NASA has compiled over 87,000 high-resolution images of the sun taken over the past decade from its Solar Dynamics Observatory to create an incredibly detailed time-lapse movie. More

NASA will use the Danne & Blackburn-designed "worm" logo for the first time since 1992, while its astronauts will debut SpaceX spacesuits when the Demo-2 flight to the International Space Station launches tomorrow. More

NASA has named Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin, Elon Musk's SpaceX and Alabama-based Dynetics as thethree teams that will develop vehicles for its planned moon landing in 2024. More

Studio Drift has recreated its flying sculpture Franchise Freedom at Kennedy Space Center, programming 300 drones to perform a routine marking the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission launch. More

British photographer Benedict Redgrove has taken photographs of numerous artefacts within the NASA archive. To mark the 50th anniversary of the moon landing, he has picked out his favourites. More

Artist Antony Gormley has teamed up with astrophysicist Priya Natarajan on a virtual-reality experience that allows users to walk on a digital version of the moon created using data from NASA. More

Our latest captioned movie shows NASA release close to half a million gallons of water while testing its launch pad cooling system at the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida. More

New York-based artist Tom Sachs has released an updated version of his NikeMars Yard trainers, which look like the lunar overshoes worn by astronauts. More

A groundbreaking ceremony has taken place for an office building at NASA's field centre in Cleveland, designed by TEN Arquitectos, to coincide with the space agency's 60th anniversary. More

Fashion designer Heron Preston has teamed up with NASA to launch a collection of streetwear clothing that takes cues from 60-years of visual history at the space agency. More

Russian artist Alexander Shtanuk has launched a crowdfunding campaign to turn NASA's metallic emergency blankets into an enormous artwork at this year's Burning Man festival. More

NASA has selected the five winning designs in the latest stage of its 3D-printed Habitat competition, which include a community of modular pods made from the Martian surface, and a vertical egg-like container. More

NASA has started production of a plane that will fly faster than the speed of sound, but will be almost inaudible from the ground below. More

Uber has partnered with NASA to develop an on-demand electric aircraft taxi service, which is scheduled to begin flights in Los Angeles in three years time. More

Kyriakos Tsolakis Architects has won planning permission for an astronomical research centre on top of a Cyprus mountain, which willprovide NASA with information about celestial phenomena. More

These posters by Tyler Nordgren show the national parks, universities and sightseeing spots in the US where spectators can go to see today's solar eclipse. More

The latest contender in the fight to create the world'sblackest black is a paint originally developed for NASA and now made available to the public. More

Sports brand Reebok has released a space boot designed specifically forastronauts taking part in an upcoming voyage to the International Space Station. More

Royal College of Art graduate Brian Black has designed a concept rover and virtual-reality interface that would allow anyone on earth to contribute to space exploration missions. More

IKEA is set to produce a collection ofspace-saving furniturethat draws on the logistics of space travelto find innovativesolutions for shrinking living spaces. More

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NASA news | Dezeen

NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) are releasing new images of the sun Thursday morning, bringing humans closer to our host star than ever before. The photos are the first captured by the Solar Orbiter, which launched earlier this year.

After launching on February 9, Solar Orbiter made its first close pass of the sun in mid-June, despite the team facing setbacks due to the coronavirus pandemic. As it passed the sun, it turned on all 10 of its instruments together for the first time, the agencies said in a statement.

The agencies said the new photos are the closest ever taken of the sun. They will be released Thursday morning at 8 a.m. EDT.

"The first images are exceeding our expectations," Daniel Mller, Solar Orbiter Project Scientist at ESA, said in a statement. "We can already see hints of very interesting phenomena that we have not been able to observe in detail before. The 10 instruments on board Solar Orbiter work beautifully, and together provide a holistic view of the Sun and the solar wind. This makes us confident that Solar Orbiter will help us answer profound open questions about the Sun."

During its first orbit, Solar Orbiter got within 47 million miles of the star's surface about half the distance between the sun and the Earth. ESA said the satellite will eventually get much closer to the sun.

Now that it has completed its first pass, the spacecraft is slowly adjusting its orbit. In late 2021, it will get as close as 26 million miles from the sun's surface closer than the planet Mercury to observe the first proper view of the star's poles.

Scientists hope the mission can help answer some of their biggest questions about the development of planets, the emergence of life, the inner workings of our solar system and the origins of the universe and how it works.

The images aren't the only new footage we have of the sun. In June, NASA released a 10-year time-lapse video of the star, captured by the agency's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO).

SDO gathered 425 million high-resolution images of the sun 20 million gigabytes of data over the course of a decade. It took a new picture of the sun every .75 seconds, leading to the spectacular composite video.

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NASA and ESA to reveal closest images ever taken of the sun - CBS News

July is a big month for missions to Mars.

Three new spacecraft from NASA, China and the United Arab Emirates are due to lift off on their journey to the Red Planet.

That's because there is window between mid-July and mid-August when Earth and Mars are in a good position relative to each other to allow the shortest possible trip.

If the mission launches go as planned, the first of which is due this week, the spacecraft will arrive early next year.

They will join a slew of other orbiters, landers and rovers that are already probing the planet.

And each is tasked to look at questions that no other spacecraft has answered before as the race to find evidence of past life on Mars heats up.

The entry of China and the UAE into Mars exploration, a field that has so far been dominated by the US and Russia, will benefit future missions to the Red Planet, said Alice Gorman, a space archaeologist at Flinders University.

"The more nations entering [deep space exploration] increases the chance of success ... and builds up the library of proven engineering heritage."

Along with new science, these nations are also testing different types of technologies.

So let's take a quick look at what each mission has to offer.

NASA's Mars 2020 mission plans to put a new rover on the Red Planet called Perseverance.

If it survives the landing it will be the United States' 10th successful attempt to put a robot on Mars since 1975, and will join the Curiosity rover and Mars Insight probe.

Perseverance is the first rover ever tasked with finding evidence of past life on Mars, said Abigail Allwood, an Australian geologist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory who is in charge of PIXL, one of the seven instruments onboard the rover.

"Previous missions have been looking for evidence of water and evidence of habitability," Dr Allwood said.

"No mission has ever been given the mandate to look for evidence of life."

The rover, which looks almost identical to Curiosity except for its wheels, will descend towards Mars using the same 'seven minutes of terror' technique as its predecessor albeit using new terrain technology to help guide its landing.

All going well, it will touch down in an old lake bed known as Jezero Crater.

The rover is kitted out with several tools that will investigate the geology of the landform in minute detail, and use a drill to collect sediment samples to be returned to Earth for analysis in 2026.

The Mars 2020 mission will also be the first mission to attempt test flights of a small unmanned helicopter called Ingenuity.

The helicopter, which is strapped to the bottom of the rover, will be released once the rover lands.

"If that helicopter flight is successful it will be huge for Mars exploration," Dr Allwood said.

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Swarms of small helicopters could be used to map the surface where samples come from, and a successful flight could demonstrate a capacity that can aid human missions.

"[Unmanned aerial vehicles] could be the next thing we see before any human missions," she said.

The Perseverance rover will also be doing some of the groundwork for setting up a base.

Onboard are tools that will test a method of extracting oxygen from the atmosphere (which is 96 per cent carbon dioxide), identify resources such as subsurface water and minerals, and gather more data on dust storms and weather conditions.

The mission is currently slated to launch around July 30.

China's new mission will send the first orbiter/lander/rover combo to Mars.

Called Tianwen-1 which means Heavenly Questions it is the nation's second attempt to send a mission to the Red Planet.

China's first mission, the 'Yinghuo-1' Mars orbiter, was lost in 2012 when the Russian space agency spacecraft it was piggybacking a ride on failed and crashed back to Earth.

But now, China is using its own technologies that have been successfully used in its space program, including two Moon landings.

It will use parachutes developed for its Shenzhou crewed spaceflight program, and propulsion and autonomous guidance systems and designs used in its Chang'e-3 and Chang'e-4 moon landers.

If the spacecraft reaches Mars and touches down, China will become the third country to land on the Red Planet.

It's a very ambitious goal, said Andrew Jones, a space journalist who follows the China space program.

"The failure rate for Mars missions is around 50 per cent, so to try to combine [the orbiter/lander/rover] for your first attempt at a [solo] interplanetary mission is very challenging," Mr Jones said.

