Category Archives: NASA

Dart mission: why is Nasa crashing a spacecraft into an asteroid?

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The spacecraft will travel 6.8 million miles through the solar system in an attempt to nudge moonlet Dimorphos a fraction off course

Nasa is preparing to launch its $330m Double Asteroid Redirection Test (Dart) probe, testing the space agency’s ability to alter an asteroid’s trajectory with kinetic force.

The plan is to crash a robot spacecraft into the moonlet Dimorphos at 15,000 mph and change its path just a fraction. If the mission is successful, it will mean that Nasa and other space agencies could deflect an asteroid heading towards Earth and avert an Armageddon-style impact.

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Nasa to slam spacecraft into asteroid in mission to avoid future Armaggedon

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Test drive of planetary defence system aims to provide data on how to deflect asteroids away from Earth

That’s one large rock, one momentous shift in our relationship with space. On Wednesday, Nasa will launch a mission to deliberately slam a spacecraft into an asteroid to try to alter its orbit – the first time humanity has tried to interfere in the gravitational dance of the solar system. The aim is to test drive a planetary defence system that could prevent us from going the same way as the dinosaurs, providing the first real data about what it would take to deflect an Armageddon-inducing asteroid away from Earth.

Our planet is constantly being bombarded with small pieces of debris, but these are usually burned or broken up long before they hit the ground. Once in a while, however, something large enough to do significant damage hits the ground. About 66m years ago, one such collision is thought to have ended the reign of the dinosaurs, ejecting vast amounts of dust and debris into the upper atmosphere, which obscured the sun and caused food chains to collapse. Someday, something similar could call time on humanity’s reign – unless we can find a way to deflect it.

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US accuses Russia of ‘dangerous’ behavior after anti-satellite weapons test

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Russia fired missile at its own satellite, generating debris that US says ‘threatens interests of all nations’

The US has accused Russia of “dangerous and irresponsible behavior” after it conducted an anti-satellite weapons test that forced astronauts on the International Space Station to prepare for evacuation.

Russia fired a missile at one of its own satellites over the weekend, generating more than 1,500 pieces of trackable orbital debris and hundreds of pieces of smaller debris, which the US said “now threaten the interests of all nations”.

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SpaceX toilet leak forces astronauts to use diapers on trip back to Earth

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  • Crew who grew first chilis in space face 20 hours in capsule
  • ‘Spaceflight is full of lots of little challenges’, US astronaut says

Astronauts who will leave the International Space Station on Sunday will have to use diapers on the way home, because of a broken toilet in their SpaceX capsule.

The Nasa astronaut Megan McArthur described the situation as “suboptimal” but manageable. She and three crewmates will spend 20 hours in the capsule, from the time the hatches are closed until a Monday morning splashdown.

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Astronomers spot first possible exoplanet outside our galaxy

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Saturn-sized planet candidate has been identified in Whirlpool Galaxy 28m light years away

A possible Saturn-sized planet identified in the distant Whirlpool Galaxy could be the first exoplanet to be detected outside the Milky Way.

The exoplanet candidate appears to be orbiting an X-ray binary – made up of a normal star and a collapsed star or black hole – with its distance from this binary roughly equivalent to the distance of Uranus from the sun.

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Nasa announces uncrewed flights around the Moon to begin in February 2022

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The Orion capsule will be launched on the Space Launch System, paving the way for the resumption of people to walk on Earth’s satellite again

Nasa has announced plans to launch an uncrewed flight around the Moon in February 2022, paving the way for astronauts to once again set foot on Earth’s satellite.

The US space agency said on Friday that it was in the final phase of testing to send its Orion capsule on an orbit around the Moon on its Space Launch System rocket.

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Nasa’s Lucy rockets into the sky with diamonds to explore asteroids

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Spacecraft with name inspired by a skeleton and the Beatles, and with lab-grown gems, starts 12-year quest

A Nasa spacecraft named Lucy has rocketed into the sky with diamonds on a 12-year quest to explore eight asteroids.

Seven of the mysterious space rocks are among swarms of asteroids sharing Jupiter’s orbit, thought to be the pristine leftovers of planetary formation.

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Jeff Bezos offers Nasa $2bn in exchange for moon mission contract

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  • Billionaire lost out to Elon Musk’s SpaceX in lunar bid
  • Contract is to build craft to take astronauts to the moon

Fresh off his trip to space, Jeff Bezos on Monday offered to cover up to $2bn in Nasa costs if the US space agency awards his company Blue Origin a contract to make a spacecraft designed to land astronauts back on the moon.

Nasa in April awarded SpaceX, owned by rival billionaire Elon Musk, a $2.9bn contract to build a spacecraft to bring astronauts to the lunar surface as early as 2024, rejecting bids from Blue Origin and defense contractor Dynetics. Blue Origin had partnered with Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Draper in the bid.

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Earth is trapping ‘unprecedented’ amount of heat, Nasa says

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Scientists from agency and Noaa say Earth’s ‘energy imbalance’ roughly doubled from 2005 to 2019 in ‘alarming’ way

The Earth is trapping nearly twice as much heat as it did in 2005, according to new research, described as an “unprecedented” increase amid the climate crisis.

