Verge Science is here to bring you the most up-to-date space news and analysis, whether it’s about the latest findings from NASA or comprehensive coverage of the next SpaceX rocket launch to the International Space Station. We’ll take you inside the discoveries of new exoplanets, space weather, space policy, and the booming commercial space industry.
After a stressful few minutes of waiting beyond the estimated 6:24PM ET touchdown, the mission director said, “...we can confirm, without a doubt, our equipment is on the surface of the Moon, and we are transmitting.”
The flight on April 8th has been adjusted for the next total solar eclipse to spend as much time as possible within the path of totality — the duration in which the Moon completely blocks out the sun.
Delta flight 1218 will be specifically operated on an A220-300, which will offer especially premium viewing due to the aircraft’s extra-large windows. The flight will depart from Austin at 12:15 p.m. CT and land in Detroit at 4:20 p.m. ET — timed to give those on board the best chance of safely viewing the solar eclipse at its peak.
Roundtrip tickets are currently priced at $1,357 in the main cabin, which is more than double the usual fare. Still, that might be worth it since according to NASA it’ll be the last total eclipse visible from North America until 2044.
Intuitive Machines’ Odysseus lunar lander snapped a few selfies with ol’ Mother Earth yesterday while on its way to the Moon.
There are a few more high-res pictures over at Intuitive Machines’ website. If Odysseus succeeds in its mission, it will be the first successful US-launched Moon landing in over 50 years.
NASA engineers told Space that “effectively, the call between the spacecraft and the Earth was still connected” after its transmissions stopped making sense last year, “but Voyager’s ‘voice’ was replaced with a monotonous dial tone.”
The scientists are reportedly holding out hope they can fix it, but if they aren’t able to, that would leave Voyager 2 as humanity’s only still-communicating spacecraft in interstellar space.
After the sample was returned last year and NASA scientists went through some tribulation to break into the canister containing it, they say they gathered 121.6 grams of asteroid bits from Bennu.
NASA had hoped to gather at least 60 grams of material from the asteroid when its OSIRIS-REx mission craft punched its surface in 2020.
Attention President Skroob, Moon Phases — an art project from the maker of shiny balloon animals, comprised of 125 miniature Moon sculptures within a transparent cube — is headed to the Moon as a payload aboard Intuitive Machines Nova-C “Odysseus” lander, which was launched by SpaceX this morning.
The lunar surface will become the new home immortalizing Koons’ piece if Odysseus successfully lands on February 22nd.
[T]he Starlink team identified a common issue in this small population of satellites that could increase the probability of failure in the future. The satellites will follow a safe, circular, and controlled lowering operation that should take approximately six months for most of the vehicles.
It’s a small fraction of the 5,828 Starlink sats in orbit, and SpaceX says it’s deorbited 406 sats previously. Unusual to decommission so many at once, though.
NASA released some captivating shots of Io, one of Jupiter’s four Galilean moons, from the Juno space probe. The spacecraft came within 930 miles of the moon’s surface on Saturday.
Io has roughly 400 active volcanoes and is the most volcanically active known body in the solar system. Scientific American noted that the volcanoes look like “dark pits” in the new images.
NASA’s Mars helicopter-that-could logged 67 more flights than the five it was originally intended to make in its almost three years on Mars before its little chopper blades gave out.
Gizmodo pointed to this lonesome digital zoom of the copter, resting on a sand dune on the red planet, created by visual design student Simeon Schmauß from a panorama he made from set of six NASA images (NASA later posted one of its own).
So long, Ingenuity. You did great, buddy.
The California Civil Rights Department is investigating complaints by seven workers that SpaceX execs “discriminated against women, joked about sexual harassment and fired workers for raising concerns,” reports Bloomberg and Reuters.
The same agency is also suing Tesla over charges of operating a “racially segregated workplace.”
In the SpaceX complaints, employees cite a pattern of discrimination, as well as inappropriate tweets by Musk that they said they couldn’t easily avoid because he uses the platform for important company announcements.
Not very, according to The Wall Street Journal’s examination, published last night.
It’s not just that some members have earned, for example, “hundreds of millions of dollars” — far more than typical board member compensation, the Journal says.
It’s that reportedly, some members are heavily invested in Musk’s and each other’s companies, and regularly do drugs with him “because they think refraining could upset the billionaire, who has made them a lot of money.”
NASA started its livestream at 11:30AM ET as its Juno spacecraft began flying by the volcanic moon. During the livestream, NASA has been answering viewer questions about the mission.
Sadly, it’s ending as I type this, but you can rewatch it here.
This picture from Japan’s space agency, JAXA, showing the “Moon Sniper” lander upside-down was snapped by one of the small robots it ejected just as it landed.
Unfortunate as the lander’s resting position is, JAXA pointed out separately that this meant its tiny, transforming robotic ball worked. It also says it still hopes the lander can be salvaged as the sun’s angle changes.
The US space agency published the below images (presented in a gallery) showing its appearance on the Moon, as seen by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter from roughly 50 miles above the surface on January 24th.
The Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) made Japan the fifth nation to make a soft landing on the Moon, although an unfortunate malfunction rendered it without power in a matter of hours.
