Follow the Perseverance rover in real time on its way to Mars

Keep track of NASA’s Mars 2020 Perseverance is right now, on its journey through space towards its February 18, 2021 landing on Mars. This web app shows you where spacecraft is right now. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/follow-perseverance-rover-real-time-mars-journey-app…

Boeing and NASA Target December For Second Try at Uncrewed Orbital Demonstration Flight

NASA and Boeing have provided some updates around their Commercial Crew plans, which aim to get Boeing’s CST-100 spacecraft certified for regular human flight. From a report: The CST-100 and Boeing’s Commercial Crew aspirations hit a snag last year with a first attempt of an uncrewed orbital flight test, which did not go to plan thanks to a couple of software…

Six things to know about NASA’s Ingenuity Mars helicopter

When NASA’s Mars 2020 Perseverance rover launches from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida later this summer, an innovative experiment will ride along: the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter. Ingenuity may weigh only about 4 pounds (1.8 kilograms), but it has some outsize ambitions. Source: https://phys.org/news/2020-08-nasa-ingenuity-mars-helicopter.html…

With Perseverance and a little MOXIE, MIT is going to Mars

On July 30, a two-week window of opportunity opens for Perseverance—the newest Mars rover, forged in the spirit of human curiosity—to begin its journey toward the Red Planet with a launch from the Cape Canaveral Space Launch Center on the eastern Florida coast. With MIT’s help, this latest NASA mission will build upon the legacy of its roving laboratory predecessors and…

Perseverance, newest Mars rover, to launch July 30

NASA is targeting 7:50 a.m. EDT on Thursday, July 30, 2020, for the launch of its Mars 2020 Perseverance rover on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/watch-launch-newest-mars-rover-perseverance-july30-2020…

‘Solar Orbiter’ Delivers Closest Pictures Ever Taken of the Sun

“A European and NASA spacecraft has snapped the closest pictures ever taken of the sun,” reports the Associated Press, “revealing countless little ‘campfires” flaring everywhere. Scientists on Thursday released the first images taken by Solar Orbiter, launched from Cape Canaveral in February. The orbiter was about 48 million miles from the sun — about halfway between Earth and the sun —…

Six things to know about the Ingenuity Mars helicopter

When NASA’s Mars 2020 Perseverance rover launches from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida later this summer, an innovative experiment will ride along: the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter. Ingenuity may weigh only about 4 pounds (1.8 kilograms), but it has some outsize ambitions. Source: https://phys.org/news/2020-07-ingenuity-mars-helicopter.html…

NASA’s Perseverance rover attached to Atlas V rocket

NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover has been attached to the top of the rocket that will send it toward the Red Planet this summer. Encased in the nose cone that will protect it during launch, the rover and the rest of the Mars 2020 spacecraft—the aeroshell, cruise stage, and descent stage—were affixed to a United Launch Alliance Atlas V booster on Tuesday,…

7 things to know about the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover mission

In less than a month, NASA expects to launch the Mars 2020 Perseverance mission from Cape Canaveral, Florida. Loaded with scientific instruments, advanced computational capabilities for landing, and other new systems, the Perseverance rover is the largest, heaviest, most sophisticated vehicle NASA has ever sent to the Red Planet. Source: https://phys.org/news/2020-07-mars-perseverance-rover-mission.html…

10 great places to see meteor showers in the US

Looking for an awesome place to watch meteor showers in the U.S.? AccuWeather – and the editors of EarthSky – recommend these 10 places. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/10-great-places-to-see-meteor-showers-in-us…