mars Base on 26 May 13 - No Cached
  • Opportunity,
  • has just discovered the strongest evidence to date for an environment favorable to ancient Martian biology
  • Opportunity’s analysis of a new rock target named “Esperance” confirmed that it is composed of a “clay that had been intensely altered by relatively neutral pH water – representing the most favorable conditions for biology that Opportunity has yet seen in the rock histories it has encountered
  • ...9 more annotations...
  • Water that moved through fractures during this rock’s history would have provided more favorable conditions for biology than any other wet environment recorded in rocks Opportunity has seen
  • Opportunity accomplished the ground breaking new discovery by exposing the interior of Esperance with her still functioning Rock Abrasion Tool (RAT) and examining a pristine patch using the microscopic camera and X-Ray spectrometer on the end of her 3 foot long robotic arm.
  • “Esperance was so important, we committed several weeks to getting this one measurement of it
  • Esperance stems from a time when the Red Planet was far warmer and wetter billions of years ago.
  • made the discovery at the conclusion of a 20 month long science expedition circling around a low ridge called “Cape York”
  • What’s so special about Esperance is that there was enough water not only for reactions that produced clay minerals, but also enough to flush out ions set loose by those reactions
  • Opportunity can clearly see the alteration
  • Esperance is unlike any rock previously investigated by Opportunity; containing far more aluminum and silica which is indicative of clay minerals and lower levels of calcium and iron.
  • Most, but not all of the rocks inspected to date by Opportunity were formed in an environment of highly acidic water
Mars Base

Mars Rover Breaks U.S. Record for Off-Planet Driving: Scientific American - 0 views

www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm

scibyte94 opportunity

shared by Mars Base on 18 May 13 - No Cached
  •  Opportunity rover drove 263 feet (80 meters) on
  • (May 15), bringing its total odometry on the Red Planet to 22.220 miles (35.760 kilometers
  • Opportunity still trails another robot for the international distance record
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • The Soviet Union's remote-controlled Lunokhod 2 rover traveled 23 miles (37 km) on the moon in 1973.
  • golf-cart-size Opportunity
  • landed on Mars in January 2004 on three-month missions to search for signs of past water activity on the Red Planet
  • Spirit stopped communicating with Earth in 2010 and was declared dead a year later
  • Opportunity had been working at a section of the rim dubbed "Cape York" since the middle of 2011
  • this week it began trekking toward an area called Solander Point, which lies 1.4 miles (2.2 km) away
  • Opportunity's handlers have said they'd like to add this milestone to the rover's resume, though science remains the mission's top priority
Mars Base

Mars Science Laboratory: Mars Rover Self-Portrait Shoot Uses Arm Choreography - 0 views

marsprogram.jpl.nasa.gov/...index.cfm

scibyte75 Curiosity

shared by Mars Base on 16 Dec 12 - No Cached
  • The robotic arm on NASA's Mars rover Curiosity held the rover's Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) camera in more than 50 positions in one day to generate a single scene combining all the images, creating a high-resolution, full-color portrait of the rover itself.
  • A larger version of the previously released self-portrait is now available online, along with an animation video showing how it was taken, and a practice self-portrait taken earlier by Curiosity's test-rover double on Earth
Mars Base

Mars Colonists Wanted to Explore Red Planet | Space.com - 0 views

www.space.com/-colony-astronauts-wanted.html

scibyte77 MarsOne

shared by Mars Base on 09 Jan 13 - No Cached
  • The Netherlands-based nonprofit Mars One, which hopes to put the first boots on the Red Planet in 2023, released its basic astronaut requirements
  • (Jan. 8),
  • televised global selection process that will begin later this year.
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • anyone who is at least 18 years old can apply to become a Mars colony pioneer
  • important criteria, officials say, are intelligence, good mental and physical health and dedication to the project, as astronauts will undergo eight years of training before launch.
  • Mars One plans to launch a series of robotic cargo missions between 2016 and 2021, which will build a habitable Red Planet outpost ahead of the arrival of the first four colonists in 2023.
  • More settlers will arrive every two years after that. There are no plans to return the pioneers to Earth
  • fund most of its ambitious activities by staging a global reality-TV event
  • Well before the official Astronaut Selection Program, we received more than 1,000 emails from individuals who desire to go to Mars
Mars Base

