Could a laser send a spacecraft to Mars? That’s a proposed mission from a group at McGill University, designed to meet a solicitation from NASA. The laser, a 10-meter wide array on Earth, would heat hydrogen plasma in a chamber behind the spacecraft, producing thrust from hydrogen gas and sending it to Mars in only 45 days. There, it would aerobrake in Mars’ atmosphere, shuttling supplies to human colonists or, someday perhaps, even humans themselves.
SpaceX plans to launch Crew-4 in April.
SpaceX’s human-carrying capsule has a surprise issue with its parachutes. Here’s what it could mean for Crew Dragon Crew-4 and the upcoming Axiom Space mission.
The award brings NASA a step closer to the first robotic round trip to bring samples safely to Earth through the Mars Sample Return Program.
NASA has awarded a contract to Lockheed Martin Space of Littleton, Colorado, to build the Mars Ascent Vehicle (MAV), a small, lightweight rocket to launch rock, sediment, and atmospheric samples from the surface of the Red Planet. The award brings NASA a step closer to the first robotic round trip to bring samples safely to Earth through the Mars Sample Return Program.
“This groundbreaking endeavor is destined to inspire the world when the first robotic round-trip mission retrieves a sample from another planet – a significant step that will ultimately help send the first astronauts to Mars,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said. “America’s investment in our Mars Sample Return program will fulfill a top priority planetary science goal and demonstrate our commitment to global partnerships, ensuring NASA remains a leader in exploration and discovery.”
For the third time, SpaceX has installed Super Heavy Booster 4 (B4) on Starbase’s lone orbital launch mount, kicking off preparations for CEO Elon Musk’s upcoming presentation.
In a decision that is difficult to logically explain, however, SpaceX chose to install Super Heavy on the ‘orbital launch mount’ with a crane instead of a complex pair of giant arms explicitly designed to lift, stack, and catch Starship hardware that the company has spent the last several months installing and testing.
This does not make a great deal of sense. One obvious explanation would be that those arms – despite completing multiple lift tests with hundreds of tons of water bags in recent weeks – are not ready for lifting and stacking operations. However, Starbase does not have a crane large enough to lift Starship S20 onto Booster 4, meaning that SpaceX almost certainly intends to use the tower’s arms to do so.
A Falcon 9 rocket is on a fatal trip to the Moon — and an Earth-based observatory just caught a sneak peek.
A Falcon 9 rocket is expected to crash land on the Moon in early March. An Earth-based observatory caught it on its way to the Moon.
Are you afraid of the dark?
Hopefully, none of the astronauts vying to join the Artemis crewed Moon missions are similarly nyctophobic. If a new NASA image is anything to go on, they’ll need to get over it.
“NASA astronauts are no strangers to extreme environments,” Megan Dean, a NASA spokesperson tells Inverse. Just as well. In a hauntingly beautiful photograph posted on Twitter this week, NASA teases just how extreme the environment may be when NASA astronauts reach the Moon as part of the Artemis III mission, currently slated for 2025.
Continue reading “Behold! NASA teases how Artemis astronauts will explore the Moon’s south pole” »
Booster 4 and the LR11000 crane have been moved towards the orbital launch tower, and connected for what appears to be another full stacking ahead of Elon’s announces Starship Update presentation this Thursday evening. Will the chopsticks be used? Tune in to find out.
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