NASA’s Mars orbiter MAVEN launched successfully today from Cape Canaveral, Florida at 1:28PM EST. Once it arrives in orbit around the Red Planet, the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN orbiter will gather data about Mars’ upper atmosphere to try and discover how exactly the planet got to be so dry and atmosphere-poor. Earlier probes suggest […]
NASA’s new robotic explorer, MAVEN, will be blasting off from Florida’s Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in just a few minutes. And you can watch the whole thing live right here.
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What are the clouds of Mars made of? That’s the question that’ll be answered when NASA’s MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN) probe reaches our neighbor. Before that can happen, however, it needs to leave home on its long journey, which is scheduled to commence around 1:30pm ET today. The stream kicks off from 11:00, showing the preparations live from Cape Canaveral, so if you’re interested in watching what goes down, or, more appropriately, what goes up, head past the break and grab some popcorn.
Filed under: Transportation, Science, Alt
Via: Space.com
Source: NASA
Do not adjust your monitor: Mars hasn’t really been given a rainbow paint job. In fact, this image is a color-coded topography showing the heights and depths of the planet’s Ismeniae Fossae region.
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NASA isn’t immune to software glitches that can cause some of its incredibly expensive hardware to stop functioning. Such was the case about a week ago when a software update caused a fault on the Curiosity Mars rover, leaving it immobile for almost a week. NASA has announced today that Curiosity is rolling again on its way to the base of the 3.4-mile tall Martian mountain that’s its goal by next spring.
NASA officials say that Curiosity begin moving again early Thursday morning leaving the rocky outcrop called Cooperstown where its been parked during its cross-country trek. Mount Sharp is the ultimate goal destination for Curiosity and is in the middle of Gail Crater.
Curiosity went into safe mode on November 7 after the machine’s internal computer froze while ground controllers were attempting to switch to new upgraded software. There was some sort of discrepancy between a data file and catalog file inside the rover’s computer. Reports indicate that when running on the new R11 software, Curiosity’s catalog file showed data was still written to the computer memory. The computer inside the rover was unable to access that data because the older R10 software handles data differently than the upgraded R11 software. Curiosity was eventually reset and is using the older R10 software while engineers update to R11. It’s just like a Windows update.
“Unfortunately, the handover didn’t work well,” Jim Erickson, Curiosity project manager at JPL, said. “It was a transition problem. We can easily fix this now that we know what the issue is by clearing out the ready-to-send catalog before we switch to R11.”
[via SpaceFlightNow]
NASA has created a beautiful simulation of how Mars might have looked billions of years ago. It’s a fascinating view that looks eerily like Earth. According to NASA:
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India launched its first mission to Mars earlier this month in an attempt to become the fourth nation on the planet to reach Mars. Shortly after launch, India’s Mars spacecraft encountered engine problems that prevented mission controllers from placing the spacecraft into the desired orbit. The engine problem had to do with the primary and […]
NASA announced in February of this year that assembly had completed on its MAVEN spacecraft that was set to travel to Mars. The spacecraft was built by Lockheed Martin and the completion of its construction opened the door for the spacecraft to launch this month. The MAVEN mission is set to launch November 18. MAVEN […]
Earlier this month we mentioned that India had launched a mission to send a spacecraft to Mars. India is attempting to become the fourth nation on earth to send a spacecraft to the red planet. Other countries have tried and failed to reach Mars. While India was able to successfully put its spacecraft in orbit, […]
India wants to become the fourth nation or group of nations on the planet to reach Mars. India plans to launch a spacecraft called Mangalyaan, which means “Mars Craft” in Hindi. If successful, India will become the fourth nation to reach the red planet behind the Soviet Union, US, and a European conglomerate of countries. […]
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