Lifeboat Foundation

It’s effectively a new data set that will fuel the second wave of discoveries about Mars’ surface composition.

But while it was doing that work, it was also gathering lower-resolution mapping strips, about 83,000 of them. Now that CRISM is no longer active, the team is building their map from those strips.

Processing this much data into one cohesive map is a complicated task requiring powerful computing resources. It takes time to optimize the maps and account for environmental conditions and discrepancies between the different images.

Continue reading “NASA just built the best map of Mars to date using 51,000 images” »

With the first half of 2022 coming to a close, NASA teams are continuing work to resolve the Lucy spacecraft’s solar array issue following its October 2021 launch. Lucy is a first-of-a-kind mission to visit several asteroids in Jupiter’s L4 and L5 Lagrange points. Currently, Lucy is coasting before its first flyby of Earth in October 2022.

Lucy’s sister mission, Psyche, has experienced compatibility issues causing a delay to a No-Earlier-Than (NET) July 2023 launch. Psyche is another first-of-a-kind mission to orbit the main asteroid belt object, 16 Psyche. Both Lucy and Psyche operate under NASA’s Discovery program.

A team of engineers at the University of Arizona has an ambitious concept for a motorless sailplane that may soar above the Martian surface. They want to go higher.

For the first time, the immersive AR experience surpasses the physical by offering the contextuality that consumers need. They can see the end outcome of the purchase decision before even making the decision — the experience of seeing the couch in the context of their space is transformed — giving them more confidence in their decision.

AR and its effects on consumer psychology

AR is not taking a share of the digital pie as we know it today, but instead increasing the overall size of the pie. There are 100 million consumers shopping with AR online and in stores today. This powerful technology fundamentally changes consumer psychology in three distinct ways: changing the ecommerce model from a push to a pull experience, giving consumers new confidence in their purchases; driving conversion by giving consumers visual context before buying; and giving consumers a new way of experiencing in-person shopping.

NORTHRUP GRUMMAN’S CYGNUS cargo spacecraft conducted a successful reboost of the International Space Station on Saturday, June 25, 2022.

“This Cygnus mission is the first to feature this enhanced capability as a standard service for NASA.”

Cygnus had been docked to the ISS since February and now has departed, leaving on June 28.

Continue reading “NASA move could help the International Space Station stay in orbit without Russia” »

IKEA, the world’s largest furniture retailer, has announced plans to sell home solar panels in the US — a move that could democratize and demystify access to solar.

Solar hesitancy: The benefits of solar go beyond protecting the environment — solar panels are cheaper than ever, and between the lower energy bills and government subsidies, a home solar system could pay for itself before the panels need to be replaced.

Continue reading “IKEA will now sell solar panels” »

A look at advanced means of altering or controlling the planet’s climate and geography, drawing on concepts proposed for terraforming other planets. We look at existing and proposed ideas of controlling the weather, creating artificial islands or mountain ranges, using orbital mirrors and shades, and many other concepts.

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Force fields are a staple of science fiction, but usually regarded as only science fiction, not science fact. Today we’ll examine the notion and see what options we might have inside known science, as well as what alternatives might achieve similar effects.

See Hydrodynamic levitation at Cody’s Lab:

Continue reading “Force Fields” »