Mars Rover Opportunity Back in Action After Glitch | Mars Solar Conjunction | Space.com - 0 views

www.space.com/-rover-exits-standby-mode.html

scibyte92 opportunity

shared by Mars Base on 02 May 13 - No Cached
  • Mars rover Opportunity has overcome a glitch that put the robot into standby mode late last month
  • ortunity apparently put itself into standby automode — in which it maintains power balance but waits for instructions from the ground — on April 22, after sensing a problem during a routine camera check, mission officials said.
  • rover's handlers didn't notice the problem until April 27, when Opportunity got back in touch after a nearly three-week communications moratorium
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • Opportunity's controllers prepared a new set of commands on April 29 designed to get things back to normal, and the fix has apparently worked
Mars Base

Mars Science Laboratory: Curiosity Maneuver Prepares for Drilling - 0 views

mars.jpl.nasa.gov/...index.cfm

scibyte70 Curiosity

shared by Mars Base on 01 Feb 13 - No Cached
  • placed its drill onto a series of four locations on a Martian rock and pressed down on it with the rover's arm, in preparation for using the drill in coming days.
  • carried out this "pre-load" testing on Mars
  • (Jan. 27
  • ...15 more annotations...
  • ctions for what would result from the commanded motions.
  • next step is an overnight pre-load test, to gain assurance that the large temperature change from day to night at the rover's location does not add excessively to stress on the arm while it is pressing on the drill
  • air temperature plunges from about 32 degrees Fahrenheit (zero degrees Celsius) in the afternoon to minus 85 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 65 degrees Celsius) overnight
  • Over this temperature swing, this large rover's arm, chassis and mobility system grow and shrink by about a tenth of an inch (about 2.4 millimeters), a little more than the thickness of a U.S. quarter-dollar coin
  • Remaining preparatory steps will take at least the rest of this week
  • Some of these steps are hardware checks. Others will evaluate characteristics of the rock material at the selected drilling site on a patch of flat, veined rock called "John Klein
  • We are proceeding with caution in the approach to Curiosity's first drilling. This is challenging. It will be the first time any robot has drilled into a rock to collect a sample on Mar
  • "drill-on-rock checkout" will use the hammering action of Curiosity's drill briefly, without rotation of the drill bit, for assurance that the back-and-forth percussion mechanism and associated control system are properly tuned for hitting a rock
  • the surface of the rock while penetrating less than eight-tenths of an inch (2 centimeters).
  • "mini-drill" is designed to produce a small ring of tailings -- powder resulting from drilling
  • will not go deep enough to push rock powder into the drill's sample-gathering chamber
  • The rover team's activities this week are affected by the difference between Mars time and Earth time
  • To compensate for this, the team develops commands based on rover activities from two sols earlier
  • the mini-drill activity cannot occur sooner than two sols after the drill-on-rock checkout.
  • Martian sol lasts about 40 minutes longer than a 24-hour Earth day.
Mars Base

'Bionic man' goes on show at British musuem - 0 views

phys.org/...-02-bionic-british-musuem.html

scibyte81 BionicMan

shared by Mars Base on 06 Feb 13 - No Cached
  • Rex, which is short for "Robotic Exoskeleton", the six foot six inch (two metre) humanoid with its uncannily life-like face was assembled by leading roboticists for a television programme
  • The creation includes key advances in prosthetic technology, as well as an artificial pancreas, kidney, spleen and trachea and a functional blood circulatory system
  • the museum in London
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • museum exhibit
  • will explore changing perceptions of human identity against the background of rapid progress in bionics
  • Rex is not strictly bionic as he does not include living tissue
Mars Base

