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Mars Base

Opportunity Rover Tops 35 Kilometers of Driving - 0 views

www.universetoday.com/...-tops-35-kilometers-of-driving

scibyte61 opportunity

shared by Mars Base on 01 Sep 12 - No Cached
  • has now exceeded over 35 kilometers (21.75 miles)
  • vehicle designed for only about 1 kilometer (.6 miles) of distance and 90 sols (days)
  • now operating for 3,057 Martian sols
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • Oppy is now moving
  • surveying exposed outcrop in search of phyllosilicate clay minerals that have been detected from orbit
  • What are those rocks made of? How did this feature form? What do the diferent colours and textures mean? These are all questions which the MER team will be hoping to answer over the next few days
  • Opportunity’s solar array energy production is good, producing about 568 watt-hours
  • MER team reports that on Sol 3055 (Aug. 27, 2012), the Rock Abrasion Tool (RAT) on the end of the robotic arm was imaged (top image) to re-confirm the available bit for future grinding and the Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer (APXS) collected a measurement of atmospheric argon.
Mars Base

Australians implant 'world first' bionic eye - 0 views

medicalxpress.com/...-implant-world-bionic-eye.html

scibyte61 eyes

shared by Mars Base on 30 Aug 12 - No Cached
  • Bionic Vision Australia (BVA), a government-funded science consortium, said it had surgically installed an "early prototype" robotic eye in a woman with hereditary sight loss caused by degenerative retinitis pigmentosa
  • pre-bionic eye", the tiny device is attached to Dianne Ashworth's retina and contains 24 electrodes which send electrical impulses to stimulate her eye's nerve cells.
  • device only works when it is connected inside the lab
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • be used to explore how images were "built" by the brain and eye.
  • Feedback from the device will be fed into a "vision processor" allowing doctors to determine exactly what Ashworth sees when her retina is subjected to various levels of stimulation
  • team is working towards a "wide-view" 98-electrode device that will provide users with the ability to perceive large objects such as buildings and cars, and a "high-acuity" 1,024-electrode device
  • high-acuity device are expected to be able to recognise faces and read large print
  • Every time there was stimulation there was a different shape that appeared
  • switched on the device in their laboratory last month after Ashworth had fully recovered from surgery
Mars Base

Say Ahhh to Mars - 0 views

www.universetoday.com/...say-ahhh-to-mars

scibyte63 Curiosity

shared by Mars Base on 14 Sep 12 - No Cached
  • new panorama from Mars
  • Zoom in and you can see actual rocks
  • a look of things to come. In black-and-white image from Curiosity, there appear to be big dunes to cross to get to the foothills of Aeolis Mons, or Mount Sharp.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • Curiosity has nearly finished robotic arm tests. Once complete, the rover will be able to touch and examine its first Mars rock
  • about to drive some more and try to find the right rock to begin doing contact science with the arm
Mars Base

Strange Mystery Spheres on Mars Baffle Scientists | Space.com - 0 views

www.space.com/range-photo-martian-rocks.html

scibyte63 opportunity

shared by Mars Base on 15 Sep 12 - No Cached
  • A strange picture of odd, spherical rock formations on Mars from NASA's Opportunity rover has scientists scratching their heads over what exactly they're looking at.
  • Mars photo by Opportunity shows a close-up of a rock outcrop
  • covered in blister-like bumps that mission scientists can't yet explain
  • ...19 more annotations...
  • At first
  • the formations appear similar to so-called Martian "blueberries" — iron-rich spherical formations first seen by Opportunity in 2004 — but they actually differ in several key ways, scientist said
  • This is one of the most extraordinary pictures from the whole mission
  • Kirkwood is chock full of a dense accumulation of these small spherical objects. Of course, we immediately thought of the blueberries, but this is something different
  • never have seen such a dense accumulation of spherules in a rock outcrop on Mars."
  • The new photo by Opportunity is actually a mosaic of four images taken by a microscope-like imager on its robotic arm
  • Opportunity is currently exploring a location known as Cape York along the western rim of a giant Martian crater called Endeavour
  • Despite its advanced age, Opportunity is still pumping out new discoveries after more than eight years on Mars.
  • first spotted Martian blueberries soon after its landing in 2004
  • blueberries are actually concretions created by minerals in water that settled into sedimentary rock.
  • Opportunity has seen Martian blueberries at many of its science site
  • bumpy, spherical formations on the Kirkwood rock represent something new
  • . In Opportunity's new photo, many of the strange features are broken, revealing odd concentric circles inside
  • seem to be crunchy on the outside, and softer in the middle
  • different in concentration. They are different in structure. They are different in composition. They are different in distribution
  • science team have several theories, but none that truly stand out as the best explanation
  • Kirkwood outcrop is just one science pit stop at Cape York for Opportunity. Mission scientists have already picked out another interesting rock outcrop nearby, a pale patch that may contain tantalizing clay minerals, for possibly study after Opportunity completes its current analysis.
  • spring equinox is approaching on Mars, ensuring increasing levels of sunshine for Opportunity's solar arrays
  • "Energy production levels are comparable to what they were a full Martian year ago
Mars Base

