Space Stories: A New Player in the Race for Mars, Swarming Exoplanet Seekers, and a Over-sized Pink Exoplanet

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): Martian dunes at Endurance Crater as viewed by NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity. (NASA/JPL/Cornell)

Here are some recent space-related stories.

—Techcrunch: “NASA Picks Eric Schmidt’s Rocket Company for Mars Mission, Setting Up a Race with SpaceX“

Relativity Space — a rocket maker acquired by former Google executive chair Eric Schmidt last year after stumbling on the path to orbit — might just beat SpaceX to Mars. On Tuesday, NASA said it hired the company to build a spacecraft to house a suite of scientific instruments, launch it into space, and fly it to Mars. The structure of the contract is akin to the deals that NASA made with SpaceX to fly cargo to the International Space Station, or Firefly Aerospace to put a lander on the moon. The government agency handles the science, while the private company provides low-cost infrastructure.

—Universe Today: “Astronomers Want to Build a Swarm of Telescopes to Find LIFE“

Current plans for flagship telescopes in the 2040s are focused on answering a simple question – are we alone? Our best telescopes to date, such as the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) have only given us tantalizing glimpses into the atmospheres or other worlds, but not enough to truly determine whether or not life as we know it exists there. Astronomers have been waiting for technology to catch up to their dreams of what is possible in terms of new types of telescopes, and recently the W.M. Keck Institute for Space Studies released a report detailing the Large Interferometer For Exoplanets (LIFE) mission, which they hope will help provide a definitive answer to that simple question.

—BBC Sky at Night: “The Pink Planet is So Weird, Astronomers Struggle to Define It. And They’ve Just Found It’s Covered in Salty Clouds“

There’s a pink planet, just a stone’s throw from Earth, that astronomers have been trying to decipher for over a decade. Known as the Pink Planet or, officially, GJ504b, this strange world orbits a Sun-like star 57 lightyears from Earth. Astronomers aren’t even sure if it’s a planet at all. About 25 times the mass of Jupiter, it’s so massive it’s on the boundary between giant planets and brown dwarfs (a type of failed star). But observations with the James Webb Space Telescope have revealed direct evidence for something rather strange at the Pink Planet: salty clouds.

Note: Here is the podcast version of this post.

Space Quote: One Less Sentry Watching Mars

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): Artist’s rendering of the MAVEN spacecraft orbiting Mars. (NASA/Goddard/University of Colorado/Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics)

“The MAVEN mission has truly advanced our understanding of the Martian atmosphere and evolution. This dataset has had a tremendous impact on the field…Our science team is exceptionally proud of all of these amazing discoveries.”

–Comment by Shannon Curry, MAVEN’s principal investigator and a researcher at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado Boulder, regarding the official end of the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution’s (MAVEN) 11-year mission. NASA lost contact with the spacecraft last December. You can read more about MAVEN’s accomplishments over the years at this NASA site.

Pic of the Week: Crescent Mars

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): Mars as captured on May 15, 2026 by NASA’s Psyche mission as it approached the planet for a gravity assist. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU)

This week’s image comes from the Psyche spacecraft that is utilizing Martian gravity for its flight plan on its way to the asteroid Psyche in the asteroid belt. This image of a crescent Mars is one of many drive-by photos for both science and our enjoyment.

Here is more on this Martian part of the mission from NASA:

Because Psyche approached Mars from a high phase angle, the planet appeared as a thin crescent in the days running up to the close approach, lit by sunlight reflecting off its surface. In observations from the spacecraft’s multispectral imager, the crescent appeared brighter and extended farther around the planet’s disk than anticipated because of the strong scattering of sunlight through the planet’s dusty atmosphere. As Psyche passed from Mars’ nighttime skies to daytime, it took a rapid series of pictures of the surface around the time of closest approach.