US: 7 orbiters, 5 landers, 4 rovers

Russia: 2 orbiters (1 joint with EU), 1 lander

EU: 2 orbiters (1 joint with Russia)

India: 1 orbiter

US: 3 orbiters, 1 lander, 1 probe

Russia: 7 orbiters, 6 landers (including joint EU project), 1 rover, 2 probes

EU: 2 landers (including joint Russian project)

Japan: 1 orbiter

China: 1 orbiter (joint mission with Russia)

*Excluding flybys

Landing on Mars is a lot more challenging than landing on the Moon.

The Red Planet has a thin atmosphere, which heats up the spacecraft but doesn't slow it down very effectively, so the timing of parachutes and rockets is critical.

Although the exact landing site of the Chinese mission has not been revealed, it is likely to be somewhere in an area known as Utopia Planitia.

"These are very low elevation areas so that gives more atmosphere to slow down the landing attempt," Mr Jones said.

The location is also good for the operation of the mission's solar powered rover.

Another potential touchdown area is Chryse Planitia, close to the landing sites of NASA'S Viking 1 and Pathfinder.

Like the new NASA mission, Tianwen-1 plans to explore the Red Planet's atmosphere, use ground-penetrating radar to peer below the surface, and look for evidence of past life.

"Having two ground penetrating radars in two different places on Mars brings a lot of science value."

But before even attempting a complex landing, the spacecraft must actually reach Mars

To do this, China is using its biggest rocket: the Long March 5. After one semi-successful flight and a failure, the rocket finally put a satellite into geostationary orbit late last year.

But the launch of the Tianwen-1 mission will be the first attempt at getting the rocket into an orbit that will put a spacecraft on a path to Mars.

"It shouldn't be that much different, but still it's something they haven't done," Mr Jones said.

While no official launch date from the Wenchang Satellite Launch Center has been announced, Mr Jones predicted it would take off around July 23.

Meanwhile, the United Arab Emirates is planning to become the first Arab nation to send a spacecraft to the planet.

If it is successful, the 'Al Amal' or 'Hope' spacecraft will join six other orbiters from the US, Europe and India currently surveying Mars from orbit.

Timed to arrive 50 years after the UAE was founded, it is also carrying the aspirations of its nation and Arab and Islamic science.

"The UAE is small compared to those other nations but they are putting so many resources into their space programs and they've made it really clear that these are priorities for them," Dr Gorman said.

About the size of a small car flanked by two solar panels, the hexagonal-shaped orbiter is on a two-year mission to explore the Red Planet's upper and lower atmosphere and weather.

Kitted out with three scientific instruments, it hopes to answer questions about why the Red Planet is losing its upper atmosphere to space, and to create a global picture of how the Martian atmosphere changes from day to day and season to season.

The spacecraft will be launched from Tanegashima, a remote Japanese island.

The original launch date of July 15 (AEST) has been pushed back to July 17 (AEST) according to latest reports from the UAE space agency.

Once it separates from its rocket, the spacecraft will rely on star-tracker sensors, which recognise constellations, to guide it to Mars.

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All going well, the three missions will reach Mars in February next year.

The Mars 2020 mission plans to touch down on February 18, while the Chinese Tianwen-1 mission will survey the Red Planet using a high-res camera onboard the orbiter before selecting a landing site in April.

But if the missions miss the launch window, they will not be able to fly for another two years when Earth and Mars are aligned again.

NASA's Mars 2020 mission has already been delayed twice. Originally it was planned to lift off around July 17, but with a current launch date of at least July 30 it has used up half the window.

A fourth mission to Mars which was also due to lift off this month the European Union and Russian Space Agency's ExoMars mission carrying the Rosalind Franklin rover has already been postponed until 2022.

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Three space missions heading to Mars, from NASA, China and UAE - ABC News

By NASAJuly 14, 2020

ESAs Solar Orbiter mission will face the Sun from within the orbit of Mercury at its closest approach. Credit: ESA/ATG medialab

Scientists from NASA and ESA (European Space Agency) will release the first data captured by Solar Orbiter, the joint ESA/NASA mission to study the Sun, during an online news briefing at 8 a.m. EDT Thursday, July 16. The briefing will stream live on NASAs website.

In mid-June, Solar Orbiter made its first close pass of the Sun following its Feb. 9 launch, turning on all 10 of its instruments together for the first time. This flyby captured the closest images ever taken of the Sun. During the briefing, mission experts will discuss what these closeup images reveal about our star, including what we can learn from Solar Orbiters new measurements of particles and magnetic fields flowing from the Sun.

Participants in the briefing include:

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Watch NASA/ESA Solar Orbiter Mission First Image Release Closer to Sun That Any Spacecraft in History - SciTechDaily

Numerous new articles have suggested that Nasa has all of a sudden changed everyone's starsigns.

The news has led people to panic that they have lost some important part of their identity that their sign might have been wrong all along, and that not only their horoscopes but their entire character may have been a lie.

But Nasa has done no such thing, and it has neither the power to alter starsigns, nor any particular interest in doing so.

Sharing the full story, not just the headlines

The stories do however make reference to an interesting though not at all new fact about how the constellations change, and the implications that they could have for people who believe in astrology and horoscopes.

The new stories appeared all across the media in recent days, and made reference to the fact that the arrangement of the stars above our heads have changed over the course of the thousands of years since the Babylonians first happened upon them, 3,000 years ago.

They noted, correctly, that Nasa has in the past spoken about the phenomenon of "axial precession", or the fact that the Earth wobbles as it rotates, a little like a spinning top. That effect means that the stars appear from Earth to be in a different place from where they were 3,000 years ago, and so the constellations that make up the starsigns have moved, too.

They were also correct that Nasa had also told the story of how the Babylonians had looked to fit the 13 constellations into the easily divisible 12 months of the year, and so removed one known as Ophiuchus from their charts. Some of the articles claimed that Nasa "created" Ophiuchus, but it was and is a constellation that was in the sky when the current system of the zodiac was made, and all Nasa did was point that out.

But both of those things happened thousands of years ago, and are well established facts. So the modern-day use of the starsigns were formed in full knowledge of that information.

Since astrology is a system used by humans to discuss their lives, it does not necessarily need to line up with the stars as they actually are. As such, people can stick with their existing starsign, or opt to use their supposedly newly calculated one the only thing that really matters is that the astrologers who then use those starsigns are using the same system.

If everyone switched to the more contemporary system of 13 starsigns and different dates then it could feasibly be said that people have been given a new starsign. But that does not appear to be happening, and as long as it does then people can stick with their existing understanding of themselves and their horoscopes.

Mystic Mountain, a pillar of gas and dust standing at three-light-years tall, bursting with jets of gas from fledgling stars buried within, was captured by Nasa's Hubble Space Telescope in February 2010

Nasa/ESA/STScI

The first ever selfie taken on an alien planet, captured by Nasa's Curiosity Rover in the early days of its mission to explore Mars in 2012

Nasa/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

Death of a star: This image from Nasa's Chandra X-ray telescope shows the supernova of Tycho, a star in our Milky Way galaxy

Nasa

Arrokoth, the most distant object ever explored, pictured here on 1 January 2019 by a camera on Nasa's New Horizons spaceraft at a distance of 4.1 billion miles from Earth

Getty

An image of the Large Magellanic Cloud galaxy seen in infrared light by the Herschel Space Observatory in January 2012. Regions of space such as this are where new stars are born from a mixture of elements and cosmic dust

Nasa

The first ever image of a black hole, captured by the Event Horizon telescope, as part of a global collaboration involving Nasa, and released on 10 April 2019. The image reveals the black hole at the centre of Messier 87, a massive galaxy in the nearby Virgo galaxy cluster. This black hole resides about 54 million light-years from Earth

Getty

Pluto, as pictured by Nasa's New Horizons spacecraft as it flew over the dwarf planet for the first time ever in July 2015

Nasa/APL/SwRI

A coronal mass ejection as seen by the Chandra Observatory in 2019. This is the first time that Chandra has detected this phenomenon from a star other than the Sun

Nasa

Dark, narrow, 100 meter-long streaks running downhill on the surface Mars were believed to be evidence of contemporary flowing water. It has since been suggested that they may instead be formed by flowing sand

Nasa/JPL/University of Arizona

Morning Aurora: Nasa astronaut Scott Kelly captured this photograph of the green lights of the aurora from the International Space Station in October 2015

Nasa/Scott Kelly

Mystic Mountain, a pillar of gas and dust standing at three-light-years tall, bursting with jets of gas from fledgling stars buried within, was captured by Nasa's Hubble Space Telescope in February 2010