Delay for space station's 1st private cargo run (Update) - 0 views

www.physorg.com/...tation-1st-private-hookup.html

scibyte30 SpaceStation SpaceX

shared by Mars Base on 21 Jan 12 - No Cached
  • SpaceX planned to launch its unmanned supply ship from Cape Canaveral on Feb. 7
  • company said more testing was needed with the spacecraft, named Dragon
  • confirmed the launch would not occur until late March.
  • ...10 more annotations...
  • as much as he'd like to take part in the historic event, it's important that SpaceX fly when it's ready. Burbank will return to Earth in mid-March.
  • Just over a year ago
  • Space Ex
  • launched a test version of the capsule
  • NASA is counting on companies like SpaceX to keep the station stocked, now that the shuttles are retired.
  • Russian, European and Japanese space agencies - all government entities - are picking up the slack as best they can, sending up regular shipments to the orbiting outpost
  • It may take a little more time, but when it happens, it's going to be amazing
  • first Dragon capsule to visit the space station will carry several hundred pounds of astronaut provisions - nothing crucial, in case of a failure
  • Astronauts aboard the space station will use a huge robot arm to grab and berth the Dragon
  • it will be able to return scientific samples to Earth, Burbank noted. None of the other countries' supply ships can do that; they burn up on re-entry.
Mars Base

Russians desperately try to save Mars moon probe (Update) - 0 views

www.physorg.com/...cientists-mars-moon-probe.html

mars scibyte21 Phobos-Grunt

shared by Mars Base on 10 Nov 11 - No Cached
  • A Russian space probe aiming to land on a Mars moon was stuck circling the Earth after equipment failure Wednesday, and scientists raced to fire up its engines before the whole thing came crashing down.
  • successfully launched by a Zenit-2 booster rocket just after midnight Moscow time Wednesday
  • separated from the booster about 11 minutes later and was to fire its engines twice to set out on its path to the Red Planet, but never did
  • ...9 more annotations...
  • probably due to the failure of the craft's orientation system
  • Phobos-Ground was Russia's first interplanetary mission since a botched 1996 robotic mission to Mars, which failed when the probe crashed shortly after the launch due to an engine failure
  • Depending on the actual root of the failure, this is not an impossible challenge
  • the effort to restore control over the probe is hampered by a limited earth-to-space communications network that already forced Russian flight controllers to ask the general public in South America to help find the craft
  • Amateur astronomers were the first to spot the trouble when they detected that the spacecraft was stuck in an Earth orbit
  • About seven tons of nitrogen teroxide and hydrazine, which could freeze before ultimately entering, will make it the most toxic falling satellite ever
  • billed as the heaviest interplanetary probe ever may become one of the heaviest space derelicts to ever fall back to Earth out of control
  • The spacecraft is 13.2 metric tons (14.6 tons), with fuel accounting for a large share of its weight
  • Scientists had hoped that studies of Phobos' surface could help solve the mystery of its origin and shed more light on the genesis of the solar system. Some
Mars Base

Jupiter Moon's Buried Lakes Evoke Antarctica | Jupiter Moon Europa | Subsurface Lakes P... - 0 views

www.space.com/arth-antarctica-analogues.html

scibyte22 Europa

shared by Mars Base on 17 Nov 11 - No Cached
  • Patches of broken ice unique to the moon have puzzled scientists for over a decade
  • Some have argued they are signs of a subterranean ocean breaking through, while others believe that the crust is too thick for the water to pierce
  • studies of ice formations in Antarctica and Iceland have provided clues to the creation of these puzzling features
  • ...11 more annotations...
  • , a combination of these elements could very well be at work on Jupiter's moon
  • "It looks like crushed ice,
  • In Iceland, volcanoes lay beneath the ice. Their heat melts the base of glaciers and ice sheets, causing the surface to buckle in on itself and allowing stress fractures to form
  • there's no evidence for volcanoes on Europa, and the makeup of the ice is likely different from Earth'
  • irregular areas contain domes and iceberglike blocks that no theoretical models have been able to replicate
  • "On Earth, it is the volcano [melting the ice]," Schmidt said. "On Europa, it is the warm ice plume coming up from below."
  • estimated that it contained as much water as all of the North America's Great Lakes combined, about 1.5 miles (3 kilometers) beneath the surface.
  • One such lake
  • several liquid lakes are likely to exist near the surface today
  • The material cycled into the ocean via these lakes may make Europa's ocean even more habitable than previously imagined
  • The lakes may even be habitats themselves
Mars Base