“We’ve captured thousands of images of the approach to Mars and of the planet’s surface and atmosphere at close approach. This dataset provides unique and important opportunities for us to calibrate and characterize the performance of the cameras, as well as test the early versions of our image processing tools being developed for use at the asteroid Psyche,” said Jim Bell, the Psyche imager instrument lead at Arizona State University (ASU) in Tempe. “As the spacecraft continues its journey after the flyby, we’ll continue calibration imaging of Mars for the rest of the month as it recedes into the distance.”

Videos: Fungi Homes and More About Life On and Beyond Earth

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Credit: Aeon.co

If you need to stretch your mind, I recommend you check out some of the articles and videos available on the Aeon website. As the website states about its purpose:

We ask the big, existentially significant questions and find the freshest, most original answers, provided by leading thinkers on philosophy, science, psychology, society and culture.

One recently posted video with US astrobiologist Lynn Rothschild is a fascinating discussion about the difficulties in humans surviving on another planet or moon, and some of the problems and potential solutions that need to be considered. The video ends with a Q&A where Dr. Rothschild goes into a variety of related topics.

The talk itself comes from The Long Now Foundation, which has this statement about Dr. Rothschild’s talk titled “Nature’s Hardware Store”:

In her Long Now Talk, Dr. Rothschild will open the doors to “Nature’s hardware store” — a vast, largely untapped reservoir of biological strategies available to scientists, engineers, and innovators. Dr. Rothschild’s own work in recent years has included 3D-printing trees, designing fungal-based housing fit for the moon, and building synthetic cells de novo in the lab. In doing so, she has connected theoretical insights about the very nature of life on this planet with practical applications and future directions for innovation on the hardest problems facing our civilization.

The foundation has many other other great talks, including science fiction writer Kim Stanley Robinson and public policy expert Stephen Heintz talking about geopolitics here on Earth.

But getting back to Aeon, some other videos for you to explore include:

With the news seemingly on a doom loop these days, it is worth contemplating some new ideas, if only to give your mind a rest. For that reason, you need Aeon and The Long Now Foundation in your mental medicine cabinet.

Enjoy.

Space Stories: Martian Contract Questions, French Spacesuit Travels to ISS, and China Readies Next Space Station Mission

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): View of Mars from the NASA Mars Global Surveyor MOC wide angle cameras. (NASA)

Here are some recent space-related stories.

—Ars Technica: “One Mars Spacecraft, Two Senators, and a Cloud of Questions“

NASA released a much-anticipated contract solicitation for a Mars-orbiting spacecraft late last week, kicking off what is sure to be a hotly contested and potentially controversial procurement. At issue is $700 million, already appropriated by Congress, to build a spacecraft, launch it to Mars, and once there to serve as a vehicle to relay communications between the red planet and Earth. But the stakes may be even bigger than this, including the possible resurrection of the recently canceled Mars Sample Return mission. As part of the new solicitation, NASA says it will conduct the acquisition “as a full and open competition.” But will it? That’s the question that several people involved with this procurement process are asking. And it could turn messy, quickly.

—European Spaceflight: “French Spacesuit Prototype Delivered to the International Space Station“

A European intravehicular activity (IVA) spacesuit prototype developed under a CNES-initiated programme was transported to the International Space Station (ISS) aboard a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft. The spacesuit will be tested aboard the station by ESA astronaut Sophie Adenot. The EuroSuit project was initiated by CNES in December 2023 as part of the agency’s Spaceship FR programme, which aims to foster the development of core technologies required for future crewed missions beyond low Earth orbit.

—China Global Television Network: “China to Launch Shenzhou-23 Crewed Mission to Space Station in Coming Days“

The combination of the Shenzhou-23 crewed spacecraft and the Long March-2F Y23 carrier rocket was transferred to the launchpad at Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China on Saturday, according to the China Manned Space Agency. All facilities and equipment at the launch site are in good condition. Various pre-launch functional inspections and joint tests will be carried out as scheduled in the coming days. The launch is planned to take place in the coming days.

Update: Here is a podcast version of this story if you sometimes prefer to digest the news in this way. It is created by AI. To note, it’s not replacing anything or anyone. It’s simply offering an option if listening while driving is preferable to you. I do not use AI in the written articles. I will also start posting the latest podcasts in the sidebar.