Nasa/ESA/STScI

The first ever selfie taken on an alien planet, captured by Nasa's Curiosity Rover in the early days of its mission to explore Mars in 2012

Nasa/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

Death of a star: This image from Nasa's Chandra X-ray telescope shows the supernova of Tycho, a star in our Milky Way galaxy

Nasa

Arrokoth, the most distant object ever explored, pictured here on 1 January 2019 by a camera on Nasa's New Horizons spaceraft at a distance of 4.1 billion miles from Earth

Getty

An image of the Large Magellanic Cloud galaxy seen in infrared light by the Herschel Space Observatory in January 2012. Regions of space such as this are where new stars are born from a mixture of elements and cosmic dust

Nasa

The first ever image of a black hole, captured by the Event Horizon telescope, as part of a global collaboration involving Nasa, and released on 10 April 2019. The image reveals the black hole at the centre of Messier 87, a massive galaxy in the nearby Virgo galaxy cluster. This black hole resides about 54 million light-years from Earth

Getty

Pluto, as pictured by Nasa's New Horizons spacecraft as it flew over the dwarf planet for the first time ever in July 2015

Nasa/APL/SwRI

A coronal mass ejection as seen by the Chandra Observatory in 2019. This is the first time that Chandra has detected this phenomenon from a star other than the Sun

Nasa

Dark, narrow, 100 meter-long streaks running downhill on the surface Mars were believed to be evidence of contemporary flowing water. It has since been suggested that they may instead be formed by flowing sand

Nasa/JPL/University of Arizona

Morning Aurora: Nasa astronaut Scott Kelly captured this photograph of the green lights of the aurora from the International Space Station in October 2015

Nasa/Scott Kelly

Perhaps the most important thing to note is that Nasa has not changed the star signs, or done any of the other things that the stories related to it claim. Many have suggested that the space agency has had a sudden change of heart, made some sort of breakthrough, or decided to confess that it had secretly known that star signs were wrong all along.

But it is not in Nasa's power to change the starsigns, even if it wanted to. And it almost certainly doesn't want to: the space agency has been disparaging of astrology, even in the same post that appears to have led to the current furore.

"It's not science," the post reads, as it discusses how astrology is different from astronomy. "No one has shown that astrology can be used to predict the future or describe what people are like based only on their birth date. Still, like reading fantasy stories, many people enjoy reading their 'astrological forecast' or 'horoscope' in the newspaper every day."

That post has been on Nasa's website for years, and was part of a page intended to educate children on the difference between astronomy and astrology, and how the starsigns originally came about.

Read more:

Nasa post sparks panic that everyone's starsigns have changed but the truth is more complicated - The Independent

The conditions are ripe for an active Atlantic hurricane and Amazon fire season in 2020, according to forecasts from NASA and University of California, Irvine scientists.

Researchers point to warmer than average sea surface temperatures in the North Atlantic Ocean as a sign of intensified hurricanes and fires to come, Amanda Kooser reports for CNET. [W]armer surface waters near the equator draw moisture northward and away from the southern Amazon, favoring the development of hurricanes, NASA explains in a statement. As a result, the southern Amazon landscape becomes dry and flammable, making human-set fires used for agriculture and land clearing more prone to growing out of control and spreading.

Doug Morton, NASA scientist, says in a statement that the forecast for this year resembles predictions from 2005 and 2010. Those years, warm Atlantic sea surface temperatures spawned a series of severe hurricanes and triggered record droughts across the southern Amazon that culminated in widespread Amazon forest fires, says Morton.

Morton and Yang Chen, a scientist at the University of California, Irvine, created the Amazon fire season forecast, a tool that predicts the severity of each fire season by analyzing the link between climate change and fire occurrences. Right now, the scientists tool predicts a high fire risk in Brazilthe Acre, Mato Grosso, Par and Rondnia statesand the El Beni, Pando, and Santa Cruz departments in Bolivia.

Changes in human fire use, specifically deforestation, add more year-to-year variability in Amazon fires, says Chen in the NASA statement. In addition, climate change is likely to make the entire region drier and more flammableconditions that would allow fires for deforestation or agricultural use to spread into standing Amazon forests.

The regions with high risks were among those most affected by an unprecedented number of fires that swept South America last year. By the time the rainy season arrived in Brazil last December, more than 3,700 square miles of the Amazon had been destroyed by firesthe highest loss in Brazilian rainforest in a decade, according to Matt Sandy of the New York Times. As Kooser reports, human activity such as deforestation greatly exacerbated those fires.

Of course, Morton adds, models can only provide an indication of risknot a clear view of the future. Now, satellite-based estimates of active fires and rainfall will be the best guide to how the 2020 fire season unfolds, says Morton in the statement. Still, he says, 2020 is set up to be a dangerous year for fires in the Amazon.

As Aristos Georgiou reports for Newsweek, this years Atlantic hurricane season has already proved to be a busy one, with six named storms sweeping through the region. Other forecasts have also pointed to increased activity: for instance, researchers at Colorado State University forecasted 20 or more storms for the 2020 season, their highest estimate since 2005, reports meteorologist Taylor Ward for CNN. Hurricane season peaks from August to October, reports Ward.

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NASA Warns of 'Active' Atlantic Hurricane and Amazon Fire Seasons - Smithsonian Magazine

The asteroid, known as 2011, measures 49 meters (160 foot) and has been deemed "potentially hazardous" by NASA. The space rock will pass at close proximity on September 1 at a distance of 71,805km just one-fifth of the distance between us and the Moon (384,399km) - according to NASAs Center for Near Earth Object Studies (CNEOS). The asteroid will zoom by Earth at a staggering speed of 29,375kph - although it will pass our planet safely.

Even in the extremely minute chance it would hit Earth, at 49 metres it would not pose a significant threat, causing a similar explosion to the Chelyabinsk incident.

In 2013, a 20-metre meteor exploded over Chelyabinsk, Russia, smashing windows and caused injuries to more than 1,000 people.

But despite its small size, NASA has described the coming space rock as a "potentially hazardous asteroid".

The space agency said: Potentially Hazardous Asteroids (PHAs) are currently defined based on parameters that measure the asteroids potential to make threatening close approaches to the Earth.

Specifically, all asteroids with a minimum orbit intersection distance (MOID) of 0.05 au or less are considered PHAs.

It is also a Near Earth Object (NEO), giving NASA the perfect opportunity to study the history of the solar system.

NASA set on its Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) website: NEOs are comets and asteroids that have been nudged by the gravitational attraction of nearby planets into orbits that allow them to enter the Earths neighbourhood.

The scientific interest in comets and asteroids is due largely to their status as the relatively unchanged remnant debris from the solar system formation process some 4.6 billion years ago.

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Asteroid close approach: NASA gearing up as asteroid to pass closer than the Moon - Express.co.uk

WASHINGTON, July 14, 2020 /PRNewswire/ --TheBureau of Reclamation (Reclamation), the nation's largest wholesale water supplier, in partnership withNASA Tournament Lab (NTL) andHeroX, the leading crowdsourcing platform for solutions to global problems, today announce the crowdsourcing competition "Guardians of the Reservoir". The challenge calls on the global community of solvers to find an innovative solution to remove and control the amount of silt building up in the reservoirs that provide millions with irrigation, potable water, electricity, flood control, and recreation. The build-up of silt leaves less room for water, and less water means that our reservoirs cannot meet the demand of the communities we serve. Such impacts have been experienced at some Reclamation reservoirs (e.g., Paonia Reservoir, Colorado) and are expected to occur more frequently in the future.

The water infrastructure in the United States has aged, and there has been little technological advancement in sediment management for several decades. Despite best efforts, current "best practices" are expensive, energy-costly, and difficult to deploy year-round, given weather constraints (e.g., work can only be done when the reservoir water is not frozen.) Maintenance requires significant manpower and leaves a high carbon footprint. There are currently no robust and cost-effective alternatives available to Reclamation and the US Army Corps of Engineers, who is a collaborator on this challenge.

"Our water infrastructure system serves 31 million people and irrigates 10 million acres of farmland in the United States," said David Raff, Chief Engineer, Bureau of Reclamation. "We are the largest water wholesaler in the country and work hard to reliably deliver water and power in an environmentally and economically sustainable manner. We have a duty to maintain our water infrastructure in the West, and we are excited to implement new solutions."

"Improving our water infrastructure may not be the sexiest issue, but it is critically important," said Christian Cotichini, CEO of HeroX. "The HeroX crowdsourcing platform will bring this little-known issue to the attention of our global network of problem solvers, who will use their ingenuity and expertise to design timely, viable solutions."

