New Atlas

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Core stage of NASA’s Space Launch System Moon rocket moves closer to completion

Anthony Wood June 4, 2019

Engineers at NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans have now joined together four fifths of the Space Launch System’s core stage. The upcoming super heavy rocket is slated to make its maiden flight in 2020, and will provide the lifting capabilities for America’s return to the Moon.

Artist's impression of a Block 1 SLS sitting on a launch pad

Space

24-hour webcam lets you watch as engineers build NASA's next Mars rover

Anthony Wood June 7, 2019

A newly-installed clean room webcam at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, is giving members of the public a front row seat as technicians and engineers assemble the Mars 2020 rover.

The webcam is mounted on a viewing gallery above the clean room floor

Space

NASA reveals first three commercial Moon landing contracts

David Szondy June 3, 2019

NASA has announced the first three contracts for unmanned lunar landing missions as part of the Artemis program that will see US astronauts returning to the Moon by 2024. The three commercial landers will support both science experiments and technology demonstrations.

Commercial landers will carry NASA-provided science and technology payloads to the lunar surface, paving the way ...

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Curiosity strikes clay in new samples, further proving Mars' watery past

Michael Irving May 30, 2019

Curiosity has begun investigating one of the most interesting regions so far – the clay-bearing unit. After drilling two new samples last month, the rover has confirmed high amounts of clay minerals, providing further proof that ancient Mars was once much wetter.

Curiosity took this selfie on May 12. The two drill holes in the clay-bearing region can ...

Space

Earth-buzzing comet found carrying "ocean-like" water

Michael Irving May 27, 2019

Earth is a famously wet planet, but where all that water came from in the first place remains a mystery. New observations of a comet that whizzed by Earth a few months ago show that it contains “ocean-like” water – and this may apply to other previously-dismissed comets too.

Comet Wirtanen, which buzzed Earth in December 2018, has been found to harbor "ocean-like" water

Space

Boeing CST-100 Starliner completes hot-fire thruster tests

David Szondy May 25, 2019

At NASA's White Sands Test Facility in New Mexico, Boeing recently completed live-fire tests of the complex array of thrusters that will be used to guide the seven-passenger spacecraft in orbit and provide propulsion for the emergency abort system.

Artist's concept of the CST-100 Starliner

Space

Mars 2020 mission goes to Death Valley to test landing cameras

David Szondy May 25, 2019

Technology that will guide NASA's Mars 2020 mission to a landing on the surface of Mars began testing recently in the skies over Death Valley in California. The tests are to demonstrate the device's ability to collect and analyze images of the mountainous landscape for landing navigation purposes.

The LVS was mounted on a helicopter for the tests

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Watery ancient Venus could have been rendered uninhabitable by its own oceans

Michael Irving May 22, 2019

Studies have shown that billions of years ago Venus might have been just as habitable as Earth. So what happened? New research has found that if ancient Venus was home to vast oceans, tidal drags may have slowed down the rotation of the planet and let it bake into the lifeless world we know today.

Simulations suggest that if ancient Venus had an ocean, tidal forces may have slowed the planet's ...

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NASA invites you to put your name on the Mars 2020 rover

Anthony Wood May 22, 2019

Members of the public can now sign up to have their name accompany NASA’s much anticipated Mars 2020 rover as it unravels the secrets of the Red Planet. The names will not be stored digitally within a chip, but instead etched upon one by scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California.

Artist's impression of the Mars 2020 rover on the surface of the Red Planet

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Pluto may have a subsurface ocean thanks to layer of gas insulation

David Szondy May 20, 2019

If there is a subsurface sea on Pluto, why hasn't it frozen solid? According to computer simulations devised by researchers from Japan’s Hokkaido University and elsewhere, it may be that the hypothetical Plutonian sea may remain liquid thanks to an insulating gas layer keeping in the heat.

Natural color images of Pluto taken by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft in 2015