The Red Planet is about to get a little crowded. Three separate missions to Mars launched by the United States, China and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) will all reach their destination this month after taking flight within just 11 days of each other in 2020.
Deep-space ventures by the UAE, US and China will arrive at Earth’s planetary neighbour this month.
SpaceX is set to test the Starship SN10 prototype on Monday at the Boca Chica launch facility. The exact details for the round of testing have not been confirmed, but it will likely be a cryogenic proof test.
Updates: https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=52398.
As commercial space companies increase the cadence of successful rocket launches, access to space is becoming more routine for both government and commercial interests. But even with regular launches, modern rockets impose mass and volume limits on the payloads they deliver to orbit. This size constraint hinders developing and deploying large-scale, dynamic space systems that can adapt to changes in their environment or mission.
As the UAE’s Hope spacecraft arrives at Mars, those involved have a mix of confidence and concern about the chances of successfully entering orbit.
WASHINGTON — As the United Arab Emirates’ Hope spacecraft arrives at Mars, those involved with the mission have a mix of confidence and concern about the chances of successfully entering orbit.
The Emirates Mars Mission, or Hope, spacecraft will arrive at Mars Feb. 9, entering orbit at about 10:41 a.m. Eastern. The spacecraft will fire its main thrusters for 27 minutes to slow it down enough for the planet’s gravity to capture the spacecraft into orbit.
It summarizes the whole thing well.
““As important as Steve Jobs was, here’s the difference: Elon Musk is trying to invent a future, not by providing the next app,” says renowned astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson.
» Subscribe to CNBC Make It.: http://cnb.cx/2kxl2rf.
“What Elon Musk is doing is not simply giving us the next app that will be awesome on our smartphone,” deGrasse Tyson says. “No, he is thinking about society, culture, how we interact, what forces need to be in play to take civilization into the next century.”
Between Musk’s work at Tesla developing electric cars and his SpaceX plans to put humans on Mars by 2024 (and, eventually, to colonize the planet), the billionaire tech executive is attempting to revolutionize both human transportation and space exploration, deGrasse Tyson says.
SpaceX won a NASA contract Feb. 4 to launch a small astrophysics mission, continuing its string of similar agency contracts over the last two years.
WASHINGTON — SpaceX won a NASA contract Feb. 4 to launch a small astrophysics spacecraft, continuing the company’s string of similar agency contracts over the last two years.
NASA awarded a contract to SpaceX for the launch of the Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization, and Ices Explorer (SPHEREx) spacecraft on a Falcon 9 in June 2024. The value of the launch contract is $98.8 million, which includes the launch itself and other “mission-related costs,” the agency said.