That’s right, Trader Joe’s also thinks the National Labor Relations Board is unconstitutional, just like Musk’s SpaceX. I’m sure this has nothing whatsoever to do with the case the NLRB is bringing against the grocer, and is just a fun coincidence.
The Ingenuity helicopter mission achieved powered flight on another world, brought Zigbee and Linux to Mars, and survived close calls, lasting 33 times longer than originally planned.
But on Thursday, NASA officials said that after a loss of communication and rough landing last week its rotor blades are too damaged to fly again. The Perseverance rover that brought it to Mars is too far away to get a picture, but this picture shows the shadow of a broken blade on the Mars terrain.
Dark energy, a force responsible for the expansion of the universe, is mostly unknown. But this month, researchers released a new survey meant to unpack its mysteries.
In 2004, NASA’s solar-powered Spirit and Opportunity rovers landed on the Red Planet’s surface on January 3rd and January 24th, respectively, with their touchdown softened by multiple bounces on giant airbags. Both rovers easily surpassed their three-month lifespan: Spirit lost contact in 2010, while Opportunity made it to 2019 — traveling 28 miles during its almost 15 years in operation.
Here’s NASA’s tribute to those very ambitious missions.
AST SpaceMobile, which is building the first space-based cellular network, recently secured new investments from some familiar names: AT&T, Google, and Vodafone.
Adding up to $306.5 million, that’s a hefty vote of confidence in the company’s approach, which would harness a fleet of low-orbit satellites to make direct connections to smartphones — no special equipment required. Who knows? Space 5G could be coming to Android phones sooner than later.
The failure of recent missions highlights the challenges of relying on private entities to spearhead the US’s lunar ambitions.
The agency was finally able to take a picture of the charcoal-like space gravel of the Bennu asteroid sample after getting the canister’s last two stubborn screws out.
The picture presented here is nowhere near as interesting as the detailed and very zoomable full-res download you can grab from NASA’s site, though.
The country’s Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) used vision-based navigation (hence its nickname) to help it land on Friday. Ars Technica has a detailed explanation for how this all worked, while a translated video published on The Independent’s YouTube channel offers insight, as well.
Unfortunately, the craft’s solar panels malfunctioned, leaving it with only hours of battery left. A disappointing facet of the story. In the meantime, please enjoy this perfectly 80s arcade-style logo from Moon Sniper’s press materials (PDF).
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) says it reestablished contact by having the Perseverance rover “perform long-duration listening sessions for Ingenuity’s signal.” The agency had lost contact with Ingenuity on Thursday, just as it was ending its 72nd Mars flight.
It’s good news for the bots, which are part of the Mars Sample Return mission that’s been beset by budget cuts and layoffs at JPL.
The Ingenuity helicopter, which has been fluttering around the red planet for almost three years now, fell out of contact with Perseverance, the rover that brought it to the planet (and that it communicates with using Zigbee!).
NASA wrote yesterday that the flight, its 72nd, was a test of its systems after it was forced to land it early during its previous flight. The agency is working toward reestablishing contact.
While we wait, here’s a recent video of the helicopter in action.
Japan’s space agency JAXA is attempting a soft landing of its Moon Sniper mission. After alighting, the lander will eject SORA-Q, a transforming robot roughly the size of a baseball that was made with the help of toy company Takara Tomy.
But don’t get too attached —the robot’s battery life is only two hours.
Watch JAXA’s livestream, which is scheduled to start at 9AM ET on Friday. The landing is estimated to occur at 10:20AM ET.
The satellite internet company has announced a new program that lets internet service providers deliver symmetrical download and upload speeds of up to 10Gbps to remote areas.
One remote town in Alaska is already using the gateway to provide connectivity across the community — the only catch is that it costs ISPs $1.25 million upfront on top of a $75,000 / Gbps per month fee.
It makes sense that a new deal will see the company outfitting new and existing hardware with Starlink. That should allow people who live in the middle of nowhere to better take advantage of the high-tech tools John Deere has been packing inside recently. Because right now the rural internet situation is hellish.
As for cost, John Deere hasn’t settled on a price for the new connectivity option, but it does plan to generate 10-percent of its annual revenue from software service fees by 2030.
Astrobotic, the company that makes the lander, published an update Friday saying the lander had traversed 238,000 miles, putting it as far from the Earth as our Moon.
Peregrine’s post-launch propulsion malfunction means it’s not actually on the lunar surface as planned. Astrobotic wrote yesterday that the lander was “about 242,000 miles” out, and should return to “likely burn up in the Earth’s atmosphere.”
After its successful OSIRIS-REx mission to set an unmanned craft down on and retrieve a sample from the Bennu asteroid, two stubborn screws kept NASA’s scientists out of the canister. Now the screws are out, and there’s video to prove it.
The US space agency says it will release a catalog of the sample to scientists this spring.
Its maker, Astrobotic, said in an update today that it’s lost too much propellant to make it to the Moon because of a malfunction with its propulsion system that occurred after it separated from its launch vehicle.
The company says it can still operate the craft and will gather data for its next attempt with its Griffin lander.
[Astrobotic]
