Tag: Mars

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Elon Musk tweets sneak peeks at Mars plan

SpaceX Raptor engine test
SpaceX’s Raptor rocket engine undergoes its first test firing. (Credit: Elon Musk via Twitter)

GUADALAJARA, Mexico – In advance of this week’s big reveal, SpaceX’s billionaire founder, Elon Musk, is dropping hints about the scale of his plans to send colonists to Mars.

Musk is scheduled to talk about what used to be known as the Mars Colonial Transporter in Guadalajara on Sept. 27 at the International Astronautical Congress.

The “late-breaking news” begins at 11:30 a.m. PT (1:30 p.m. CT) Sept. 27. Streaming video of the talk should be available via SpaceX and YouTube as well as via the IAC and Livestream.

Musk has been building up to this presentation for months, arguably for more than a year. It’s the highlight of this year’s annual conference. Although he’s been coy about the details, Musk has let some hints slip out – for example, that the rocket should be capable of sending 100 tons of payload to Mars, or 100 passengers.

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NASA gives go-ahead for Mars lander in 2018

Image: InSight lander
An artist’s conception shows NASA’s InSight lander on Mars. The SEIS instrument is in the chamber shown to the left of the lander platform. (Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech)

NASA has approved plans to fix a flaw on its InSight lander in time for a launch to Mars in 2018.

The flaw involves a leak in a vacuum seal for one of the lander’s main scientific instruments, known as the Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure or SEIS. InSight had been scheduled for launch this year, but last December, NASA put off the launch because the leak couldn’t be fixed in time.

Today NASA said it would spend an extra $153.8 million, on top of the mission’s previously budgeted $675 million, to redesign the instrument and cover other costs of the two-year delay.

“The additional cost will not delay or cancel any current missions, though there may be fewer opportunities for new missions in future years, from fiscal years 2017 to 2020,” NASA said in a statement.

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Crew ends a year on Hawaii’s make-believe Mars

Image: Simulation crew
Andrzej Stewart, chief engineering officer for the HI-SEAS simulation, looks around after emerging from a habitat in Hawaii. Other crew members celebrate in the background. (Credit: Univ. of Hawaii)

After spending 365 days cooped up in a habitat and mock spacesuits in Hawaii, six volunteers say astronauts can cope with an even longer, real-life mission to Mars and back.

“A mission to Mars in the close future is realistic,” said Cyprien Verseux, a French biology student who was part of the HI-SEAS simulation crew. “I think the technological and psychological obstacles can be overcome.”

Verseux and his crewmates were held in isolation for an entire year inside the 1,200-square-foot habitat on the slopes of Hawaii’s Mauna Loa volcano. They were allowed to venture outside only for scientific expeditions while wearing simulation spacesuits.

The experiment is part of a NASA-funded program aimed at identifying psychological, technological and logistical factors that might pose challenges for a long-term mission to Mars. This was the fourth and longest simulation managed by HI-SEAS at the University of Hawaii at Manoa.

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Carbon fiber report sparks SpaceX speculation

Image: Falcon Heavy launch
An artist’s conception shows a Falcon Heavy rocket lifting off for Mars. (Credit: SpaceX)

Is SpaceX planning to buy billions of dollars’ worth of carbon fiber for future Mars-bound spaceships? The answer’s up in the air, but a report to that effect from Japan’s Nikkei Asian Review has set SpaceX’s fans abuzz.

The report claims that SpaceX and Toray Industries, a Japan-based fiber manufacturer, are working on a multiyear deal that could eventually be worth $2 billion to $3 billion (200 billion to 300 billion yen). “The two sides are aiming to finalize the agreement this fall after hammering out prices, time frames and other terms,” Nikkei Asian Review’s Yuichiro Kanematsu reported.

No sources were cited in the report, and SpaceX downplayed any suggestion that a deal had been reached.

“Toray is one of a number of suppliers we work with to meet our carbon fiber needs for Falcon rocket and Dragon spacecraft production, and we haven’t announced any new agreements at this time,” SpaceX spokesman Phil Larson told GeekWire in a text. “As our business continues to grow, the amount of carbon fiber we use may continue to grow.”

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‘Mars’ blends visions from today and from 2033

Image: Scene from "Mars"
An astronaut surveys a Martian landscape in a scene from “Mars,” a National Geographic Channel miniseries due to air in November. (Credit: National Geographic / Imagine / RadicalMedia)

National Geographic Channel’s “Mars” miniseries blends a fictional tale about Mars colonists in 2033 with modern-day musings about Red Planet missions – and so does today’s trailer for the six-part series, which is due to air in November.

The book/TV project has some heavy hitters behind it, including executive producers Ron Howard and Brian Grazer, who were also behind the movie “Apollo 13.”

Heavy hitters also appear on screen in the trailer.

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NASA moves ahead with Mars rover and orbiter

Image: Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter
Artwork shows NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter relaying data. (Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech)

NASA says it’s selected five aerospace companies, including Boeing, to conduct concept studies for a Mars telecommunications orbiter that’s likely to launch in 2022. It’s also given the formal go-ahead for the final design of its long-planned 2020 Mars rover.

