The California Institute of Technology will manage NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory for at least five more years, the space agency has announced.

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NASA Renews Caltech Contract to Oversee Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Just 10 days after NASA's Curiosity rover sent back its first color photos of the Martian landscape, the US space agency said Monday it wants in 2016 to take a better look at what's happening beneath the Red Planet's surface.

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NASA wants to measure 'Marsquakes'

NASA has delayed the launch of twin spacecraft to study Earth's harsh radiation belts this week by 24 hours in order to iron out a possible glitch with the mission's rocket, officials announced today (Aug. 20).

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NASA to Launch Mission to Earth's Radiation Belt Friday After Delay

NASAs newest Mars rover, Curiosity, is an awesome scientific machine. By now, you probably know all about its rock-blasting laser and its 17 amazing cameras.

But here and there, Curiosity is hiding a few secrets. Scattered around its body are little mostly unknown bits and pieces. You might have noticed them in images and said, like we did, Huh, I wonder what that is.

Well, here we take a very close-up and detailed look at the rover to answer some of those questions. Some of these features helped Curiosity pull off a flawless landing on the Martian soil. Other bits are there to assist in the day-to-day science collecting that will allow the rover to figure out the history of water on Mars and whether the planet was ever capable of sustaining life.

Above:

Curiositys engineers seem to love pyrotechnics even more than Burning Man enthusiasts do. During the spacecrafts harrowing entry, descent, and landing sequence, it fired off 76 blasts to separate the pieces of the plummeting probe. Some of the pyrotechnics (which are essentially very controlled fireworks) had the energy of a box of matches while others contained the explosive force of a dynamite stick.

Just before Curiosity entered the Martian atmosphere it fired 10 pyrotechnics within five milliseconds Pow! Pow! Pow! some of which released miniature guillotines to cut connecting cables while the rest actually separated the entry capsule and the cruise stage. Other blasts released the spacecrafts tungsten ballast weights (which were later spotted by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter satellite). The biggest boom was responsible for unfurling the rovers supersonic parachute, the largest ever used on an interplanetary mission.

Even on the ground, the rover still had a few more bangs to go. Engineers needing to remove the cameras dust-blocking lens caps turned to -- what else? -- small pyrotechnic devices.

Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech

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Curiosity's Secrets: The Hidden Features of NASA's Mars Rover

A NASA rover has fired the first laser gun on Mars to take a peek inside a small Martian rock.

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Pew! Pew! Pew! NASA's Curiosity Rover Zaps Mars Rock with Laser

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The Mars rover Curiosity zapped its first rock on Sunday with a high-powered laser gun designed to analyze Martian mineral content, and scientists declared their target practice a success. The robotic science lab aimed its laser beam at the fist-sized stone nearby and shot the rock with 30 pulses over a 10-second period, NASA said in a statement issued from mission ...

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NASA's science rover Curiosity zaps first Martian rock

NASA's Curiosity rover has zapped its first Martian rock, aiming its laser for the sake of science.

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NASA rover Curiosity shoots a Mars rock with laser

20 August 2012 Last updated at 07:32 ET By Jonathan Amos Science correspondent

Nasa's Curiosity rover has zapped its first Martian rock.

The robot fired its ChemCam laser at a tennis-ball-sized stone lying about 2.5m away on the ground.

The brief but powerful burst of light from the instrument vaporised the surface of the rock, revealing details of its basic chemistry.

This was just target practice for ChemCam, proving it is ready to begin the serious business of investigating the geology of the Red Planet.

It is part of a suite of instruments on the one-tonne robot, which landed two weeks ago in a deep equatorial depression known as Gale Crater.

Over the course of one Martian year, Curiosity will try to determine whether past environments at its touchdown location could ever have supported life.

The US-French ChemCam instrument will be a critical part of that investigation, helping to select the most interesting objects for study.

The inaugural target of the laser was a 7cm-wide rock dubbed "Coronation" (previously N165).

It had no particular science value, and was expected to be just another lump of ubiquitous Martian basalt, a volcanic rock.

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Nasa's Mars rover zaps first rock

NASA's Curiosity Rover landed on Mars a couple of weeks ago, and has since spent its time upgrading its software and making sure its instruments are in tip-top shape. But with a name like Curiosity, it's not going to be satisfied hanging out in one spot for long.

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This is Where NASA's Mars Rover Curiosity is Headed [PICS]

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NASA rover Curiosity blasts first Martian rock with laser

NASA's "Mighty Eagle" a robotic prototype for new landers to explore the moon and beyond has passed a major test with its first successful free flight, the space agency announced this week.

Without using a tether (a first for the vehicle), the lander took off, hovered at about 33 feet (10 meters), flew sideways, and landed safely on its prescribed target, video of the the Aug. 8 test flight shows. The entire flight lasted 34 seconds and took place at NASA's Marshal Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala.

NASA plans to use the Mighty Eagle to develop new robotic landers to send to the moon, near-Earth asteroids and other airless celestial bodies

The three-legged spacecraft is 4 feet (1.2 m) tall and 8 feet (2.4 m) in diameter. It weighs 700 pounds (317 kilograms) when filled with its fuel, which is made up of 90 percent pure hydrogen peroxide, according to NASA.