The Prize: The authors of the most compelling submissions to this Guardians of the Reservoir Challenge will have the opportunity to develop and demonstrate their technologies at increasing scales for the Challenge sponsors. In addition to prize money, winners will have access to subject matter experts from Reclamation and may receive external test data from their technologies and may have additional opportunities to work with Reclamation, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, or their partners to further develop their approaches.

How to Become a Solver: The prize is open to anyone aged 18 or older participating as an individual or as a team. Individual competitors and teams may originate from any country, as long as United States federal sanctions do not prohibit participation (some restrictions apply).

To accept the challenge, visit https://www.herox.com/GuardiansoftheReservoir

ABOUT HEROX

HeroX is a social network for crowdsourcing innovation and human ingenuity, co-founded in 2013 by serial entrepreneur, Christian Cotichini, and XPRIZE Founder and Futurist, Peter Diamandis. HeroX offers a turnkey, easy-to-use platform that supports anyone, anywhere, to solve everyday business and world challenges using the power of the crowd.

Explore the latest challenges atwww.herox.com

Media Contact:Alexandra Pony[emailprotected]250.858.0656

SOURCE HeroX

http://www.herox.com

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Bureau of Reclamation Partners with HeroX and NASA Tournament Lab to Crowdsource Innovative Sediment Removal Solutions for Critical Water...

The Martian mole is underground again, but it may still not be able to dig on its own.

The burrowing heat probe onboard NASA's InSight Mars lander, affectionately known as "the mole," was designed to hammer itself at least 10 feet (3 meters) underground. But the going has been tough for the mole since its February 2019 deployment, perhaps as a result of weird soil properties at the landing site.

The mole, whose official name is the Heat Flow and Physical Properties Package (HP3), recently got underground once again, thanks to a push from the scoop on the end of InSight's robotic arm. But new photos suggest that the mole might be stuck in its new spot just beneath the surface.

Mars InSight in photos: NASA's mission to probe core of the Red Planet

"Images taken by InSight during a Saturday, June 20, hammering session show bits of soil jostling within the scoop possible evidence that the mole had begun bouncing in place, knocking the bottom of the scoop," NASA officials wrote in an update Tuesday (July 7).

The InSight team can't fully assess the situation at the moment, because the scoop is blocking the mole from the view of a camera on the lander's arm. InSight's handlers plan to move the scoop out of the way over the next few weeks to get a good look at the mole and its burrow, NASA officials said.

Team members also plan to use that camera soon to image InSight's solar panels, something they haven't done since July 2019. It's the dusty season in InSight's locale just north of the Martian equator, and mission engineers want to get a better sense of the lander's power supply.

It's too soon to say what mole-aiding steps the team will take next. But one possibility involves moving nearby soil into the mole's pit to give the digger more friction, NASA officials said. The mole needs friction to bury itself deeper, and friction is apparently hard to come by in the cement-like "duracrust" beneath InSight's legs.

InSight landed on Mars in November 2018 to take an unprecedented look into the planet's deep interior, gathering information that will help scientists better understand the structure, formation and evolution of rocky planets.

The mole, which was provided by the German Aerospace Center, is one of two main science instruments onboard the lander. The other is a suite of incredibly sensitive seismometers provided by the French space agency CNES and its partners.

The seismometers have already detected more than 480 seismic signals. The detection rate has dropped significantly recently, a change that's likely tied to seasonal variations in atmospheric turbulence. This turbulence creates "noise" that swamps the signals of small marsquakes, NASA officials said.

The InSight team is also precisely tracking the lander's position on Mars. This work, done via analysis of InSight's communications, reveals how much Mars wobbles as it circles the sun. This information, in turn, will shed light on the size and composition of the Red Planet's core, NASA officials have said.

Mike Wall is the author of "Out There" (Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), a book about the search for alien life. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom or Facebook.

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The 'mole' on Mars from NASA's InSight lander may be stuck again - Space.com

Bethany Roberts worked as an intern at NASA. (Photo provided)

Bethany Roberts worked as an intern at NASA. (Photo provided)

Bethany Roberts worked as an intern at NASA. (Photo provided)

Bethany Roberts worked as an intern at NASA. (Photo provided)

Roberts shoots for the stars as a NASA intern

On a sunny, 83-degree day last January, Bethany Roberts began her first day as an intern at the NASA Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Roberts, a Delta College student, worked for the Launch Services Program that supports unmanned scientific missions, like rockets.

She assisted with community outreach for several months before her internship ended early due to the coronavirus crisis.

That didn't discourage her, though.

After a lengthy application process, Roberts was selected to participate in NASA's Community College Aerospace Scholars program this summer. The program includes several online modules, a final project and the opportunity to present to a NASA team.

For her final project, she's designing a 3D model of a lunar rover to explore the south pole of the moon.

"That's where NASA is planning to send astronauts in 2024," said Roberts a Midland resident.

Roberts said she's using much of what she learned at Delta, especially the software needed to design the Rover and the engineering concepts he learned in classes.

"I discovered engineering and Robotics in high school when I joined a FIRST Robotics club and found that I really enjoyed that kind of work," she said.

Roberts joined Delta in 2016 because it was close to home and she wanted to take time to explore her interests. She took classes in the mechanical engineering and industrial technology programs and completed the CNC certificate program. During her time at Delta she was a member of the Drama Club and worked as an outreach assistant for the STEM Explorer.

"I definitely recommend attending Delta," she said. "My professors were great, there are a ton of ways to get involved outside of class and it allowed me to get a taste of engineering classes at a low tuition cost before transferring."

Roberts has been accepted at Lake Superior State University and is considering attending because she's interested in the robotics engineering program.

Ultimately, she wants a career in robotics.

"If it's at NASA," she said, "even better."

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Roberts shoots for the stars as a NASA intern - Midland Daily News

The group's recent recommendations include social distancing protocol based on different grades. For example, it's more feasible to keep preschoolers in small groups (known as "cohorting") with the same teacher throughout the day. Older children should have desks 3 to 6 feet apart and wear masks.

They also say schools should limit unnecessary visitors to the buildings and utilize outdoor spaces for learning. The guidelines recommend safer bussing, hallway traffic monitoring, cafeteria use, cleaning, and screening protocols among other recommendations.

The American Federation of Teachers (AFT), National Education Association (NEA), and AASA, The School Superintendents Association, also voiced support for safe reopening measures.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has guidelines for reopening schools.

Despite calls for them to be revised by President Donald Trump, CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield said they will not change, but the CDC will soon publish additional documents on symptom monitoring and mask usage.

But school administrators, parents, and teachers remain wary of going back to school full time as they fear becoming the site of super spreader events.

Keeping Schools Safe

What will safer schools look like?

In a JAMA article published last month, Dr. Joshua Sharfstein, a pediatrician and professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, outlined suggestions many of which are similar to AAP's.

Remote learning protocols must stay in place, especially as some schools stagger home and in-building learning. If another shutdown needs to occur, children will rely on distance learning completely, so it must be easy to switch to, he said.

He suggested giving parents a daily checklist to document their child's health. Kids should be screened quickly on arrival and be given hygiene supplies. Maintenance staff should use appropriate PPE and have regular cleaning schedules. A notification system should be in place if a case is identified, Sharfstein recommended.

Erika Martin, PhD, an associate professor of public administration and policy at University at Albany, said nutrition assistance and health services should be included. She called for tutoring programs with virtual options as well as technology access.

Not all recommendations will be achievable for schools in certain areas, noted Lucy Sorensen, PhD, an assistant professor of public administration and policy at University at Albany.

"It may not be feasible to space desks six feet apart or have windows open in classrooms in a New York winter," Sorensen explained.

Other strategies to safeguard school communities can include high-intensity ultraviolet light, thermal cameras, and conferencing systems.

"Social distancing will be hard for students," said Tina M. Pascoe, a nurse and co-founder of Nurses for Day Care, who has been involved with efforts to keep day care centers open during the pandemic.

Limiting class size, and not having special activities that require students to leave the room, will be key. "This keeps students stay in one cohort or like a family unit," she told Healthline.

Supporting Staff

Teachers and staff will be affected by safeguarding measures, noted Rachel Widome, PhD, an associate professor of epidemiology and community health at University of Minnesota.

"In order for all of the in-school precautions to work well, we'll be asking a lot of teachers and staff," Widome told Healthline. In addition to their usual workload, they'll now be asked to monitor mask-wearing, ensure children are keeping distance, and be aware of any symptoms.