Scientists from Nasa, the US space agency, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa), reported in a new study that Earth’s “energy imbalance approximately doubled” from 2005 to 2019. The increase was described as “alarming”.

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Nasa spacecraft captures first closeups of Jupiter’s largest moon in decades

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Juno passed within 645 miles of Ganymede, the closest any spacecraft has come to the moon since 2000

Nasa’s Juno spacecraft has provided the first closeups of Jupiter’s largest moon in two decades.

Juno zoomed past icy Ganymede on Monday, passing within 645 miles (1,038km). The last time a spacecraft came that close was in 2000 when Nasa’s Galileo spacecraft swept past our solar system’s biggest moon.

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Nasa plans return to Venus with two missions by 2030

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Nasa sets aside $1bn for two ventures, which will be first US exploration of the planet since 1989

Nasa is returning to Venus for the first time in more than three decades to gain a better understanding of the history of what scientists believe could have been the first habitable planet in the solar system.

Plans for two separate and ambitious deep space missions to Earth’s nearest neighbour were announced on Wednesday by the head of the US space agency, Bill Nelson. Launches were targeted for a 2028-2030 time frame, he said.

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‘Scary stuff’: International Space Station robotic arm struck by space junk

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  • ‘Lucky strike’ did not endanger seven astronauts on board
  • Not known what debris struck station or when it occurred

The sudden appearance of a small hole in a robotic arm aboard the international space station (ISS) has brought renewed attention to the danger posed by space junk.

Related: Chinese cargo craft docks with future space station in orbit

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Nasa’s Mars helicopter goes on ‘stressful’ wild flight after malfunction

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Problem with camera-based navigation system saw helicopter wobble through the air in biggest tech issue Ingenuity has faced

A navigation timing error sent Nasa’s Mars helicopter on a lurching ride, its first major problem since it took to the Martian skies last month.

The experimental helicopter, named Ingenuity, managed to land safely after the problem occurred, officials at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory said on Thursday.

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Nasa spacecraft leaves asteroid Bennu with a belly full of space rock samples

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Osiris-Rex has been flying around the ancient asteroid since 2018 and collected nearly a pound of rubble last fall

With rubble from an asteroid tucked inside, a Nasa spacecraft fired its engines and began the long journey back to Earth on Monday, leaving the ancient space rock in its rearview mirror.

The trip home for the robotic prospector, Osiris-Rex, will take two years.

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‘Irresponsible’: Nasa chides China as rocket debris lands in Indian Ocean

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US agency accuses Beijing of failing to meet expected standards regarding its space debris

Remnants of China’s biggest rocket have landed in the Indian Ocean, ending days of speculation over where the debris would hit and drawing US criticism over a lack of transparency.

The coordinates given by Chinese state media, citing the China Manned Space Engineering Office (CMSEO), put the point of impact west of the Maldives archipelago.

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Michael Collins obituary

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Astronaut and pilot of the command module Columbia during 1969’s Apollo 11 mission

On 20 July 1969, Michael Collins, who has died aged 90, became the most solitary human in the universe – even if he derided that categorisation as “phony philosophy”. He orbited the moon alone, inside Apollo 11’s command module Columbia, and out of touch with ground control for 48 minutes on each orbit. Meanwhile, and more famously, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were becoming the first men to set foot on that rock, some 240,000 miles away from Earth.

As the command module pilot, on $17,000 a year, Collins was, he later wrote half-jokingly, “the navigator, the guidance and control expert, the base-camp operator, the owner of the leaky plumbing – all the things I was least interested in doing”. He was also, thought Aldrin, probably Nasa’s best-trained command module pilot.

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Asteroid’s 22m-year journey from source to Earth mapped in historic first

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Flight path of Kalahari’s six-tonne asteroid is first tracing of meteorite shedding rock to solar system origin

Astronomers have reconstructed the 22m-year-long voyage of an asteroid that hurtled through the solar system and exploded over Botswana, showering meteorites across the Kalahari desert.

It is the first time scientists have traced showering space rock to its source – in this case Vesta, one of largest bodies in the asteroid belt that circles the sun between Jupiter and Mars.

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Nasa’s Mars helicopter in first powered, controlled flight on another planet

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Ingenuity successfully takes flight, hovering at height of about 3 metres before touching back down

Nasa’s Ingenuity Mars helicopter has completed the first powered, controlled flight on another planet, the space agency has announced.

The small helicopter successfully took flight on the red planet on Monday morning, hovering in the air at an altitude of about 3 metres (10 feet), before descending and touching back down on the Martian surface.

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Nasa preparing to attempt first controlled flight on another world

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The Ingenuity helicopter, which arrived on the red planet in February, is expected to take to the skies on Wednesday

Nasa is gearing up to attempt the first controlled flight on another planet next week, with the tiny Ingenuity helicopter on Mars.

The helicopter is expected to take to the skies next week, with Wednesday being the earliest time scheduled.

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