Mars Rover Landing a Success-What Happens Now? - 0 views

news.nationalgeographic.com/...riosity-rover-nasa-jpl-science

scibyte57 Curiosity

shared by Mars Base on 06 Aug 12 - No Cached
  • Communication is largely accomplished through relays to three satellites orbiting Mars or through the Deep Space Network, a system of giant interconnected antenna dishes in Madrid, Spain; Canberra, Australia; and the Mojave Desert.
  • By "sol 10" ("day 10"—each Martian solar day, known as a sol, is 24.66 hours long), all ten instruments should have been started up to see if they're working,
  • around sol 30 will the seven-foot [two-meter] robotic arm be tested
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • on Mars time
  • data and instructions coming and going to Curiosity are pushed 40 minutes later each day to compensate for the extra length of the Mars sol
Chris Fisher

Secret Military Mini-Shuttle Marks One Year in Orbit : Discovery News - 0 views

news.discovery.com/...e-marks-one-year-in-orbit.html

orbit military secret

shared by Chris Fisher on 07 Mar 12 - No Cached
  • The military won't say what it has been doing with its experimental miniature space shuttle, but the pilotless spaceship, known as the X-37B, has been in orbit for a year now. The 29-foot robotic spacecraft, also known as the Orbital Test Vehicle, or OTV, was launched on March 5, 2011, on a follow-up flight to extend capabilities demonstrated by a sistership during a 244-day debut mission in 2010.
  • "The X-37B program is setting the standard for a reusable space plane and, on this one-year orbital milestone, has returned great value on the experimental investment,"
  • Amateur satellite watchers last spotted the spaceship on March 4 as it circled between 204 and 212 miles above the planet in an orbit inclined 42.8 degrees relative to the equator.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • "Ground tracks that repeat every two to four days are a common feature of U.S. imagery intelligence satellites," Molczan said. "It gives you a fairly frequent revisit of the same targets from the same vantage point."
Mars Base

How A Mosquito Survives A Raindrop Hit - Science News - 0 views

www.sciencenews.org/...squito_survives_a_raindrop_hit

scibyte50 mosquito

shared by Mars Base on 06 Jun 12 - No Cached
  • A raindrop hitting a mosquito in flight is like a midair collision between a human and a bus. Except that the mosquito survives
  • the (relatively) huge, fast drop doesn’t transfer much of its momentum to a little wisp of an insect
  • the falling droplet sweeps the insect along on the downward plunge
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • Mosquito tricks may also inspire engineers designing swarms of tiny flying robots, or interest physicists and mathematicians studying complex fluid dynamics at this scale
  • mosquitoes hit with water survived using an insect version of tai chi:
  • Mosquitoes hitchhiking on water experience acceleration 100 to 300 times the force of Earth’s gravity
Mars Base

Greek experts find Roman wrecks nearly a mile deep - 0 views

phys.org/...k-experts-roman-mile-deep.html

scibyte49 ShipWrecks

shared by Mars Base on 30 May 12 - No Cached
  • Two Roman-era shipwrecks have been found in deep water off a western Greek island, challenging the conventional theory that ancient shipmasters stuck to coastal routes rather than risking the open sea, an official said Tuesday.
  • They lay between 1.2 and 1.4 kilometers (0.7-0.9 miles) deep in the sea between Corfu and Italy.
  • among the deepest known ancient wrecks in the Mediterranean, apart from remains found in 1999 of an older vessel some 3 kilometers (1.8 miles) deep off Cyprus.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • A Greek oceanographic vessel using side-scan radar and robot submarines took footage of scattered cargo — storage jars, or amphorae, used to carry foodstuffs and wine — cooking utensils for the crew, anchors, ballast stones and what could be remains of the wooden ships.
  • deep wrecks are very important because they are almost always more intact than those found in shallow water
  • far more archaeological and historical information
Mars Base