Along with Sharfstein, Widome called for an increase in financial support. More employees will likely be required so teachers and staff members can keep up with the added demands.

Should Kids Go Back?

While these guidelines may help get some schools to reopen, many people don't think children should go back to school over fears they could contract the disease and spread it to other vulnerable family members like grandparents, infant siblings, or their parents.

In a Pediatrics commentary, Dr. William V. Raszka, Jr., an infectious disease specialist at The University of Vermont Medical Center, argued that schools should open because school-aged children are far less important drivers of COVID-19 than adults.

But he says the risk and benefit is not equal among all students ages 5 to 18.

"Elementary schools are arguably higher priority for face-to-face schooling, since younger children are at lower risk for infection and transmission, and since parental supervision of younger children's distance learning may be particularly challenging," added Sorensen, who penned a June article in JAMA with reopening tips. "That means middle and high schools are more likely to emphasize distance learning."

Specific student populations, such as special education students and students with disabilities, would also benefit greatly from more time spent in face-to-face environments, Sorensen said.

What Parents Can Do

Parents should ask for and receive frequent updates from schools about plans for the fall. They should also be informed about plans if and when COVID infections are identified, Sharfstein said.

"I'd like to see parents investing now, during the summer, in doing things that can slow and stop the spread of the virus in their communities," Widome said.

"Now is a good time for kids to practice wearing masks and get used to them as they may be wearing them for longer stretches if school starts up in person," Widome suggested.

She recommends parents try different mask designs and materials to see what children are more comfortable wearing.

"If you are using cloth face coverings, it's good to have extras on hand," Widome added.

Parents should model healthy behavior at home and while out in public another thing that could affect how well children adapt to reopening practices, Sorensen said.

"Children may want to know more about face coverings," added Lee Scott, chairwoman of the Educational Advisory Board at The Goddard School. "Dramatic play, such as creating or wearing a face covering, may help some children adjust to this concept." Schools can also show children photos of what faculty members look like in their masks so the students are familiar with that appearance.

Johns Hopkins University recently released its eSchool+ Initiative, a slew of resources surrounding education during the pandemic. These include a checklist for administrators, report on ethical considerations, and a tracker of state and local reopening plans.

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NASA Forecast: Conditions Ripe for North Atlantic Hurricanes and Amazon Wildfires - EcoWatch

Hubble has sent back a mesmerising image of a star formation known as HBC 672. The infant star is accompanied by a cloud of gas and dust, which is helping feed the stellar entity. However, what is most shocking is the shadow hovering over the cloud, which looks a bit like a larger, interstellar bat.

On top of that, NASA said the wings appear to be "flapping", which is caused by the gravitational to and fro of the star, which is 1,400 light-years away.

NASA said of the image: "Astronomers using a previously captured Hubble imagery spotted a remarkable image of a young star's unseen, planet-forming disk casting a huge shadow across a more distant cloud in a star-forming region.

"The star is called HBC 672, and the shadow feature was nicknamed the 'Bat Shadow' because it resembles a pair of wings.

"The nickname turned out to be unexpectedly appropriate because now those 'wings' appear to be flapping!"

The 30-year-old Hubble Space Telescope is reaching the end of its life cycle and NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) set to take its place next year.

The JWST is so powerful it will reach back to the furthest realms and the earliest moments of the universe.

JWST, which is named after NASAs second administrator James Webb who served from 1961 to 1968 and played a major part in the Apollo missions, has the capability of scanning thousands of planets for alien life even though those planets are thousands of light-years away.

One of the major differences between Hubble and JWST will be how far back in time it will be able to see.

Hubble can see far into space and is essentially looking back in time as light travels to the craft.

Through Hubble, experts have been able to view the formation of the first galaxies, about one billion years after the Big Bang.

However, as JWST is much more powerful, it will be able to see just 0.3 billion years after the Big Bang to when visible light itself was beginning to form.

JWST will also be situated much farther out in space than Hubble.

Hubble is placed in Earths orbit just 354,181 miles (570,000 kilometres) from the surface, but JWST will be placed an astonishing 932,056 miles (1.5 million kilometres) from Earth, meaning if it breaks down while it is up there, it will not be able to be fixed.

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NASA news: Hubble snaps incredible 'flapping bat' across the Universe - Express.co.uk

No matter where you live, choose from a menu of activities to join NASA as we "Countdown to Mars" and launch the Perseverance rover to the Red Planet.

Team with NASA to send off the Perseverance rover to Mars from the convenience of your own home. The mission launches from Cape Canaveral, Florida, this summer, and you're invited to participate remotely with a global, collective launch countdown where you can submit your own videos, take a photo on Mars or next to the rover, dive into an interactive launch packet, and sign up to send your name to Mars on a future space mission.

After a seven-month journey to the Red Planet, the rover will land in Jezero Crater, an ancient lakebed with intriguing geology. In its search for astrobiological evidence of ancient microbial life, Perseverance will gather rock and soil samples there for future return to Earth. It will also characterize the planet's climate and geology and pave the way for human exploration of the Red Planet.

In addition, Perseverance carries the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter, a technology demonstration that marks the first attempt at powered, controlled flight on another planet.

"During these challenging times, no matter where you are, you can participate in this launch and help send this robotic geologist on a mission to explore worlds beyond our own," said Michael Greene, the director for communications and education at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which manages the mission.

With local restrictions on public gatherings in place, NASA recommends watching the launch virtually. To learn how, use our launch toolkit. And here's a menu of options for sharing in the Perseverance launch:

CountdownToMars

You know that "5-4-3-2-1" right before a spacecraft blasts off? You can record your own version of a launch countdown video clip and tag it on social media using #CountdownToMars. Your clip may be featured on NASA social media or even on launch day. Here's how to participate.

Send Your Name to Mars, Again!

Perseverance carries three dime-size chips with 10.9 million names submitted worldwide to travel aboard the rover. The people who already signed up can get a special "Now Boarding" stamp and are ready for launch. If you missed that opportunity, you can soon sign up to send your name on a future mission to Mars.

Mars Photo Booth

While sharing the Mars Launch at Home virtually, take a souvenir photo with our virtual Mars Photo Booth. You can pose next to the mighty Atlas V rocket that will launch the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover, strike a pose on Mars, or put yourself next to the rover in the JPL clean room where it was assembled. Just upload your favorite picture, choose a background, and download the new image.

Virtual Launch Packet

Get an interactive magazine-style booklet to enhance your launch-viewing experience. The flipbook includes information about the Perseverance rover launch and all the print products for the mission. You can also download it as a PDF.

Spacecraft 3D Rover Experience

Zoom in, rotate, and twirl around the Perseverance rover in an interactive 3D experience. Click and select different sections to learn all about the science tools and instruments that make up this mighty rover.

Watch the Launch and Share Your Excitement

Watch the mission briefings and other Mars 2020 programming on NASA TV, culminating with the launch on July 30. See the schedule for Perseverance programming.

How to stream NASA TV.

Stay connected with the mission on social media, and let people know you're following it on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram using the hashtag #CountdownToMars. Follow and tag these accounts:

Twitter: @NASA, @NASAPersevere, @NASAMars

Facebook: NASA, NASAPersevere

Instagram: NASA

Perseverance videos will be posted to the NASA JPL YouTube channel and NASA YouTube channel.

You can also sign up for the Mars newsletter to stay informed about all the ways to experience this launch.

However you choose to participate in the Mars Launch at Home, we look forward to seeing you online for launch, which is targeted for July 30: The time in which the Mars 2020 Perseverance mission can launch extends to Aug. 15. Check out this page for the latest launch date and time. Doing a Mars Launch from Home may burn up some energy. Perseverance pancakes, anyone?

More information about the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover is on this mission website.

News Media Contacts

DC AgleJet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.818-393-9011agle@jpl.nasa.gov

Grey Hautaluoma / Alana JohnsonNASA Headquarters, Washington202-358-0668 / 202-358-1501grey.hautaluoma-1@nasa.gov / alana.r.johnson@nasa.gov

- Written by Jane Platt

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Join NASA for the Launch of the Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover - NASA Mars Exploration

This illustration shows the moment after liftoff of the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover from Cape Canaveral, Florida. The spacecraft begins the first part of its journey to Mars atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V launch vehicle. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Team with NASA to send off the Perseverance rover to Mars from the convenience of your own home. The mission launches from Cape Canaveral, Florida, this summer, and youre invited to participate remotely with a global, collective launch countdown where you can submit your own videos, take a photo on Mars or next to the rover, dive into an interactive launch packet, and sign up to send your name to Mars on a future space mission.