In addition to Boeing, the companies contracted for the four-month concept studies include Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Northrop Grumman, Orbital ATK and Space Systems/Loral. The concept studies will be managed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

“We’re excited to continue planning for the next decade of Mars exploration,” Geoffrey Yoder, NASA’s acting associate administrator for science, said in today’s announcement of the contracts.

The orbiter mission would provide advanced telecommunication capabilities as well as global high-resolution imaging of Mars. NASA’s move follows up on recommendations made by the Mars Exploration Program Analysis Group.

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How a crash created many moons for Mars

Image: Mars smash-up
Artwork shows the collision of Mars with another celestial object. The scenario could have given rise to a debris disk, and eventually to Mars’ two present-day moons. (Copyright 2016 Labex UnivEarthS)

Are Mars’ two moons asteroids that were captured by the Red Planet’s gravitational field, or are they the result of an ancient smash-up? Astronomers have now laid out a series of computer simulations to argue in favor of the smash-up hypothesis, and the modeling suggests that Mars should have had a giant moon early in its history.

In a study published today by Nature Geoscience, the researchers say the giant moon would have been created out of the debris from the collision between Mars and another celestial object about a third of Mars’ size. The crash would have occurred sometime between 100 million and 800 million years after Mars’ formation.

Within about 5 million years after the crash, the big moon and a bevy of smaller moons would have broken up and fallen to the surface. But the simulations show that Phobos and Deimos, the two moons we know about today, would have survived all the tumult and ended up in their present-day orbits.

“The proposed scenario can explain why Mars has two small satellites instead of one large moon,” the scientists, led by Pascal Rosenblatt of the Royal Observatory of Belgium, say in their paper. “Our model predicts that Phobos and Deimos are composed of a mixture of material from Mars and the impactor.”

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Sand ripples tell tales about Mars’ climate

Image: Mars sand ripples
Two sizes of ripples can be seen in this view of a Martian sand dune. The larger ripples are roughly 10 feet apart, and unlike any type seen in earthly sand fields. The smaller ripples, superimposed on the larger ripples, are similar to those seen on Earth. (Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / MSSS)

The sands of Mars move in mysterious ways – including one way that’s not seen on Earth’s surface, but only on the sandy bottom of bodies of water. And the scientists behind NASA’s Curiosity rover mission say those weird medium-sized ripples can reveal how Mars’ atmosphere has changed, or not, over the course of billions of years.

The alien ripples are the focus of a research paper published today by the journal Science.

“Earth and Mars both have big sand dunes and small sand ripples, but on Mars, there’s something in between that we don’t have on Earth,” Caltech researcher Mathieu Lapotre said in a NASA news release. Lapotre, who works with the Curiosity mission’s science team, is the lead author of the Science report.

The report is based on a close-up examination of the Bagnold Dunes, a stretch of Martian sand that Curiosity passed through as it made its way toward the foothills of 3-mile-high Mount Sharp (a.k.a. Aeolis Mons).

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Curiosity rover might scout for water on Mars

Image: Curiosity selfie
This selfie of NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover shows the vehicle at a drilled sample site called “Okoruso,” on the Naukluft Plateau of lower Mount Sharp. The scene combines several images taken with the rover’s Mars Hand Lens Imager on May 11. (Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / MSSS)

NASA says one of the Curiosity rover’s future tasks could be to check out sites on Mars that may harbor trickles of salty water.

It’s been nearly four years since Curiosity was dropped into Gale Crater by a rocket-powered crane. Since that touchdown, the six-wheeled, 1-ton robot has foundample evidence that water once flowed through the territory it has explored.

Curiosity is now making its way up the side of Mount Sharp (a.k.a. Aeolis Mons), a 3-mile-high mountain in the middle of Gale Crater – and it’s making further discoveries along the way.

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Elon Musk teases SpaceX plan to colonize Mars

Image: Mars Colonial Transporter
An animation shows a lander separating from the rest of the Mars Colonial Transporter. Later concepts suggest that the entire MCT would land as a unit. (Credit: Michel Lamontagne / ESA via YouTube)

SpaceX’s billionaire founder, Elon Musk, is providing increasingly detailed previews of his plan to send colonists to Mars starting in 2024, more than a decade in advance of NASA’s Red Planet timetable. But there’s one part of the plan that’s not yet clear: how to bring people back.

“It’s dangerous and probably people will die – and they’ll know that,” Musk told The Washington Post this week. “And then they’ll pave the way, and ultimately it will be very safe to go to Mars, and it will be very comfortable. But that will be many years in the future.”

The journey starts getting real in September, when Musk is due to lay out his detailed Mars colonization plan at the International Astronautical Congress in Mexico. “This is going to be mind-blowing,” he said. “Mind-blowing. It’s going to be really great.” (Careful, Elon … you’re starting to sound a little Trumpish there.)

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