Category: Mars

  • ULA launches Mars InSight

    United Launch Alliance (ULA) successfully launched NASA’s Mars InSight lander today aboard their Atlas V rocket in the 401 configuration from Space Launch Complex-3 at Vandenberg Air Force Base. Following a smooth countdown, the rocket lifted off at 7:05 AM EDT and approximately 94 minutes later the spacecraft separated from the upper stage to begin its six-month…

  • Buzz Aldrin

    Today I had the opportunity to meet with Astronaut Buzz Aldrin as part of my role with The Mars Foundation. Buzz is truly a unique character during out time together he had to do a phone interview with a South Dakota radio station which was interesting to listen to.  He discussed many of his ideas…

  • The Little Rover that Could continues to impress

    Eleven years ago the Mars Opportunity Rover landed on the surface of the planet for a planned 90 sol (Mars day) mission, nearly 4000 sols later the rover is still operating.  This week it achieved a another significant milestone becoming the first rover to complete the equivalent of a marathon driving across the surface of…

  • Is NASA out of the Space Business?

    It is now 2015 and in July it would have been four years since an American Spacecraft launched a crew into space. I have heard many people say that NASA is no longer in the space business because of this. In this article we will explore not only the missions that are currently operating in…

  • India’s Mars Orbiter Mission successfully insert into Orbit

    Today India’s Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) spacecraft arrived at Mars and was successfully placed into orbit.  Launched 5th November, 13 days before NASA’s Maven the spacecraft, it took a slightly different route to Mars resulting in it arriving three days after MAVEN.  This is the first spacecraft from India to travel this far from Earth and it…

  • NASA’s MAVEN spacecraft reaches Mars

    Following a ten month, 442 million miles journey NASA’s Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) successfully entered into orbit of Mars this evening.  The orbit insertion maneuver began with six thruster engines firing briefly to damp out deviations in pointing. Then, the six main engines quickly ignite and burn for 33 minutes to slow the craft,…

  • Exciting times in Space

    A lot has happened in Space or related to Space recently and the future is looking very bright. Below is a summary of some of the recent news and upcoming events. SpaceX and Boeing awarded CCtCap contracts – We now have two companies contracted to build manned spacecraft to deliver crew to the ISS.  Currently…

  • Power Generation on Mars

    While researching a longer blog post, to come soon, on Mars we were struck by the question of Power Generation, from most mission previews we have seen they plan to use Nuclear generators. While there are benefits to Nuclear generators there are also problems, the biggest of which is the public’s negativity towards launching anything that mentions…

  • The Little Rover that could

    This week the Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity broke the off-world driving record previously held by the Soviet Union’s Lunokhod 2 rover. Opportunity which has been operating on the surface of Mars for 10 years, 6 months has now traveled more than 25.01 miles. Opportunity and it’s twin Spirit were originally expected to last 90 sol’s…

  • Weekly Space News 6/27

    This week in space… SpaceX causes a stir and has another delay Last Saturday SpaceX caused quite a stir on the Internet when they announced there would be no live web-cast of the Orbcomm OG2 launch attempt that evening.  A spokesperson for SpaceX said they had been planning to move away from web-casting because launches…