Blog Archive

August 22, 2012 officially proclaimed "Space Day" in California

Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2012/08/21 09:58 CDT

Governor Brown has declared August 22, 2012 "Space Day." I'm not sure what it means, but I love the repeated use of the word "whereas."

Curiosity artist's concept on Mars arm sampling

Sampling Mars, Part 3: Key Challenges in Drilling for Samples

Posted by Daniel Limonadi on 2012/08/21 05:34 CDT

Continuing a multi-part guest blog series by Curiosity systems engineering team lead for the Surface Sampling and Science system. Part 3 explains why drilling is hard, and what the team is doing to prevent things from going wrong.

Something New! Uwingu

Posted by Alan Stern on 2012/08/21 04:29 CDT | 2 comments

A start-up company creating products that will fund space exploration, research, and education.

Curiosity sol 15 update: Wheel wiggles, arm flexes, and bad news about REMS

Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2012/08/21 04:26 CDT | 8 comments

Notes from this morning's press conference. Curiosity has successfully steered the corner wheels and deployed and restowed the robotic arm. ChemCam tests went well over the weekend. But one of the two wind speed sensors in REMS appears to have suffered permanent damage during landing.

A Bittersweet Day for Planetary Exploration

Posted by Casey Dreier on 2012/08/20 06:17 CDT | 7 comments

A new Mars mission was announced today, which is cause for celebration. But two other exciting missions where not selected, why? Money, or lack thereof. All we need is a little bit more, and we could be exploring the solar system, not just Mars.

NASA Selects InSight Mars 2016 Lander

Posted by Bruce Betts on 2012/08/20 06:13 CDT | 2 comments

NASA has selected JPL's InSight mission to Mars as its next Discovery mission. The first geophysics mission to Mars, InSight will use a Phoenix-like lander to deploy a seismometer and a heat probe and give us our first detailed insights into the interior of the Red Planet.