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The costliest rocks within the universe
In September 2021, NASA’s Perseverance rover began accumulating samples of Mars rocks and leaving them at totally different places on the Purple Planet’s floor, the plan being {that a} future spacecraft would accumulate the samples and return them to Earth.
Nonetheless, NASA’s Mars Pattern Return mission has been in jeopardy ever since a September 2023 evaluation decided that its schedule and funds had been unrealistic: as a substitute of the anticipated $5.3 billion, the mission was more likely to value as much as $11 billion and nonetheless be delayed previous the 2027-’28 goal.
On April 15, NASA introduced that it’s looking for revolutionary concepts, from each inside NASA and out of doors firms, for redesigning this system to scale back value and speed up the schedule.
“Mars Pattern Return might be some of the complicated missions NASA has ever undertaken,” mentioned NASA Administrator Invoice Nelson. “The underside line is an $11 billion funds is just too costly, and a 2040 return date is just too distant … We have to look outdoors the field to discover a means forward that’s each reasonably priced and returns samples in an inexpensive timeframe.”
An idea picture of spacecraft concerned within the Mars Pattern Return mission
Dragonfly is a go
Saturn’s moon Titan is among the most exceptional locations in our photo voltaic system. Not solely is it the one moon we all know of with a considerable ambiance, it’s additionally the one place in addition to Earth with liquid lakes, rivers, and seas on its floor.
At present, these our bodies are product of hydrocarbons, like methane, however there’s proof that Titan as soon as had liquid water on its floor, and it presently has an ocean of water beneath a water ice crust.
On April 16, NASA confirmed a mission to ship a rotorcraft, known as Dragonfly, to Titan in July 2028. After reaching its vacation spot in 2034, Dragonfly will go to dozens of places, finding out the moon’s chemistry.
As a result of scientists imagine the type of chemistry occurring on Titan proper now might be just like what was occurring on Earth when life first developed right here, the mission has the potential to assist clarify the origin of life as we all know it.
An idea picture of Dragonfly hovering throughout Titan
Voyager is again on-line
In 2012, NASA’s Voyager 1 turned the primary spacecraft to achieve interstellar house — the realm past our solar’s circle of affect — and for greater than a decade, it transmitted useful scientific knowledge from past the photo voltaic system again to Earth.
Then, in November 2023, it stopped — NASA may inform the spacecraft was nonetheless working and receiving its instructions, however the knowledge it was sending again to Earth stopped making sense.
By March, NASA engineers had decided that the problem with the garbled knowledge was one of many three computer systems onboard Voyager 1, and in April, they pinpointed the issue to a single chip that was concerned within the laptop’s reminiscence.
To handle the problem, NASA redirected knowledge to be saved in different places, and on April 20, they bought affirmation that their repair had labored: for the primary time in additional than 5 months, Voyager 1 despatched again a readable standing replace — which means its mission will proceed.
“Within the minutes main as much as after we had been going to see a sign, you could possibly have heard a pin drop within the room … When the time got here to get the sign, we may clearly see abruptly, increase, we had knowledge, and there have been tears and smiles and excessive fives,” Linda Spilker, Voyager mission undertaking scientist, instructed Ars Technica.
An idea picture of Voyager 1 in interstellar house
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