Lifeboat Foundation

As NASA forges ahead to the Moon — and eventually to Mars — the agency is hoping to get some help from the commercial space industry. Today, NASA announced new partnerships with various aerospace organizations, aimed at advancing technologies related to landing on other planets, navigating the lunar surface, transferring propellant in space, and more — all of which could be critical for future missions.

Ten companies now hold a total of 19 partnerships with NASA through the agency’s Announcement of Collaborative Opportunity initiative, or ACO. In October, NASA put out a call for proposals from the industry, asking them to detail different technologies they’d like to develop through the program. Now, the companies that have been selected will be given expertise and resources from various NASA centers to help mature these space technologies — at no cost to the companies themselves.

The sun’s magnetic fields trap hot plasmas in their loops, as seen in this ultraviolet image taken by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory spacecraft. The solar flare seen on the right caused moderate radio blackouts on Earth.

Maybe you’ve gotten a bit blasé about rocket landings. SpaceX has pulled off more than 40 of them during orbital launches, after all, and Blue Origin has done it 10 times on test flights of its New Shepard suborbital vehicle.

Right now, the robot is busy with the pre-launch preparations. August 22, F-850 will be launched to the ISS aboard the Soyuz MS-14 unmanned spacecraft. However, the humanoid robot won’t be staying on board long, after a ten-day mission F-850 is set to leave the station and return to Earth.

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The X3 is made possible thanks to a collaboration among NASA, Aerojet Rocketdyne, the Caltech Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and the University of Michigan.

It’s a new type of propulsion engine that smashed records during test firings. This engine and other electric propulsion systems will help us reach distant planets faster than ever before.

Continue reading “The X3 Ion Thruster Is Here, This Is How It’ll Get Us to Mars” »

Meet Henk B. Rogers, a successful entrepreneur who lives in Hawaii and wants to build an underground settlement on the Moon. This is his vision.

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Thanks to Judy Sullivan, the first female engineer in NASA’s Spacecraft Operations, Apollo 11 was also a big leap for womankind. https://gma.abc/2Z4gmew

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Dragon’s solar arrays have deployed and the spacecraft is safely in orbit following a launch on the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket at 6:01 p.m. EDT from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, carrying more than 5,000 pounds of research, hardware and supplies to the International Space Station. Dragon is scheduled to arrive at the orbiting laboratory Saturday, July 27. Details: https://go.nasa.gov/2GwcjjF

SpaceX was attempting to fly its “Starship” prototype rocket in its first short flight of more than a few feet off the ground on Wednesday.