NASA's Opportunity Rover Begins Year 10 on Mars | Space.com - 0 views

www.space.com/over-opportunity-year-ten.html

scibyte79 opportunity

shared by Mars Base on 24 Jan 13 - No Cached
  • NASA's Opportunity rover landed on Mars the night of Jan. 24, 2004 PST (just after midnight EST on Jan. 25), three weeks after its twin, Spirit, touched down
  • irit stopped operating in 2010, but Opportunity is still going strong
  • The car-size Curiosity weighs about 1 ton — five times more than either Spirit or Opportunity.
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • Spirit and Opportunity were originally supposed to spend three months searching for evidence of past water activity on the Red Planet
  • The golf-cart-size robots found plenty of such signs at their separate landing sites, showing that Mars was not always the cold and arid planet we know today
  • in 2007 Spirit uncovered an ancient hydrothermal system in Gusev Crater, suggesting that two key ingredients for life as we know it — liquid water and an energy source — were both present in some parts of Mars long ago
  • Opportunity is currently inspecting clay deposits along the rim of Mars' huge Endeavour Crater. Clays form in relatively neutral (as opposed to acidic or basic) water, so the area may once have been capable of supporting primitive microbial life
  • Spirit finally stopped communicating with Earth in March 2010, after getting mired in soft sand and failing to maneuver into a position that would allow it to slant its solar panels toward the sun over the 2009-2010 Martian winter. NASA declared the rover dead in 2011
  • Opportunity keeps chugging along. It has put 22.03 miles (35.46 kilometers) on its odometer since landing on Mars
  • just 1 mile (1.6 km) off the all-time record for most ground covered on the surface of another world
  • Soviet Union's unmanned Lunokhod 2 rover holds that mark, traveling 23 miles (37 km) on the moon back in 1973
Mars Base

Distance Traveled, Extraterrestrial Vehicles | Wheeled Vehicles, Moon & Mars | Space.com - 0 views

www.space.com/es-driven-on-other-worlds.html

scibyte79 opportunity

shared by Mars Base on 24 Jan 13 - No Cached
  • So far, robotic rovers have reached out to the moon and Mars, with astronauts actually driving a lunar car on the moon during NASA's Apollo program
  • Leading the pack is an oldie of a space mission: the Soviet-era Lunakhod 2. This huge moon rover drove 23 miles (37 kilometers) on the moon during its 1973 mission and is currently the world champion for off-world driving, winning the gold medal
  • In second place
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • is NASA's Apollo 17 moon rover, which was driven by astronauts Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt in 1972
  • 22.3 miles (35.89 km) during their mission, which was the last moon landing of NASA's Apollo program.
  • bronze medal for space driving goes to NASA's Mars rover Opportunity,
  • driving across the plains of Meridiani Planum on the Red Planet since 2004
  • Opportunity has driven more than 22.03 miles (35.46 km) and is still going today.
  • The latest to enter the race is Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity, which is just getting started with only 0.4 mile (0.7 km) traveled so far.
Mars Base

Curiosity Hammers into Mars Rock in Historic Feat - 0 views

www.universetoday.com/...nto-mars-rock-in-historic-feat

scibyte80 Curiosity

shared by Mars Base on 05 Feb 13 - No Cached
  • Image caption: Curiosity tool turret located at end of robotic arm is positioned with drill bit
  • on Jan 31, 2013
  • The Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS) was also placed in contact with the ground to determine the chemical composition of the rock drill test site and possible calcium sulfate vein and investigate its hydration state.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • Image caption: Close-up view of Curiosity drill bit penetrating John Klein outcrop
  • Curiosity can drill to a depth of about 2 inches (5 cm) into rocks
  • Ultimately a powdered and sieved sample about half an aspirin tablet in size will be delivered to the SAM and CheMin analytical labs on the rover deck.
Mars Base

Space Shuttle Atlantis Exhibit 'Incredible,' 'Breathtaking' | NASA Shuttle Program | Sp... - 0 views

www.space.com/exhibit-visitors-reaction.html

scibyte100 shuttle

shared by Mars Base on 01 Jul 13 - No Cached
  • The retired orbiter is displayed at an angle, with its cargo bay doors open and robotic arm outstretched
  • The public got its first official look at the display
  • June 29
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • when the Space Shuttle Atlantis exhibition opened
  • at NASA's Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex
  • Atlantis dominates the center of a multistory building that allows views of the orbiter from many angles.
Mars Base

