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Ridgewood NJ, as students across the country are saying goodbye to the summer and the new school year is kicking off, NASA is gearing up to engage students in exciting activities and thought-provoking challenges throughout the year ahead. The agency offers many resources to inspire the next generation of explorers, and help educators and students stay involved in its missions.
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Mars, Mars is calling! NASA is seeking applicants for participation as a crew member during the first one-year analog mission in a habitat to simulate life on a distant world, set to begin in Fall 2022.
Continue reading NASA is Recruiting for Yearlong Simulated Mars Mission
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Ridgewood NJ, its a bird ,its a plane no it’s NASA’s X-59 Quiet SuperSonic Technology (QueSST) an experimental supersonic jet designed to reach speeds of Mach 1.4 (925mph). It is slower than the Concorde, but its cutting-edge design allows it to emit a sonic boom about as loud as the sound of a car door closing. Lockheed Martin was awarded a $247.5 million contract to assemble the aircraft in 2018.
Continue reading Its a bird ,Its a plane no It’s NASA’s X-59 Quiet SuperSonic Technology
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Mars, NASA is making final preparations for its Perseverance Mars rover to collect its first-ever sample of Martian rock, which future planned missions will transport to Earth. The six-wheeled geologist is searching for a scientifically interesting target in a part of Jezero Crater called the “Cratered Floor Fractured Rough.”
Continue reading Perseverance Mars rover to collect its first-ever sample of Martian rock
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Ridgewood NJ, Northrop Grumman Corp has acquired a $935 million contract from NASA to develop living quarters for its planned outpost in lunar orbit. The Habitation And Logistics Outpost (HALO) will be a vital component of NASA’s lunar Gateway. Gateway will support science investigations and enable surface landings on the moon. Eight countries have signed a pact as part of the Artemis program. NASA is aiming to launch the spacecraft in November 2024.
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Washington DC, As NASA continues plans for multiple commercial deliveries to the Moon’s surface per year, the agency has selected three new scientific investigation payload suites to advance understanding of Earth’s nearest neighbor. Two of the payload suites will land on the far side of the Moon, a first for NASA. All three investigations will receive rides to the lunar surface as part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services, or CLPS, initiative, part of the agency’s Artemis approach.
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MARS, the science team is studying the clouds, which arrived earlier and formed higher than expected, to learn more about the Red Planet.
Cloudy days are rare in the thin, dry atmosphere of Mars. Clouds are typically found at the planet’s equator in the coldest time of year, when Mars is the farthest from the Sun in its oval-shaped orbit. But one full Martian year ago – two Earth years – scientists noticed clouds forming over NASA’s Curiosity rover earlier than expected.
Continue reading NASA’s Curiosity Rover Captures Clouds on Mars
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Ridgewood NJ, After nearly five years in space, NASA’s Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security, Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) spacecraft is on its way back to Earth with an abundance of rocks and dust from the near-Earth asteroid Bennu.
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MARS, The growing list of “firsts” for Perseverance, NASA’s newest six-wheeled robot on the Martian surface, includes converting some of the Red Planet’s thin, carbon dioxide-rich atmosphere into oxygen. A toaster-size, experimental instrument aboard Perseverance called the Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment (MOXIE) accomplished the task. The test took place April 20, the 60th Martian day, or sol, since the mission landed Feb. 18.
Continue reading NASA’s Perseverance Mars Rover Extracts First Oxygen from Red Planet
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MARS, Monday, NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter became the first aircraft in history to make a powered, controlled flight on another planet. The Ingenuity team at the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California confirmed the flight succeeded after receiving data from the helicopter via NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover at 6:46 a.m. EDT (3:46 a.m. PDT).
Continue reading NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter Succeeds in Historic First Flight
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Ridgewood NJ, based on data from the Ingenuity Mars helicopter that arrived late Friday night, NASA has chosen to reschedule the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter’s first experimental flight to no earlier than April 14.
Continue reading NASA Postpones Ingenuity Mars Helicopter’s first experimental flight
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Ridgewood NJ, NASA has released a video showing several viewpoints of last week’s Mars landing. The video shows the descent starting from the release of the parachute. About 30GB of data was captured during the descent. The footage will be used to sharpen knowledge about future entry, descent, and landing technology. One problem identified by the footage is the large amount of dust that was kicked up by the descent stage, which will be an important issue for larger spacecraft. The video of the landing is available in the article.
Continue reading NASA Releases Video Last Week’s Mars landing
December Solstice in New York, New York, USA is on Monday, December 21, 2020 at 5:02 am EST
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Ridgewood NJ, Astronomically speaking, this week heralds the end of fall and the beginning of winter in the northern hemisphere. Though meteorologists like to define the seasons differently—with winter beginning on December 1 each year—astronomers say that winter begins on the date of the solstice.
Photo Credit:NASA/JPL-Caltech
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Ridgewood NJ, according to NASA , Jupiter and Saturn have been traveling across the sky together all year, but this month, get ready for them to really put on a show. Over the first three weeks of December, watch each evening as the two planets get closer in the sky than they’ve appeared in two decades. Look for them low in the southwest in the hour after sunset. And on December 21st, the two giant planets will appear just a tenth of a degree apart – that’s about the thickness of a dime held at arm’s length! This means the two planets and their moons will be visible in the same field of view through binoculars or a small telescope. In fact, Saturn will appear as close to Jupiter as some of Jupiter’s moons.
This event is called a “great conjunction.” These occur every 20 years this century as the orbits of Earth, Jupiter, and Saturn periodically align making these two outer planets appear close together in our nighttime sky. Even so, this is the “greatest” great conjunction between Jupiter and Saturn for the next 60 years, with the two planets not appearing this close in the sky until 2080.
Max Polyakov is collaborating with the US to create rockets smaller than those that SpaceX has built. He has invested $150 million in the commercial rocket industry, making a name for himself. Polyakov’s commercial spaceflight company, Firefly Aerospace, runs an engine test site in Austin, Texas with offices in Cedar Park. His company is already in line for multi-million dollar contracts to launch satellites for NASA .
Continue reading Firefly Aerospace and Max Polyakov Intend to Build Small Rockets