Yutu rover Suffers Significant Setback at Start of 2nd Lunar Night - 0 views

www.universetoday.com/...ck-at-start-of-2nd-lunar-night

scibyte117 ChineseSpaceProgram

shared by Mars Base on 29 Jan 14 - No Cached
  • The six wheeled Yutu rover, which means ‘Jade Rabbit’, has “experienced a mechanical control abnormality” in a new report by China’s official government newspaper, The People’s Daily. Remove this ad
  • ‘Jade Rabbit’ was traversing southwards from the landing site as the incident occurred just days ago – about six weeks into its planned 3 month moon roving expedition
  • very few details have emerged or been released by the Chinese government about Yutu’s condition or fate
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • The abnormality occurred due to the “complicated lunar surface environment,” said the State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defence
  • took place just prior to the beginning of the 2nd lunar night and
  • ‘dormancy’ for both ‘Jade Rabbit’ and the Chang’e-3
  • Based on unofficial accounts, it appears that one of the solar panels did not fold back properly over Yutu’s mast after it was lowered to the required horizontal position into a warmed box to shield and protect it from the extremely frigid lunar night time temperatures
  • could potentially spell doom for the mast mounted instruments and electronic systems, including the color and navigation cameras and the high gain antenna, if true
  • each Lunar night also lasts approximately 14 Earth days
  • there is no communication possible during sleep mode, no one will know until the resumption of daylight some two weeks from now – around Feb. 8 to 9.
Mars Base

Opportunity Scaling Solander Mountain Searching for Science and Sun - 0 views

www.universetoday.com/...-searching-for-science-and-sun

scibyte105 opportunity SpacecraftUpdae

shared by Mars Base on 30 Sep 13 - No Cached
  • Opportunity rover has begun
  • the ascent of Solander Point, the first mountain she will ever climb, after roving the Red Planet for nearly a decade
  • l Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO)
  • ...18 more annotations...
  • recently succeeded in collecting “really interesting” new high resolution survey scans of Solander Point
  • The new MRO data are crucial for targeting the rover’s driving in coming months.
  • Solander Point is an eroded ridge located along the western rim of huge Endeavour Crater where Opportunity is currently located
  • it will take some time to review and interpret the bountiful new spectral data and decide on a course of action
  • Expect that analysis to take a “couple of weeks”
  • The new CRISM survey from Mars orbit will vastly improve the spectral resolution – from 18 meters per pixel down to 5 meters per pixel
  • Another important point about ‘Solander Point’ is that it also offers northerly tilted slopes that will maximize the power generation during Opportunity’s upcoming 6th Martian winter
  • winter’s last six full months
  • The rover recently investigated an outcrop target called ‘Poverty Bush’.
  • deployed her 3 foot long (1 meter) robotic arm and collected photos with the Microscopic Imager (MI)
  • collected several days of spectral measurements with the Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer (APXS).
  • There are several geologic units that are overlapping
  • Opportunity is sitting on the contact
  • the east side of the contact are rocks maybe a billion years older than those on the west side of the contact
  • So far
  • has snapped over 184,500
  • images
  • total odometry stands at over 23.82 miles (38.34 kilometers) since touchdown on Jan. 24, 2004
Mars Base

Curiosity Discovers Patch of Pebbles Formed by Flowing Martian Water on Mount Sharp Trek - 0 views

www.universetoday.com/...tian-water-on-mount-sharp-trek

scibyte104

shared by Mars Base on 27 Sep 13 - No Cached
  • Curiosity
  • has discovered a new patch of pebbles formed and rounded eons ago by flowing liquid water
  • the new finding at a sandstone outcrop called ‘Darwin’ during a brief science stopover spot called ‘Waypoint 1’.
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • The discovery at Darwin is significant because it significantly broadens the area here that was altered by flowing liquid water
  • The robot pulled into ‘Waypoint 1’ on Sept. 12 (Sol 392).
  • Did the water flow that deposited the pebbly sandstone at Waypoint 1 occur at about the same time as the water flow at Yellowknife Bay?
  • If the same fluid flow produced the veins here and the veins at Yellowknife Bay, you would expect the veins to have the same composition.’
  • the veins are different, so we know the history is complicated. We use these observations to piece together the long-term history
  • Darwin comes from a list of 100 names the team put together to designate rocks in the Mawson Quadrangle
  • on Sept. 22, the rover departed Darwin and Waypoint 1 on a westward heading to resume the many months long journey to Mount Sharp
Mars Base

