NASA’s Martian helicopter enters final test phase for 2020 rover
Going where no helicopter has gone before, humanity’s maiden Martian chopper has entered its final testing phase with the goal of proving the rather difficult feat that a heavier-than-air vehicle can fly in the Red Planet’s extremely thin atmosphere. If all goes well, the Martian helicopter will be mated to the belly of NASA’s 2020 …
Israeli Beresheet lander crashes onto Moon; new mission planned
After a gallant effort worthy of the celestial goal the small privately built Israeli moon lander Beresheet fortified with high hopes failed in the final minutes of its autonomous descent to Earth’s nearest neighbor and crash landed onto the lunar surface Thursday afternoon, April 10. The Beresheet team, led by main investor Morris Kahn, soon …
SpaceX Crew Dragon completes successful first mission to ISS
The United States of America moved one giant step closer to regaining the ability to send astronauts into space today. Early this morning SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Florida after conducting a five-day test mission docked to the International Space Station. “If you just think about …
Opportunity completes record-setting 15 year mission on Mars
The longest surviving robot ever to explore the surface of Mars – the Opportunity Mars Exploration Rover – was declared dead by NASA officials on February 13, 2019, after conducting a record-setting 15 year mission on the Red Planet, when she failed to respond to a final set of “phone home” commands sent last night …
Constructing a new ride: NASA’s deep space rocket takes shape in New Orleans
NASA has finished welding together the very first fuel tank for America’s humongous Space Launch System (SLS) deep space rocket currently under development. RocketSTEM had an up close look at the liquid hydrogen (LH2) test tank shortly after its birth as well as the first flight tank, within hours of completion of the milestone assembly …
Front and center: Launch inferno
All was calm, the air was crisp with hope and the skies were clear as far as the eye could see as the clock ticked down to T minus zero for the Oct. 28, 2014 blastoff of an Orbital Sciences commercial Antares rocket from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility, VA, – on a mission of critical …
MAVEN and MOM arrive safely at Mars
Earth’s invasion fleet at the Red Planet now stands at a record breaking seven spacecraft following the successful arrival of a new pair of probes from the US and India in late September 2014. NASA’s newest Mars mission, the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) spacecraft successfully entered orbit around the Red Planet on Sept. …
New vehicles pave way for exploration
Why is NASA’s Commercial Crew Program to develop private human transport ships to low Earth orbit important? That’s the question I posed to NASA Administrator Charles Bolden when we met for an exclusive interview at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland. The Commercial Crew Program (CCP) is the critical enabler “for establishing a viable …
Kim Lichtenberg spends her days sampling Martian soil and rocks
RocketSTEM spoke with Dr. Kimberly Lichtenberg, a scientist and engineer who works on NASA’s Mars rover missions at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Pasadena, Calif., in conjunction with our “Women in Aerospace” series. We spoke about her career at NASA, role models, education and how she became interested in space exploration. Indeed she’s been in …
China lands Yutu rover on the Moon
China scored a stunning, history making success with the successful touchdown of the ambitious Chang’e-3 probe with the ‘Yutu’ rover on the surface of the Moon Dec. 14, 2013, on the country’s first ever attempt to conduct a landing on an extraterrestrial body. The dramatic Chang’e-3 soft landing on the lava filled plains of the …