Watch Live as Perseverance, NASA’s Newest Rover, Lands on Mars

It took six and a half months for Perseverance to travel from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida to the atmosphere of the red planet. It will now take about seven minutes to get from the atmosphere to the sandy ground. The highly-anticipated 293-million-mile journey of Perseverance is moments away from its conclusion. NASA’s newest rover is set to touch…

Why Is America Getting a New $100 Billion Nuclear Weapon?

“America is building a new weapon of mass destruction, a nuclear missile the length of a bowling lane,” writes the contributing editor for the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (in an article shared by Slashdot reader DanDrollette): It will be able to travel some 6,000 miles, carrying a warhead more than 20 times more powerful than the atomic bomb dropped on…

Sentinel-6 passes in-orbit tests with flying colors

In November 2020, the Copernicus Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich satellite was launched into orbit from the Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, US. Now, months later, the satellite has successfully passed what is known as the ‘in-orbit verification phase,” where its equipment is switched on and the instruments’ performance is checked. Source: https://phys.org/news/2021-02-sentinel-in-orbit.html…

Despite Funny Name Ideas, US Space Force Has a Serious Mission

Friday the U.S. military released 400 other names it considered for Space Force’s soliders (before settling on the word “guardians.”) Politico writes that the names were “crowdsourced” from the U.S. military’s space workforce, and “Troops clearly had fun with their submissions, which included Space Cadet, Spacies, Anti-Gravity Gang, Homo Spaciens and Spacefolk.” But the Space Force had more science fiction-inspired names…

Axiom Names First Private Crew Paying $55 Million For a Trip To the ISS

An American real estate investor, a Canadian investor, and a former Israeli Air Force pilot are paying $55 million each to be part of the first fully private astronaut crew to journey to the International Space Station. The Verge reports: The trio will hitch a ride on SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule early next year, with a veteran NASA astronaut as the…

New TV series to reveal Project Blue Book files

A new UFO investigation series will include an exclusive look at scientist Dr. J. Allen Hynek’s unreleased files. Carried out by the US Air Force betw… Source: https://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/news/342919/new-tv-series-to-reveal-project-blue-book-files…

How will the U.S. space program fare under Joe Biden?

Joe Biden is the United States presidential election winner, but his plans for NASA remain unclear. And while citizens digest the election results, the space industry is left wondering what comes next. Source: https://earthsky.org/human-world/how-will-the-u-s-space-program-fare-under-joe-biden…

How Astronauts on The ISS Got a Visit from Santa

Since 1955 the U.S./Canadian operation that monitors North American airspace with radars and satellite to maintain air sovereignty has also, at Christmas time, been tracking Santa. And this year their trackers received additional support from the U.S. Space Command, a joint-military command drawing its units from five military service branches (including the U.S. Space Force). That command “launched a new reindeer…

Red Bull skydivers recreate mysterious Marfa lights for winter solstice 2020

An epic nighttime skydive saw Red Bull Air Force’s Amy Chmelecki and teammates don pyrotechnics to highlight – literally – the importance of astronomy and dark skies in a rural region of Texas. Source: https://www.livescience.com/marfa-lights-red-bull-night-sky-video.html

Its Official: America’s Space Force is Better than Its Other Military Branches at ‘Call of Duty’

The military news site Task and Purpose reports:
The U.S. military’s youngest branch, the Space Force, just trounced its sibling services, as well the United Kingdom’s military, in the second annual Call of Duty Endowment Bowl. The transatlantic Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War tournament pit eight teams from the U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force, Space Force, and Marine Corps, along…