Station-Bound Dragon Spacecraft's Mission Patch Unveiled | | Space.com - 0 views

www.space.com/ace-capsule-mission-patch.html

scibyte66 SpaceX

shared by Mars Base on 05 Oct 12 - No Cached
  • The first of NASA's contracted cargo resupply flights to the International Space Station now has its own mission patch, courtesy of the company launching the spacecraft.
  • The flight, referred to as Commercial Resupply Services-1 (CRS-1), is the first of a dozen resupply flights for which NASA is paying SpaceX $1.6 billion to fly.
  • The CRS-1 mission patch, which borrows its shape from the Dragon capsule, shows the solar-powered spacecraft grappled by the space station's Canadarm2 robotic arm as it is being brought in to connect with the orbiting outpost's Harmony module
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • Almost camouflaged with the patch's green-colored North American continent is a four leaf clover. The symbol for luck, the clover has become a regular feature on SpaceX's insignias since the Hawthorne, Calif.-based company's first successful Falcon 1 launch in September 2008
  • Based on pre-launch photos, the CRS-1 emblem does not appear on the Falcon 9 rocket or the Dragon capsule
  • embroidered versions of the patch may fly to the space station and back as part of the mission's Official Flight Kit (OFK) of mementos to be presented to NASA and SpaceX team members for a job well done.
Mars Base

Soyuz Spacecraft Docks at Space Station with New US-Russian Crew | Space.com - 0 views

www.space.com/space-station-docking-day.html

scibyte69 iss

shared by Mars Base on 26 Oct 12 - No Cached
  • 25 October 2012
  • Soyuz TMA-06M spacecraft docked at the space station's rooftop Poisk module at 8:29 a.m. EDT (1229 GMT)
  • two-day orbital chase
  • ...12 more annotations...
  • American astronaut Kevin Ford of NASA
  • Russian cosmonauts Oleg Novitskiy
  • Evgeny Tarelkin
  • stay until March
  • launched into space on Tuesday (Oct. 23
  • second half of the space station's six-person Expedition 33 crew
  • bringing some fishy friends to the space station
  • ferrying 32 small medaka fish to the space station so they can be placed inside a tank, called the Aquatic Habitat, for an experiment to study how fish adapt to weightlessness.
  • robotic Dragon space capsule
  • depart the space station on Sunday (Oct. 28)
  • will return nearly 2,000 pounds (907 kilograms) of science experiment hardware and other gear back to Earth.
  • Wednesday (Oct. 31), an unmanned Russian Progress spacecraft will launch toward the space station and arrive six hours later to make a Halloween delivery of food, equipment and other Halloween treats.
Mars Base

Planetary Resources Group Wants to Mine Asteroids - 0 views

www.universetoday.com/...-group-wants-to-mine-asteroids

scibyte44 Asteroid AsteroidMining

shared by Mars Base on 25 Apr 12 - No Cached
  • this company has been in existence for about three years, working quietly in the background, assembling their plan.
  • will initially focus on developing Earth orbiting telescopes to scan for the best asteroids, and later, create extremely low-cost robotic spacecraft for surveying missions.
Mars Base

Asteroid Miners Wanted to Tap Space Rock Riches | Planetary Resources | Space.com - 0 views

www.space.com/lanetary-resources-hiring.html

sciByte44 Asteroid AsteroidMining

shared by Mars Base on 25 Apr 12 - No Cached
  • One of the reasons that we chose to announce the company at this time is because we're beginning to aggressively search for the world's best engineers, to complement our team
  • looking for engineers to help design and build a fleet of asteroid-mining robots
  • not a motley crew led by Bruce Willis
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • among its investors Google execs Larry Page and Eric Schmidt, who are worth $16.7 billion and $6.2 billion
  • company's advisers include filmmaker and adventurer James Cameron, former NASA astronaut Tom Jones and MIT planetary scientist Sara Seager
  • Water can be broken into its constituent hydrogen and oxygen, the chief components of rocket fuel
  • platinum-group metals it plans to extract will help lower the cost of many products here on Earth, including hand-held electronic devices and monitors for televisions and computers.
Mars Base