After a seven-month journey to the Red Planet, the rover will land in Jezero Crater, an ancient lakebed with intriguing geology. In its search for astrobiological evidence of ancient microbial life, Perseverance will gather rock and soil samples there for future return to Earth. It will also characterize the planets climate and geology and pave the way for human exploration of the Red Planet.

In addition, Perseverance carries the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter, a technology demonstration that marks the first attempt at powered, controlled flight on another planet.

During these challenging times, no matter where you are, you can participate in this launch and help send this robotic geologist on a mission to explore worlds beyond our own, said Michael Greene, the director for communications and education at NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which manages the mission.

With local restrictions on public gatherings in place, NASA recommends watching the launch virtually. To learn how, use our launch toolkit. And heres a menu of options for sharing in the Perseverance launch:

CountdownToMars

You know that 5-4-3-2-1 right before a spacecraft blasts off? You can record your own version of a launch countdown video clip and tag it on social media using #CountdownToMars. Your clip may be featured on NASA social media or even on launch day. Heres how to participate.

Send Your Name to Mars, Again!

Perseverance carries three dime-size chips with 10.9 million names submitted worldwide to travel aboard the rover. The people who already signed up can get a special Now Boarding stamp and are ready for launch. If you missed that opportunity, you can soon sign up to send your name on a future mission to Mars.

Mars Photo Booth

While sharing the Mars Launch at Home virtually, take a souvenir photo with our virtual Mars Photo Booth. You can pose next to the mighty Atlas V rocket that will launch the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover, strike a pose on Mars, or put yourself next to the rover in the JPL clean room where it was assembled. Just upload your favorite picture, choose a background, and download the new image.

Virtual Launch Packet

Get an interactive magazine-style booklet to enhance your launch-viewing experience. The flipbook includes information about the Perseverance rover launch and all the print products for the mission. You can also download it as a PDF.

Spacecraft 3D Rover Experience

Zoom in, rotate, and twirl around the Perseverance rover in an interactive 3D experience. Click and select different sections to learn all about the science tools and instruments that make up this mighty rover.

Watch the Launch and Share Your Excitement

Watch the mission briefings and other Mars 2020 programming on NASA TV, culminating with the launch on July 30. See the schedule for Perseverance programming.

How to stream NASA TV.

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Countdown To Mars: Launch of the NASA 2020 Perseverance Rover - SciTechDaily

Theres more trouble on Mars for NASAs InSight lander, which has been fighting a battle to free its stuck heat probe (or mole) for more than a year.

The mole has been making progress recently, thanks to the use of the landers arm to push down on its back cap and embed it in the soil. However, NASA scientists now arent sure if it will be able to dig deep enough to collect the data on temperatures that is needed.

The problem is that the mole needs to dig down at least 3 meters (almost 10 feet) into the soil. Normally, it uses friction from the soil to push itself deeper with its self-hammering action. But the soil where InSight has landed is different from what was expected, and turns out to be tightly packed. The mole needs loose soil to create friction which allows it to move, but the soil where it is located is cement-like, according to NASA, consisting of duricrust with grains that tend to stick to each other.

This means the self-hammering action isnt working as well as it should, and the mole may not be able to dig deep into the soil.

The movement of sand grains in the scoop on the end of NASA InSights robotic arm suggests that the spacecrafts self-hammering mole, which is in the soil beneath the scoop, had begun tapping the bottom of the scoop while hammering on June 20, 2020. NASA/JPL-Caltech

Tilman Spohn, the principal investigator for InSights HP3 instrument, explained more in a blog post: The team continues to be determined, although we appreciate that the task is not likely to become easier, he wrote. The team had prepared for the possibility that their current plan would not work, so now they need to swing InSights arm out of the way so they can investigate the hole with InSights cameras.

We will be interested to see how deep in the Mole really is (it should be a centimeter or so below the surface), whether the morphology of the pit has changed and whether the sand that we had seen in the pit is still there or whether the pit has been drained by the hammering action, he wrote.

Even with these problems, InSight will still keep working. It will continue to use its other instruments, such as its seismometer for detecting marsquakes, which can tell scientists more about the activity below the planets surface.

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NASAs InSight lander is still stuck in the Martian soil - Yahoo News

In 2014, NASA contracted two major aerospace companies (Boeing and SpaceX) to help them restore domestic launch capability to the United States. As part of the Commercial Crew Program (CCE), Boeing and SpaceX developed the CST-100 Starliner the Crew Dragon spacecraft, respectively. But whereas the Crew Dragon finished testing and even carried astronauts to the ISS, the Starliner met with some problems.

During its first uncrewed test flight Orbital Flight Test-1 (OFT-1) in December 2019, the Starliner experienced some failures that prevented it from docking with the ISS. After a thorough investigation, the joint NASA-Boeing Independent Review team has completed its final assessment and identified 80 areas where corrections need to be made before the Starliner can conduct another orbital flight test.

This latest review was concerned with the intermittent space-to-ground communication issue that contributed to the Calypso (the Starliner used for the OFT-1 demo) experiencing a sustained premature burn that used up most of its fuel. Two other issues, which were coding errors, had previously been investigated by the review team, which recommended that 61 corrective actions be taken by Boeing to address them.

As associate administrator Steve Jurczyk explained in a recent NASA press release:

NASA and Boeing have completed a tremendous amount of work reviewing the issues experienced during the uncrewed flight test of Starliner. Ultimately, everything weve found will help us improve as we move forward in the development and testing of Starliner, and in our future work with commercial industry as a whole.

With the completion of the investigations third and final focus area, Boeing and NASA are now executing action plans for each recommendation. The full list of corrective and preventive actions is proprietary, and therefore not available to the public. However, the 80 actions were divided into five categories, which Boeing and NASA has shared with the public.

For the first, Testing and Simulation, 21 recommendations were made, which included the need for greater hardware and software integration testing, the performance of an end-to-end test prior to each flight, reviewing subsystem behaviors and limitations, and addressing any identified simulation or emulation gaps.

The second category, Requirements, included 10 recommendations, which recommended an assessment of all software requirements with multiple logic conditions to ensure test coverage. Next up was the Process and Operational Improvements, which included 35 recommendations for software, test data, and safety review processes.

A further 7 recommendations were made in the Software category, which called for the updating of software code and a more robust antenna selection algorithm to correct the elapsed timing error that led to the Calypsos premature engine burn, as well as the Service Module Disposal Burn anomaly that occurred during the crew and service module separation sequence.

Lastly, there were the 7 recommendations that fell into the Knowledge Capture and Hardware Modification. These included organizational changes to the safety reporting and Independent Validation and Verification (IV&V) approach, as well as the addition of an external Radio Frequency (RF) filter to prevent interference from satellites or other spacecraft in the vicinity.

Moving forward, the Independent Review Team has been asked to remain on board as Boeing and NASA execute their action plans. This past April, Boening indicated that once the corrective measures are complete, it will provide a second orbital test for free (which will including docking with the ISS) to demonstrate that the Starliner meets the needs of NASA and the CCP program. Said Jurczyk:

As vital as it is to understand the technical causes that resulted in the flight test not fulfilling all of its planned objectives, its equally as important to understand how those causes connect to organizational factors that could be contributors. Thats why NASA also decided to perform a high visibility close call review that looked at our combined teams.

In addition, NASA has completed its own high-visibility close call investigation into the test flight, which is required whenever a high-profile mission fails. This investigation reviewed the organizational factors within NASA and Boeing that may have contributed to the flight test anomalies and producing recommendations that would help avoid any future close calls.

Based on their findings, the team recommended that the NASA Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate incorporate a number of guidelines into future programs. These all came down to ensuring that NASA vets future contractors to ensure that their management and verification approaches meet the administrations standards and that NASAs and the contractors IV&V teams are on the same page.

Another important recommendation was for NASA to develop a best practices document for future programs so that they also implement the shared accountability model used by the CCP. Said Phil McAlister, director of commercial spaceflight development at NASA:

I cant stress enough how committed the Boeing team has been throughout this process. Boeing has worked collaboratively with NASA to perform these detailed assessments. To be clear, we have a lot more work ahead, but these significant steps help us move forward on the path toward resuming our flight tests.

