| June 13, 2008 |  |
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Stripped of planet status, Pluto saves face
Paris (AFP) June 12, 2008Two years after Pluto was struck from the planetary A-list and downgraded to "dwarf-planet" status, the ninth rock from the Sun regained some dignity Thursday by lending its name to a new category of celestial bodies. In a revised taxonomy of the mainly lifeless objects circling the Sun, those fulfilling all the criteria of planets except one - the ability to "clear the neighborhood" around ... more NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander Delivers Soil Sample To Microscope 
Tucson AZ (SPX) Jun 13, 2008NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander sprinkled a spoonful of Martian soil Wednesday onto the sample wheel of the spacecraft's robotic microscope station, images received early Thursday confirmed. "It looks like a light dusting and that's just what we wanted. The Robotic Arm team did a great job," said Michael Hecht of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. He is the lead scientist for th ... more NASA Completes Review Milestone For Ares I First Stage 
Huntsville AL (SPX) Jun 13, 2008NASA has completed the preliminary design review for the first stage of the Ares I rocket -- giving overall approval for the agency's technical design approach. This review brings NASA one step closer to developing a new mode of space transportation for astronauts to explore the moon, Mars and beyond. "We have been working a very aggressive plan for over two years and making great progress ... more Phoenix Lander Has An Oven Full Of Martian Soil 
Tucson AZ (SPX) Jun 12, 2008NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander has filled its first oven with artian soil. "We have an oven full," Phoenix co-investigator Bill Boynton of the University of Arizona, Tucson, said. "It took 10 seconds to fill the oven. The ground moved." Boynton leads the Thermal and Evolved-Gas Analyzer instrument, or TEGA, for Phoenix. The instrument has eight separate tiny ovens to bake and sniff the soil to ... more Northwestern Testing Transistors For Radiation Resistance On Space Station 
Evanston IL (SPX) Jun 12, 2008Transistors based on a new kind of material created by Northwestern University researchers have been lifted into outer space on the space shuttle Endeavour and attached to the outside of the International Space Station for radiation testing. Such transistors could prove helpful on long space missions, such as NASA's current Phoenix Mars Mission, since early experiments on Earth indicate ... more |
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Sacramento CA (SPX) Jun 11, 2008Aerojet has shipped the rocket engines destined for use on NASA's Mars Science Laboratory (MSL). When MSL is launched in the fall of 2009 aboard the Atlas V, Aerojet will provide propulsion for every phase of the mission. The Atlas V will be configured with four Aerojet solid motors to provide an additional one million pounds of thrust to the launch vehicle. The Centaur upper stage will us ... more Making Sense Of Mars Methane 
Moffett Field CA (SPX) Jun 10, 2008In a quest to understand the source of methane detected in the atmosphere of Mars, NASA scientists are looking at methane bubbling from the ground at an outdoor salt factory on Mexico's Baja Peninsula. By measuring carbon isotopes in the Mexican methane, these scientists hope to help unravel the mystery of the martian methane. In particular, they want to know whether or not the martian met ... more NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander Testing Sprinkle Technique 
Tucson AZ (SPX) Jun 10, 2008Engineers operating the Robotic Arm on NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander are testing a revised method for delivering soil samples to laboratory instruments on Phoenix's deck now that researchers appreciate how clumpy the soil is at the landing site. "We're a little surprised at how much this material is clumping together when we dig into it," said Doug Ming a Phoenix science team member from NASA ... more Phoenix Sifts For Samples, Continues Imaging Landing Site 
Pasadena CA (JPL) Jun 10, 2008On Sunday, Sol 14 of NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander mission, mechanical shakers inside the Thermal and Evolved-Gas Analyzer will attempt to loosen clumped soils on the device's screens to allow material to fall into the oven for analysis later in the week. The commands for this shaking action were to be sent to the spacecraft late morning Sunday, Pacific Daylight Time, and results will be repo ... more |
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Tucson AZ (SPX) Jun 06, 2008A microscope on NASA's Mars Phoenix Lander has taken images of dust and sand particles with the greatest resolution ever returned from another planet. The mission's Optical Microscope observed particles that had fallen onto an exposed surface, revealing grains as small as one-tenth the diameter of a human hair. "We have images showing the diversity of mineralogy on Mars at a scale th ... more Simulations Predicted Mars Lander Would Hit Subsurface 
Ann Arbor MI (SPX) Jun 06, 2008University of Michigan simulations correctly predicted that the pulsed jets of the Mars Phoenix lander would strip the soil to the subsurface ice or rock as the craft touched down. Photos of the area beneath the craft on Friday revealed a hard surface that scientists say may be ice. It could also be rock, and researchers won't know until the Phoenix can dig into the dirt. But it's clear th ... more NASA chief backs proposal for European spaceship 
Paris (AFP) June 5, 2008NASA chief Mike Griffin on Thursday threw his weight behind calls for Europe to build its own manned spacecraft. The experience of the US shuttle, to be retired in 2010, highlighted the need for multiple systems to provide backup for the International Space Station (ISS), Griffin told reporters in Paris. Griffin praised a robot European freighter that carried out a maiden automatic docki ... more Third Scoop Is A Keeper For Phoenix Mars Lander
Tucson AZ (SPX) Jun 06, 2008Two practice rounds of digging and dumping the clumpy soil at the Martian arctic site this week gave scientists and engineers gathered at the University of Arizona confidence to begin using Phoenix's Robotic Arm to deliver soil samples to instruments on the lander deck. Those samples will not be collected before Thursday. Following Wednesday's briefing on the mission, the Phoenix tea ... more
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