DARPA Seeks Ideas to Recycle Space Junk Into New Satellites | Space Junk & Orbital Debr... - 0 views

www.space.com/ycling-phoenix-satellites.html

scibyte34 satellites debris

shared by Mars Base on 17 Feb 12 - No Cached
  • : 20 October 2011
  • United States Department of Defense is looking for ways to repurpose space junk
  • started a program called Phoenix, which seeks to recycle still-functioning pieces of defunct satellites and incorporate them into new space systems on the cheap
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • snag still-working antennas from the many retired and dead satellites in geosynchronous orbit — about 22,000 miles (35,406 kilometers) above Earth — and attach them to smaller "satlets," or nanosatellites, launched from Earth.
  • tender vehicle would cruise over to a satlet, pluck it out of its housing and ferry it to the appropriate defunct satellite. The tender would then switch the antenna over from the retired satellite to the satlet, creating a "new," and relatively cheap, satellite using previously useless space junk.
  • Satellites in GEO are not designed to be disassembled or repaired, so it's not a matter of simply removing some nuts and bolts
  • requires new remote imaging and robotics technology and special tools to grip, cut, and modify complex systems
Mars Base

Ex-Google VIP Joins Private Moon Race Team | Space.com - 0 views

www.space.com/ize-moon-express-crawford.html

scibyte54 LunarXPrize

shared by Mars Base on 13 Jul 12 - No Cached
  • Jimi Crawford, who had been engineering director for the Google Books project since 2009, has signed on with Moon Express
  • will serve as chief technology officer and software architect for the Silicon Valley firm, which is competing in the Google Lunar X Prize, a $30 million private race to the moon.
  • 25 teams participating in the Google Lunar X Prize, an international challenge to land a robot on the lunar surface, have it travel at least 1,650 feet (500 meters) and send data and images back to Earth.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • first privately funded team to do all of this will receive the $20 million grand prize
  • additional $10 million is set aside for second place and various special accomplishments, such as detecting water, bringing the prize's total purse to $30 million.
  • wraps up whenever all prizes are claimed — or, failing that, at the end of 2015
  • Moon Express officials say they're on target to beat the deadline.
Mars Base

Mars Rover to Test Rock-Zapping Laser, 1st Drive Set | Space.com - 0 views

www.space.com/curiosity-laser-big-drive.html

scibyte59 Curiosity

shared by Mars Base on 18 Aug 12 - No Cached
  • Scientists plan to blast a Martian rock called N165 with Curiosity's laser
  • The 3-inch-wide (7.6 centimeters) stone sits just 9 feet (2.7 meters) from Curiosity, well within ChemCam's 25-foot (7.6 m) range
  • didn't pick it for its science value
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • sort of a target practice
  • Curiosity won't go straight to Mount Sharp
  • it will head first for Glenelg
  • captures much of the geological diversity of Gale Crater's floor
  • Researchers will likely keep checking out Curiosity and its instruments for another few weeks
  • the trip to Glenelg could take up to two months, depending upon how much science the team wants to do
  • team will probably keep Curiosity at Glenelg for about a month
  • The rover will use its drill for the first time at the site, boring more deeply into Martian rock than any robot has before
Mars Base

Private Manned Mars Mission Gets First Sponsors | Space.com - 0 views

www.space.com/mars-one-mission-sponsors.html

scibyte61 GrabBag PrivateSpaceTravel mars

shared by Mars Base on 01 Sep 12 - No Cached
  • A Dutch company that aims to land humans on Mars in 2023 as the vanguard of a permanent Red Planet colony has received its first funding from sponsors
  • Mars One plans to fund most of its ambitious activities via a global reality-TV media event
  • follow the mission from the selection of astronauts through their first years on the Red Planet
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • Receipt
  • Initial sponsors include Byte Internet (a Dutch Internet/Webhosting provider); Dutch lawfirm VBC Notarissen; Dutch consulting company MeetIn; New-Energy.tv (an independent Dutch web station that focuses on energy and climate); and Dejan SEO (an Australia-based search engine optimization firm). [
  • Mars One aims to launch a series of robotic missions between 2016 and 2020 that will build a habitable outpost on the Red Planet. The first four astronauts will set foot on Mars in 2023, and more will arrive every two years after that. There are no plans to return these pioneers to Earth.
  • Mars One estimates that it will cost about $6 billion to put the first four humans on the Red Planet
  • hopes the "Big Brother"-style reality show will pay most of these costs
  • televised action is slated to begin in 2013, when Mars One begins the process of selecting its 40-person astronaut corps
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