NASA’s Mars Helicopter Will Do a ‘Wiggle’ Test After Fatal Malfunction
It’s been a week since NASA announced the end of its Mars helicopter mission, and we’re still not over losing our beloved Ginny. But apparently, neither is NASA, as the…
NASA’s Mars Helicopter Breaks a Blade and Will Never Fly Again
After nearly three years of flying across the Martian terrain, the Ingenuity helicopter has finally ended its mission. NASA declared Thursday that Ingenuity had sustained damage to a blade during…
Perseverance joins the 1,000-sols club on Mars, congratulated by Curiosity
NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS / NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS NASA Perseverance rover has reached 1,000 martian sols after arriving on the faraway planet in February 2021. The rover, NASA’s most advanced to date, announced the achievement…
California Legislators Slam ‘Rash’ NASA Cuts to Marquee Mars Mission
Six California lawmakers wrote to NASA Administrator Bill Nelson last week to oppose the agency’s recent cuts to the Mars Sample Return mission, which aims to bring samples collected by…
NASA to Rewrite Mars Sample Return Mission So It Can Actually Happen
NASA is considering alternative ways to bring back samples from Mars after its budget and schedule for the sample return mission was deemed unrealistic in a recent report by an…
Perseverance rover catches footage of a dust devil on Mars
Many of the weather events we experience here on Earth can be found on other planets too, and that includes whirlwinds. Several missions have observed small whirlwinds called dust devils…
NASA’s Perseverance Rover Sets New Speed Records on Mars
NASA’s Perseverance rover, equipped with an advanced computer pilot known as AutoNav, has been making significant strides on the Martian surface, setting new speed records since its landing in February…
NASA’s Mars rover uses its self-driving smarts to navigate toughest route
A composite image, annotated at JPL using visualization software, showing Perseverance’s path through a dense section of boulders. The pale blue line indicates the course of the center of the…
NASA’s Plan to Return Samples From Mars Is Pure Science Fiction, Report Finds
The findings from an independent review board suggest that NASA’s quest to return samples from Mars is riddled with challenges and seemingly impossible to accomplish under the current cost and…
MOXIE, NASA’s Oxygen-Producing Experiment on Mars, Ends Operations
On April 20, 2021, the spiritedly-named MOXIE experiment on Mars extracted 5 grams of oxygen from the Martian atmosphere, demonstrating a potential future capability of an established human presence on…