After the lander's previous round of testing in 2011, engineers upgraded the guidance controls on the lander's camera, improving its autonomous capabilities, NASA officials said. In tests scheduled through September, engineers plan to get the lander flying and hovering autonomously at up to 100 feet (30 m).

"These lander tests provide the data necessary to expand our capabilities to go to other destinations," Greg Chavers, engineering manager at the Marshall Center, said in an Aug. 13 statement. "It also furthers our knowledge of the engineering components needed for future human and robotic missions."

The Mighty Eagle's successful untethered flight came one day before another NASA lander prototype's fiery test failure at the agency's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. In that Aug. 9 test flight, engineers with NASA's Project Morpheus based at the Johnson Space Center in Houston attempted to make the first untethered flight of the Morpheus lander over a mock moonscape.

A failure caused the Morpheus lander to flip over and explode shortly after liftoff. Project Morpheus officials are studying the failure and plan to upgrade a second Morpheus lander for future tests.

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NASA's 'Mighty Eagle' lander passes test

17-08-2012 16:51 Phoning from aboard Air Force One, President Obama congratulated the Mars Science Laboratory team at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory for its successful landing of the Curiosity rover on the Red Planet. Also, sun's decadal survey; Orion testing; and more!

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President Praises Curiosity Team on This Week @NASA - Video

Before embarking on its maiden drive on the Red Planet, NASA's Curiosity Mars rover will fire its rock-vaporizing laser beam. A chemical sensor will sniff the vaporized bits to determine their composition.

NASA's Mars rover Curiosity is slated to fire its rock-vaporizing laser for the first time in the next few days, shortly before the 1-ton robot's maiden drive on the Red Planet.

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Scientists plan to blast a Martian rock called N165 with Curiosity's laser, which is part of the rover's remote-sampling ChemCam instrument. The 3-inch-wide (7.6 centimeters) stone sits just 9 feet (2.7 meters) from Curiosity, well within ChemCam's 25-foot (7.6 m) range, scientists said.

"Our team has waited eight long years to get to this date, and we're happy that everything is looking good so far," ChemCam principal investigator Roger Wiens, of Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, told reporters today (Aug. 17). "Hopefully we'll be back early next week and be able to talk about how Curiosity's first laser shots went."

Curiosity, which landed in Mars' huge Gale Crater on Aug. 5, is also gearing up to move its six wheels for the first time. The rover's handlers have said a short test drive could take place around Sol 15 mission lingo for Curiosity's 15th full day on the Red Planet which corresponds to Monday or Tuesday (Aug. 20 or 21) Earth time.

Also today, scientists announced the target destination for Curiosity's first big trek a spot 1,300 feet (400 m) or so east of the rover's landing site that the mission team has dubbed Glenelg. Researchers chose it because Glenelg harbors three different geological units for Curiosity to study. [Photos: Glenelg on Mars - Latest Curiosity Rover Views]

"This was a natural target to pick up," said Curiosity chief scientist John Grotzinger, a geologist at Caltech in Pasadena. "It looks really obvious."

ChemCam, which is short for Chemistry and Camera, fires a laser at Mars rocks and then determines their chemical makeup by analyzing the vaporized bits. It's one of 10 instruments designed to help Curiosity determine if Mars has ever been capable of supporting microbial life.

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NASA's Curiosity rover prepares to fire laser beam at Martian surface

What will NASA be doing in the upcoming years? That's a question that Congress wants answered. So the National Research Council is conducting an independent study of NASA's strategy direction, "the steps NASA needs to take over time to accomplish its vision and mission," writes the National Academy of Sciences. In addition to rocket scientists, they want the input of the public. The catch is ...

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You Have Until Midnight, August 17, to Suggest Goals for NASA

WASHINGTON -- NASA's Space Technology Program has selected five technologies that could revolutionize America's space capabilities.

In March, NASA issued a call for proposal focused on sudden and unexpected innovations that hold a potential for providing a "game-changing" impact on the efficiency and effectiveness of the agency's space capabilities.

NASA has selected the following proposals for funding:

--"Representing and Exploiting Cumulative Experience with Objects for Autonomous Manipulation," University of Massachusetts, Amherst. This technology could improve autonomous robotic operations using artificial intelligence during deep space missions.

--"Lightweight High Performance Acoustic Suppression Technology Development," NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. This technology could suppress acoustic environments during launch. By reducing vibrations by acoustic suppression during launch, the amount of prelaunch vibration stress testing for onboard instruments also could be reduced.

--"Fast Light Optical Gyroscopes for Precision Inertial Navigation," NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala. This technology could enhance navigation capabilities for spacecraft by improving the performance of existing gyroscopes by a factor of 1,000.

--"EHD-Based Variable Conductance Thermal Interface Material," The Boeing Company, El Segundo, Calif. The development of this thermal material could provide better heat management for spacecraft.

--"Membrane Enabled Reverse Lung," Oceaneering Space Systems, Houston. This technology could reduce the number of life support systems needed for astronauts.

