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Category: space – Page 138

SpaceX planning to land and recover Starship rocket off Australia’s coast

The plan would be to launch Starship from a SpaceX facility in Texas, land it in the sea off Australia’s coast and recover it on Australian territory. Getting permission to do so would require loosening US export controls on sophisticated space technologies bound for Australia, according to the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

President Joe Biden’s administration already has sought to ease similar restrictions within the AUKUS security alliance, opens new tab, a grouping of the United States, Australia and Britain aimed at countering China.

SpaceX, the US Space Force and the Australian Space Agency did not immediately reply to requests for comment.

Apollo 15

On this day in history in 1971, Apollo 15 lunar module “Falcon” landed on the Moon. Astronauts David Scott and Jim Irwin spent 66 hours, 54 minutes, 53 seconds on the lunar surface. More on Apollo 15:

Ever wanted to drive on the Moon? Apollo 15, the fourth crewed mission to land on the Moon, was the first Apollo mission to utilize a Lunar Roving Vehicle (LRV).

Peculiar Rock Found by NASA’s Perseverance Rover Leaves Scientists Puzzled

“These spots are a big surprise,” said Dr. David Flannery. “On Earth, these types of features in rocks are often associated with the fossilized record of microbes living in the subsurface.”

Did Mars once have life billions of years ago? This is what NASA’s Perseverance (Percy) rover hopes to figure out, and scientists might be one step closer to answering that question with a recent discovery by the car-sized robotic explorer that found a unique rock with “leopard spots” that have caused some in the scientific community to claim this indicates past life might have once existed on the now cold and dry Red Planet. However, others have just as quickly rushed to say that further evidence is required before jumping to conclusions.

Upon analyzing the rock using Percy’s intricate suite of scientific instruments, scientists determined that it contained specific chemical signatures indicative of life possibly having existed billions of years ago when liquid water flowed across the surface. However, the science team is also considering other reasons for the rock’s unique appearance, including further research to determine if the findings are consistent with potential ancient life.

The unique features of the rock include calcium sulfate veins with reddish material between the veins which indicate the presence of hematite, which is responsible for the Red Planet’s rusty color. Upon further inspecting the reddish material, Percy identified dozens of off-white splotches at the millimeter-scale with black material surrounding it, hence the name “leopard spots”

17th Century Sunspot Drawings Could Help Solve 400-Year-Old Solar Cycle Mystery

“Kepler contributed many historical benchmarks in astronomy and physics in the 17th century, leaving his legacy even in the space age,” said Hisashi Hayakawa.

How can 400-year-old sunspot drawings help modern-day scientists with solar cycles? This is what a recent study published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters hopes to address as an international team of researchers used 400-year-old drawings of sunspots to better understand solar cycles and how we can study them in the future. This study holds the potential to help researchers use non-electronic scientific tools to gain greater insight into scientific discoveries around the world.

For the study, the researchers examined drawings of sunspots made by Johannes Kepler in 1,607 along with past notes to ascertain which solar cycle these sunspots belonged to, which could help astronomers piece together solar cycles during that time and predict them, as well.

Akima lands $480 million Space Force contract to modernize Satellite Control Network

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Space Force awarded Akima’s subsidiary Five Rivers Analytics a $480 million 10-year contract to support and modernize the Satellite Control Network — a decades-old system of 19 globally distributed parabolic antennas spread across several locations worldwide.

Akima, an Alaska Native Corporation-owned defense contractor, won the contract dubbed STORMS (Satellite Control Network Tracking Station Operations, Remote Site and Mission Partner Support).

The STORMS contract is an Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) agreement. This type of contract allows the Space Force to procure services as needed over a specified period. It succeeds the previous $445 million CAMMO (Consolidated Air Force Satellite Control Network Modifications and Maintenance Operations) contract won by CACI International in 2016.

This Desert Moss has the Potential to Grow on Mars

The desert moss Syntrichia caninervis is a promising candidate for Mars colonization thanks to its extreme ability to tolerate harsh conditions lethal to most life forms. The moss is well known for its ability to tolerate drought conditions, but researchers report June 30 in the journal The Innovation that it can also survive freezing temperatures as low as −196°C, high levels of gamma radiation, and simulated Martian conditions involving these three stressors combined. In all cases, prior dehydration seemed to help the plants cope.

“Our study shows that the environmental resilience of S. caninervis is superior to that of some of highly stress-tolerant microorganisms and tardigrades,” write the researchers, who include ecologists Daoyuan Zhang and Yuanming Zhang and botanist Tingyun Kuang of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. “S. caninervis is a promising candidate pioneer plant for colonizing extraterrestrial environments, laying the foundation for building biologically sustainable human habitats beyond Earth.”

A small number of previous studies have tested the ability of microorganisms, algae, lichens, and plant spores to withstand the extreme environments of outer space or Mars, but this is the first study to test whole plants.