No indication has been given as to when Boeing and NASA will make their second attempt to launch the Starliner to orbit and dock with the ISS aka. Orbital Flight Test-2 (OFT-2). But with both the joint independent review and high visibility close call investigation complete and the implementation of fixes already underway, it shouldnt be long before the Starliner takes to space again!

The safety review process can be challenging and a bit of an ego-bruiser. But in the end, the verification process will ensure that Starliner is able to transport crews to and from space safely and effectively, providing NASA with domestic launch capability and ensuring its continued involvement with the ISS. Boeing is very close to that goal, and if future accidents can be prevented by some additional oversight, so much the better!

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NASA has a Pretty Big Checklist for Boeing to Fix on Starliner - Universe Today

Under consideration to become the next Discovery Program mission, VERITAS would reveal the inner workings of Earth's mysterious "twin."

Imagine Earth. Now fill the skieswith thick, Sun-obscuring clouds of sulfuric acid; boil off the oceans bycranking up the temperature to 900 degrees Fahrenheit (nearly 500 degreesCelsius), and boost the air pressure high enough to flatten you like a pancake.What you now have is Venus, a rocky planet similar in size to Earth butdifferent in almost every other way.

How these "sister planets"evolved so differently has been a burning scientific question for decades, anda proposed mission called VERITAS seeks to provide answers by transforming ourunderstanding of the internal geodynamics that shaped the planet. The missioncould lend insights into our own planet's evolution and even help us better understandrocky planets orbiting other stars.

Short for Venus Emissivity,Radio Science, InSAR, Topography & Spectroscopy, VERITAS is beingconsidered for selection under NASA'sDiscovery Program and would be managed by NASA's Jet PropulsionLaboratory in Southern California. The project's partners include LockheedMartin, the Italian Space Agency, the German Space Agency, and the French SpaceAgency.

"Venus is like thiscosmic gift of an accident," said Suzanne Smrekar, principal investigatorof VERITAS at JPL. "You have these two planetary bodies - Earth and Venus -that started out nearly the same but have gone down two completely differentevolutionary paths, but we don't know why."

This interactive model compares the sizes of Venus (left) and Earth. To discover more about the similarities and differences of the two planets, zoom in and give them a spin, or use the search function at bottom for more. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech. View the full interactive experience at Eyes on the Solar System. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

The last mission to study theplanet's surface, NASA's Magellan spacecraft, ended in 1994. While it providedtantalizing clues about Venus' geology, the instrumentation couldn't providecertitude as to the origin of many of the planet's surface features.

Proposed for a 2026 launch, VERITASwould orbit the planet and peer through the obscuring clouds with a powerful state-of-theart radar system to create 3D global maps and a near-infrared spectrometer to figureout what the surface is made of. It would also measure the planet'sgravitational field to determine the structure of Venus' interior. Together,the instruments would offer clues about the planet's past and present geologicprocesses, from its core to its surface.

AWindow Into Early Earth

Here on Earth, the rigid crustthat envelops the planet is broken into a jigsaw puzzle of tectonic plates atopthe mantle. Convection in the mantle helps drive motion of the surface plates. Assome plates descend into the interior - a process known as subduction - they melt,and volcanic outgassing releases volatiles (such as water, nitrogen, carbondioxide, and methane) into the atmosphere.

Learning more about thegeologic processes on Venus - where the warm crust is a good analogy for earlyEarth's, when the plates were just beginning to form - could offer a valuableglimpse into how these processes beganon Earth.

"The biggest mystery tome is the extent of deformation structures on Venus" - areas of rock onthe surface that have buckled under immense geologic pressure - "that couldbe studied to understand the nature of tectonic activity on the planet,"said science team member Joann Stock, a professor of geology and geophysics atCaltech's Seismological Laboratory in Pasadena.

Producing high-resolution 3Dtopographic maps VERITAS would bring into focus structures that have previouslybeen too small to resolve, added Stock. These structures could include raised topography on both sides of strike-slip faults,like the San Andreas Fault, which is an indicator of major tectonic activity.VERITAS would also look for active surface faulting using something called interferometricdeformation maps for the first time beyond Earth.

In addition, VERITAS wouldstudy vast deformation structures called tessera. These plateau-like featuresmay be analogous to Earth's continents. A leading theory is that Earth's continentsformed when iron-rich oceanic crust subducted and melted in the presence ofwater, producing huge volumes of new, less iron-rich continental crust that roseabove the ocean.

To determine if Venus' tesseraplateaus formed in a similar way to Earth's continents, VERITAS would constructthe first global multispectral maps of Venus' surface composition. If theircomposition resembles that of continental crust, we'd also gain informationabout Venus' wetter past.

AVolcanic World

On Earth, plate tectonics andvolcanism go hand in hand. But what about on Venus?

"Determining whetherVenus is actively undergoing volcanic activity and understanding what processis driving it is one of the really exciting questions I'd love to see answered,"said planetary scientist Jennifer Whitten, a VERITAS science team member atTulane University in New Orleans.

Using its spectrometer, VERITASwould determine which rocks recently formed from erupting magma, before interactionswith the atmosphere have had time to change their chemical composition. Inaddition, the spectrometer would search for hotspots from active eruptions,while the radar instrument would search for active faulting, an indication oftectonic activity.

In getting to know Venus'volcanoes and the geophysical processes causing them, scientists could also gaugetheir impact on the planet's climate and, perhaps, answer another key question:Does the planet's interior still contain large quantities of water like Earth'sdoes?

MakingPlanets Habitable

Plate tectonics and volcanism don'tjust affect how a planet takes shape; they are intimately tied to a planet's habitability.Plate tectonics strongly affects Earth's long-term climate by influencing theprocesses that keep the atmosphere in balance: volcanism, which releasevolatiles into the atmosphere, and subduction, which recycles volatiles back intothe interior. Also, the formation and erosion of Earth's continents have amajor influence on the composition of the oceans and atmosphere. Together,these processes provide the nutrients and a habitable climate for life tothrive.

But what is the delicate geodynamicbalance that ultimately makes a planet habitable? Considering the discovery ofthousands of exoplanets orbiting stars other than our Sun, the answer couldinform our understanding of their nature.

"To unwrap the mysteriesof Venus we have to look under the hood at Venus' interior; it is the enginefor global geologic and atmospheric evolution," said Smrekar. "AreVenus and Earth fundamentally unique worlds? Or are the differences betweenthese 'twins' only cosmetic? Answering this question is key to understandingwhat makes other rocky planets habitable and, ultimately, emerge with life."

Read more about DiscoveryMission proposals selected to develop concept studies here.

News Media Contact

Grey Hautaluoma / Alana JohnsonHeadquarters, Washington202-358-0668 / 202-358-1501grey.hautaluoma-1@nasa.gov / alana.r.johnson@nasa.gov

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VERITAS: Exploring the Deep Truths of Venus - Jet Propulsion Laboratory

This illustration depicts NASAs Perseverance rover operating on the surface of Mars. Perseverance will land at the Red Planets Jezero Crater a little after 3:40 p.m. EST (12:40 p.m. PST) on February 18, 2021. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

NASAs next rover to the Red Planet is slated to launch no earlier than July 30. These highlights will get you up to speed on the ambitious mission.

In less than a month, NASA expects to launch the Mars 2020 Perseverance mission from Cape Canaveral, Florida. Loaded with scientific instruments, advanced computational capabilities for landing, and other new systems, the Perseverance rover is the largest, heaviest, most sophisticated vehicle NASA has ever sent to the Red Planet.

Perseverance sets a new bar for our ambitions at Mars, said Lori Glaze, planetary science director at NASA Headquarters in Washington. We will get closer than ever before to answering some of sciences longest-standing questions about the Red Planet, including whether life ever arose there.

What drives Perseverances mission and what will it do at the Red Planet? Here are seven things to know:

1. The Perseverance rover draws on the NASA and scientific spirit of overcoming challenges.

The rover has a tough mission. Not only does it have to land on a treacherous planet, it has to work on its science goals: searching for signs of ancient microbial life, characterizing the planets geology and climate, collecting carefully selected rock and sediment samples for future return to Earth, and paving the way for human exploration beyond the Moon.

These activities epitomize why NASA chose the name Perseverance from among the 28,000 essays submitted during the Name the Rover contest. Because of the coronavirus pandemic, the months leading up to the launch in particular have required creative problem solving, teamwork, and determination.

Building this incredibly sophisticated rover has been the hardest thing Ive ever been a part of as an engineer, said Ray Baker, the missions flight system manager at NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. While coronavirus added significant challenges and logistics, the team has shown great determination and diligence to build a rover we can be proud to send to Mars. We cant wait to see the many years of dedication pay off at the launch pad.