"NASA's Space Technology Program is enabling our future in space by investing in revolutionary and game-changing technologies that could open new doors for how we live, work and investigate space," said Michael Gazarik, director of the program at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "We are confident these selected technologies, with their highly qualified research teams, will enable great new opportunities for the next chapter in NASA's innovation story."

The selected proposals take steps toward addressing critical technological barriers for advancing exploration and science missions, while also lowering the cost of other government and commercial space activities. Projects were selected through independent review of technical merit, alignment with NASA's Space Technology Roadmap priorities and the technology objectives identified by the National Research Council in its review of these roadmaps.

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NASA Completes Pilot Program For One-On-One Virtual Mentoring Of Middle School Girls

NASA announced on Friday that it has selected five technologies to fund, which could revolutionize Americas space capabilities.

Earlier this year, NASA launched its Game Changing Development program, calling for proposals focused on sudden and unexpected innovations that could potentially change the game. Now, we know which ones NASA is betting on.

The awards for the projects range from $125,000 to $1.8 million, with a total NASA investment of approximately $6 million through 2015.

Here are the projects:

This proposal comes from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. NASA says the technology could improve autonomous robotic operations using artificial intelligence during deep space missions.

This proposal comes from NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena. This technology could suppress acoustic environments during launch, NASA explains. By reducing vibrations by acoustic suppression during launch, the amount of prelaunch vibration stress testing for onboard instruments also could be reduced.

This one comes from the agencys Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. NASA says this technology could enhance navigation capabilities for spacecraft, by improving the performance of existing gyroscopes by a factor of 1,000.

This one comes from Boeing, which recently reached an agreement with NASA as part of its Commercial Crew Integrated Capability (CCiCap) initiative.

According to NASA, the development of this thermal material could provide better heat management for spacecraft.

This one comes from Oceaneering Space Systems in Houston. Simply put, it could reduce the number of life support systems required for Astronauts.

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NASA Picked These 5 Ideas To “Revolutionize” American Space Capabilities

CAPE CANAVERAL (Reuters) - NASA on Friday unveiled plans for its Mars rover Curiosity's first road trip, part of a two-year quest to determine if the planet most like Earth could ever have hosted microbial life, scientists said. The one-ton nuclear-powered robotic science lab landed in a large crater near Mars' equator on August 6 to search for organic materials and other chemistry considered ...

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NASA unveils Mars rover Curiosity's travel plans

With the Mars Curiosity rover's science instruments working well, NASA engineers are getting ready for two big tests of their robotic rover -- blasting a rock with a laser beam and getting the rover moving.

Curiosity's first drive will be a very short one. Before the rover starts any meaningful trek across the Martian surface, scientists will first simply drive it forward and back in the landing area, to test the wheels and motor system, according to John Grotzinger, a project scientist with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and a geology professor at the California Institute of Technology.

This full-resolution self-portrait shows the deck of NASA's Curiosity rover from the rover's Navigation camera. The back of the rover can be seen at the top left, and two of the rover's right side wheels can be seen on the left. The undulating rim of Gale Crater forms the lighter color strip in the background. Bits of gravel, about 0.4 inches (1 centimeter) in size, are visible on the deck of the rover. (Photo: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

This full-resolution self-portrait shows the deck of NASA's Curiosity rover from the rover's Navigation camera. The back of the rover can be seen at the top left, and two of the rover's right side wheels can be seen on the left. The undulating rim of Gale Crater forms the lighter color strip in the background. Bits of gravel, about 0.4 inches (1 centimeter) in size, are visible on the deck of the rover. (Photo: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

"The excitement from the science team is that all the instruments continue to check out," he said during a press call Friday. "If we continue down the nominal path, it's probably going to be a couple of days. Sometime next week you'll hear about successful tests of the first wheel motions."

Once the wheels are successfully tested, scientists will continue to plot out Curiosity's first real trek, which will take it west toward an area NASA has dubbed Glenelg.

"The Glenelg area -- it simply looks distinctive and interesting," said Grotzinger. "It looks cool. Let's go there and see what's there."

It is expected to take the rover three to four weeks to reach Glenelg unless the rover encounters rocks or soil that scientists want it to stop and analyze. Once it reaches its first destination, Grotzinger said the rover will probably spend about two months analyzing that area.

Toward the end of the year, NASA engineers will begin to have Curiosity move toward Mount Sharp, a three-mile high mountain in the middle of Gale Crater, where the rover landed. Mount Sharp is a primary area of interest for the scientists who are hoping to discover if Mars has ever been able to support microbial life.

However, before the rover begins heading to Glenelg, scientists want to test its laser.

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NASA: Mars Curiosity Ready to Roam, Shoot Lasers

NASA's Curiosity rover has beamed back the first detailed image of the foothills of Mount Sharp, its eventual destination during its two-year mission on Mars.

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NASA's Curiosity spies Mount Sharp foothills

The US space agency NASA's Mars rover Curiosity will make a wide detour to explore a "cool" geographical hot spot on Mars, scientists said Friday.

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Mars rover takes 'cool' detour: NASA