Mars Science Laboratory: Curiosity Resumes Science After Analysis of Voltage Issue - 0 views

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

scibyte110 Curiosity

shared by Mars Base on 26 Nov 13 - No Cached
  • Activities over the weekend included use of Curiosity's robotic arm to deliver portions of powdered rock to a laboratory inside the rover
  • The powder has been stored in the arm since the rover collected it by drilling into the target rock "Cumberland" six months ago
  • Several portions of the powder have already been analyzed. The laboratory has flexibility for examining duplicate samples in different ways
  • ...12 more annotations...
  • The decision to resume science activities resulted from the success of work to diagnose the likely root cause of a Nov. 17 change in voltage
  • made a list of potential causes, and then determined which we could cross off the list, one by one
  • Science operations were suspended for six days while this analysis took priority
  • The likely cause is an internal short in Curiosity's power source, the Multi-Mission Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator
  • this short does not affect operation of the power source or the rover
  • Similar generators on other spacecraft, including NASA's Cassini at Saturn, have experienced shorts with no loss of capability
  • Testing of another Multi-Mission Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator over many years found no loss of capability in the presence of these types of internal shorts
  • early Nov. 23
  • that the rover had returned to its pre-Nov. 17 voltage level. This reversal is consistent with their diagnosis of an internal short in the generator on Nov. 17, and the voltage could change again
  • analysis work to determine the cause of the voltage change gained an advantage from an automated response by the rover's onboard software when it detected the voltage change
  • The rover stepped up the rate at which it recorded electrical variables, to eight times per second from the usual once per minute, and transmitted that engineering data in its next communication with Earth
  • In subsequent days, the rover performed diagnostic activities commanded by the team, such as powering on some backup hardware to rule out the possibility of short circuits in certain sensors
Mars Base

This Video of a Cyborg Quadriped Will Have You Gasping in Terror - 0 views

www.universetoday.com/...ill-have-you-gasping-in-terror

scibyte106 BosonDynamics WildCat

shared by Mars Base on 06 Oct 13 - No Cached
  • t the WildCat is a brand new robot created to run fast on all types of terrain, and so far its top speed has been about 16 mph on flat terrain using both bounding and galloping gaits.
Mars Base

Mars Science Laboratory: Images - 0 views

mars.jpl.nasa.gov/...images

scibyte105 Curiosity

shared by Mars Base on 05 Oct 13 - No Cached
  • NASA's Mars rover Curiosity used a new technique, with added autonomy for the rover, in placement of the tool-bearing turret on its robotic arm
  • the Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer (APXS) instrument placed close to the target rock
  • image from the rover's front Hazard Avoidance Camera (Hazcam) on that sol shows the position of the turret during that process
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • The technique, called proximity placement, uses the APXS as if it were a radar for assessing how close the instrument is to a soil or rock surface
  • The rover can interpret the data and autonomously move the turret closer if it is not yet close enough
  • This will enable placement of the instrument much closer to soil targets than would have been feasible without risk of touching the sensor head to loose soil
  • extra days of having team members check the data and command arm movement in response
Mars Base

NASA May Put Tiny Greenhouse on Mars in 2021 | Space.com - 0 views

www.space.com/se-rover-plant-experiment.html

scibyte131 ViewerFeedback MarsPlantExperiment

shared by Mars Base on 11 May 14 - No Cached
  • Researchers have proposed putting a plant-growth experiment on NASA's next Mars rover
  • scheduled to launch in mid-2020 and land on the Red Planet in early 2021.
  • known as the Mars Plant Experiment (MPX),
  • ...13 more annotations...
  • could help lay the foundation for the colonization of Mars,
  • its designers say
  • The MPX team
  • isn't suggesting that the 2020 Mars rover should
  • digging a hole with its robotic arm and planting seeds in the Red Planet's dirt.
  • the experiment would be entirely self-contained, eliminating the chance that Earth life could escape and perhaps get a foothold on Mars.
  • MPX would employ a clear "CubeSat" box
  • which would be affixed to the exterior of the 2020 rover
  • This box would hold Earth air and about 200 seeds of Arabidopsis, a small flowering plant that's commonly used in scientific research
  • The seeds would receive water when the rover touched down on Mars, and would then be allowed to grow for two weeks or so.
  • MPX would provide an organism-level test
  • how Earth life deals with the Red Planet's relatively high radiation levels and low gravity, which is about 40 percent as strong as that of Earth,
  • "It also would be the first multicellular organism to grow, live and die on another planet
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