Hasta La Gadget!

A few weeks ago a new Potentially Hazardous Asteroid (PHA) was discovered. Don’t make any plans after 2042 because… well who knows? It’s not immense, maybe a thousand feet in diameter. That’s big enough.

I am fascinated when asteroids and comets are discovered because so often the discoveries don’t come directly from NASA or observatories associated with research universities. “2009 BD81,” the asteroid that’s keeping me from making reservations for Bruce Springsteen’s planned 2042 Florida condo tour (sponsored by Maalox and Levitra), was discovered by Robert Holmes from the Astronomical Research Institute. As far as I can tell Robert Holmes. pretty much is the ARI!

Spirit, one of NASA’s two Mars Rovers currently exploring the red planet, is doing fine after last week’s momentary glitch that caused it to temporarily lose its memory, the New York Times reports.

“Spirit is doing pretty good, as a matter of fact,” said R. William Nelson, the chief of the engineering team for the two Mars rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, in the article.

The report said that the best guess for what happened is that Spirit somehow entered “cripple mode,” in which the rover avoids using flash memory and instead writes to so-called random access memory. As a result, NASA may have lost the data when the rover fell asleep after trying to execute a set of instructions. “It’s all very mysterious at this point, and we may never find out what happened,” Mr. Nelson said in the article.

We were all decently hyped to see NASA’s lunar rover rolling down the street in the Inaugural Parade in Washington D.C. the other day (remember that?), but now, thanks to a really awesome new NASA buddy of ours, we’ve gotten a much closer look at it. Hit the gallery after the break for a bunch of views, and — if you were wondering — the rover’s running Windows XP.

Gallery: A closer look at NASA’s electric lunar rover

[Thanks, Cade]

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

A closer look at NASA’s electric lunar rover originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 23 Jan 2009 18:49:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Scientists have discovered methane in Mars’ atmosphere using NASA’s Infrared Telescope Facility and the W.M. Keck telescope—both in Mauna Kea, Hawaii—raising the possibility that life may have existed on the red planet, according to CNN.

No one is sure how long it’s been there, but NASA officials and scientists said that the methane could have come from subsurface microorganisms, geological activity, or even comets that struck the planet in the past.

“It’s time, it’s prudent that we begin to explore Mars looking for the possibility of a life form that’s exhaling methane,” said Lisa Pratt, professor of geological sciences at Indiana University, at a NASA news briefing Thursday.

NASA’s latest Mars mission, the Phoenix Mars Lander, recently came to an end after successfully verifying the presence of water-ice in the Martian subsurface, discovering small amounts of salts that could be nutrients for life, and seeing snow falling from clouds, according to the report. Recently, NASA celebrated its 50th anniversary.

The firms not mentioned here are just as important as the ones that are, as the privatization of space has just inched closer to reality. Rather than NASA handling ISS resupply chores itself or farming the job out to mega-corps such as Lockheed Martin or Boeing, the agency has instead awarded one contract each to Virginia-based Orbital Sciences (valued at around $1.9 billion) and California’s own SpaceX ($1.6 billion). The two will be responsible for 20 service flights between 2009 and 2016, with each trip requiring delivery of “a minimum of 20 metric tons of upmass cargo to the space station.” The agreements also call for “delivery of non-standard services in support of the cargo resupply, including analysis and special tasks as the government determines are necessary.” So yeah, if FedEx / UPS have been balking at your request to ship to a Martian eBay winner, you now know who to call.

[Via TG Daily]

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets, Transportation

NASA taps Orbital Sciences, SpaceX for ISS resupply missions originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 28 Dec 2008 01:29:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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