2. Perseverance builds on the lessons of other Mars rovers.

NASAs modest first rover Sojourner demonstrated in 1997 that a robot could rove on the Red Planet. Spirit and Opportunity, which landed in 2004, found evidence that the planet once hosted running water before becoming a frozen desert. Curiosity, which has been exploring Mars since 2012, discovered that its landing site, Gale Crater, was home to of a lake billions of years ago, with an environment that could have supported microbial life.

Perseverance aims to take the next step, seeking, as a primary goal, to answer one of the key questions of astrobiology: Are there any signs that life once existed on Mars?

3. The rover will be landing in a place with high potential for finding signs of past microbial life.

Jezero Crater is 28 miles (45 kilometers) wide and sits on the western edge of Isidis Planitia, a giant basin just north of the Martian equator dug out long ago when a space rock hit the surface. Sometime between 3 billion and 4 billion years ago at Jezero, a river flowed into a body of water the size of Lake Tahoe.

The science team has had many discussions internally and externally about where the next Mars rover should go, said Ken Farley, the missions project scientist, based at Caltech in Pasadena. We ultimately chose Jezero Crater because it is such a promising location for finding organic molecules and other potential signs of microbial life.

4. Perseverance will also be collecting important data about Mars geology and climate.

Mars orbiters have been collecting images and other data from Jezero Crater from about 200 miles (322 kilometers) above, but finding signs of ancient life on the surface will require much closer inspection. It demands a rover like Perseverance, which can look for signs that may be related to life and can analyze the context in which they were found to see if they were biological in origin.

Understanding Mars past climate conditions and reading the geological history embedded in its rocks will also give us a sense of why Earth and Mars which formed from the same primordial stuff ended up so different.

5. Perseverance is the first leg of a round trip to Mars.

Verifying ancient microscopic life on Mars carries an enormous burden of proof. Perseverance is the first rover to bring a sample-gathering system to Mars that will package promising examples of rocks and sediments for return to Earth by a future mission.

A Mars Sample Return campaign is being planned by NASA and the European Space Agency because here on Earth we can investigate the samples with instruments too large and complex to send to Mars. Terrestrial laboratories would be used to establish whether any potential signs of life detected by the rover are definitive evidence of past life.

6. Perseverance carries instruments and technology that will pave the way for human missions to the Moon and Mars.

The Terrain-Relative Navigation system, which autonomously helps the rover avoid hazards during landing, and the Mars Science Laboratory Entry, Descent, and Landing Instrumentation 2 (MEDLI2) sensor suite, which gathers crucial data during the journey through the Martian atmosphere, will help future human missions land more safely and with larger payloads on other worlds.

Perseverance also has features that will help astronauts once theyre on the surface of another world: improved self-driving smarts for more efficient travel and the Mars Environmental Dynamics Analyzer (MEDA) instrument suite, which will provide key information about weather, climate, and dust. Meanwhile, the Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment (MOXIE) technology demonstration aims to produce oxygen from Mars carbon dioxide atmosphere, demonstrating a way future explorers might produce oxygen for rocket propellant as well as for breathing.

7. You will get to ride along.

The Perseverance rover and other parts of the Mars 2020 spacecraft feature 23 cameras more cameras than any interplanetary mission in history. Theyll help engineers put together a high-definition view of the landing process after the rover safely touches down on Mars on February 18, 2021, and theyll deliver images of the landscape and scientific specimens in breathtaking detail. And as with previous Mars missions, this one plans to make raw and processed images available on the missions website.

Perseverance also carries three silicon chips with the names of nearly 11 million people who signed up to ride with the mission.

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NASAs Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover Will Launch in Less Than a Month 7 Things to Know - SciTechDaily

Theres more trouble on Mars for NASAs InSight lander, which has been fighting a battle to free its stuck heat probe (or mole) for more than a year.

The mole has been making progress recently, thanks to the use of the landers arm to push down on its back cap and embed it in the soil. However, NASA scientists now arent sure if it will be able to dig deep enough to collect the data on temperatures that is needed.

The problem is that the mole needs to dig down at least 3 meters (almost 10 feet) into the soil. Normally, it uses friction from the soil to push itself deeper with its self-hammering action. But the soil where InSight has landed is different from what was expected, and turns out to be tightly packed. The mole needs loose soil to create friction which allows it to move, but the soil where it is located is cement-like, according to NASA, consisting of duricrust with grains that tend to stick to each other.

This means the self-hammering action isnt working as well as it should, and the mole may not be able to dig deep into the soil.

Tilman Spohn, the principal investigator for InSights HP3 instrument, explained more in a blog post: The team continues to be determined, although we appreciate that the task is not likely to become easier, he wrote. The team had prepared for the possibility that their current plan would not work, so now they need to swing InSights arm out of the way so they can investigate the hole with InSights cameras.

We will be interested to see how deep in the Mole really is (it should be a centimeter or so below the surface), whether the morphology of the pit has changed and whether the sand that we had seen in the pit is still there or whether the pit has been drained by the hammering action, he wrote.

Even with these problems, InSight will still keep working. It will continue to use its other instruments, such as its seismometer for detecting marsquakes, which can tell scientists more about the activity below the planets surface.

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NASAs InSight lander is still stuck in the Martian soil - Digital Trends

Every summer in the Northern Hemisphere, electric blue streaks form high in the atmosphere. These seasonal clouds typically lurk about 80 kilometers (50 miles) overhead in the mesosphere around the Arctic, but every once in a while they form at lower latitudes. In 2019, the clouds showed up in places where they were only rarely seen in the previous decade, including California, Colorado, and France. This year, the clouds are equally impressive.

Its another incredible year, said Lynn Harvey, an atmospheric scientist at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado. When noctilucent clouds extend to mid-latitudeswhere people live and notice them on a daily basiswe consider that a noteworthy season. This years clouds have been seen as far south as Joshua Tree, California.

Noctilucent clouds form when water vapor aggregates and freezes around specks of meteor dust floating in the mesosphere. These thin, wavy ice clouds reflect sunlight and usually shine bright blue and white. Known as night-shining clouds, they typically appear around dusk or dawn when the Sun is below the horizon at an angle that lights the clouds from below.

The image above shows a satellite view of noctilucent clouds on June 23, 2020. The image is centered on the North Pole and is stitched together from data acquired in several orbital passes by NASAs Aeronomy of Ice in the Mesosphere (AIM) spacecraft. AIMs Cloud Imaging and Particle Size (CIPS) instrument measures albedo, or the amount of light reflected back to space by the high-altitude clouds. The clouds appear in various shades of light blue to white, depending on the properties of the ice particles.

The video above shows noctilucent clouds on July 7, 2020, at around 3:30 a.m. approximately 30 minutes north of Calgary, Canada. After snapping photos of noctilucent clouds for nearly a decade, photographer Chris Ratzlaff noted that he has had more sightings in 2020 than in past years.

Harvey said this years atmospheric conditions have been outstanding for noctilucent cloud formation. The clouds largely need cold temperatures and high water vapor concentrationsboth of which have been present this summer and at record-breaking levels on some days at some latitudes.

The graphs below show daily average temperature and water vapor concentrations at 80N latitude for the past 14 years (2007-2020). The graphs are based on data from Microwave Limb Sounder on NASAs Aura satellite.

Note than on May 24, 2020, the mesosphere dropped to its coldest temperature in 14 years of records; that cold persisted into June. The mesosphere was also wetter than normal at the beginning of May, then the water vapor was likely converted to water-ice as the cloud season ensued. However, water vapor concentrations at lower altitudes (where clouds are more sparse) indicated an extremely wet atmosphere.

Harvey said the extra moisture and colder-than-normal temperatures can be traced to a few factors. First, the Sun is in a period of lower activity known as a solar minimum, so there is less ultraviolet radiation breaking up water molecules at high altitudes. Second, the mesosphere may be wetter due to air rising from lower layers of the atmosphere and carrying more moisture into the region.

We do not yet understand whether the cold and wet conditions this year and last are due to solar influences or atmospheric circulation patterns, said Harvey.

NASA Earth Observatory images by Joshua Stevens, using data from the University of Colorado Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics and analysis courtesy of the MLS team and V. Lynn Harvey/CU/LASP. Video courtesy of Chris Ratzlaff/Alberta Aurora Chasers. Story by Kasha Patel.

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Another Lively Season of Night-Shining Clouds - nasa.gov