Mars News, Science, Technology at MarsDaily.com

August 19, 2014

Curiosity Mars Rover Prepares for Fourth Rock Drilling
Pasadena CA (JPL) Aug 18, 2014
The team operating NASA's Curiosity Mars rover has chosen a rock that looks like a pale paving stone as the mission's fourth drilling target, if it passes engineers' evaluation. They call it "Bonanza King." It is not at the "Pahrump Hills" site the team anticipated the rover might reach by mid-August. Unexpected challenges while driving in sand prompted the mission to reverse course last week after entering a valley where ripples of sand fill the floor and extend onto sloping margins. However, the ... read more

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Tall Boulder Rolls Down Martian Hill, Lands Upright A track about one-third of a mile (500 meters) long on Mars shows where an irregularly shaped boulder careened downhill to its current upright position, seen in a July 3, 2014, image from the High R ... more		Colliding Atmospheres: Mars vs Comet Siding Spring On October 19, 2014, Comet Siding Spring will pass by Mars only 132,000 km away--which would be like a comet passing about 1/3 of the distance between Earth and the Moon. The nucleus of the comet wo ... more		Opportunity Heads to 'Marathon Valley' Opportunity is moving south along the west rim of Endeavour Crater heading towards 'Marathon Valley,' a notch observed from orbit to have an abundant clay mineral signature. On Sol 3739 (July ... more
				Dawn navigates mini-asteroid belt Patient and persistent, silent and alone, Dawn is continuing its extraordinary extraterrestrial expedition. Flying through the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, the spacecraft is using it ... more		Robotic Rock Climbers Could Uncover Clues to Mars' Past A robot that can scale the faces of steep cliffs might one day help explore Mars and find signs of life. The latest experiments with this "Cliffbot" showed it could help examine places otherwise dif ... more

CubeSats, SmallSats and MicroSats

Startup in the Land of the Rising Sun; A Japanese Solar Venture - by Bradley L. Bartz

Tempur-Pedic Mattress Comparison & Memory Foam Mattress Review

NASA Upgrades Its 3-D Spacecraft App A new-and-improved version of NASA's Spacecraft 3D app for mobile devices is launching to coincide with the second anniversary of the Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity rover's landing on Mars. In ad ... more		NASA Mars Curiosity Rover: Two Years and Counting on Red Planet NASA's most advanced roving laboratory on Mars celebrates its second anniversary since landing inside the Red Planet's Gale Crater on Aug. 5, 2012, PDT (Aug. 6, 2012, EDT). During its first ye ... more		Terran Orbital to build satellite buses for SDA Tranche 3 Tracking Layer AST BlueBird 6 enters orbit as record low Earth orbit cellular array North Korea's Kim touts new rocket launchers that could target South		Orbiter Completes Maneuver to Prepare for Comet Flyby NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft has successfully adjusted the timing of its orbit around Mars as a defensive precaution for a comet's close flyby of Mars on Oct. 19, 2014. The orbiter fired thr ... more
				Russia To Construct Landing Pad For ExoMars Mission Russia will create a landing deck and provide a range of unique scientific equipment for a new Russian-European Mars mission known as ExoMars, Daniel Rodionov, a Russian scientific supervisor for th ... more		BIOMEX: Exploring Mars in Low Earth Orbit In their quest to understand life's potential beyond Earth, astrobiologists study how organisms might survive in numerous environments, from the surface of Mars to the ice-covered oceans of Jupiter' ... more

NASA Mars Rover Curiosity Nears Mountain-Base Outcrop As it approaches the second anniversary of its landing on Mars, NASA's Curiosity rover is also approaching its first close look at bedrock that is part of Mount Sharp, the layered mountain in the mi ... more		NASA Mars Curiosity Rover: Two Years and Counting on Red Planet NASA's most advanced roving laboratory on Mars celebrates its second anniversary since landing inside the Red Planet's Gale Crater on Aug. 5, 2012, PDT (Aug. 6, 2012, EDT). During its first year of ... more		OPERA satellite data sharpens US crop and water management Neural network sharpens satellite ocean color in complex coastal waters Deep Arctic gas hydrate mounds host ultra deep cold seep ecosystem		Absence of Russia Instrument On NASA Mars Rover Not Political The absence of a Russian scientific instrument on board NASA's new Mars rover, scheduled for launch in 2020, should not be linked to political reasons; the instrument simply did not pass the competi ... more
NASA Announces Mars 2020 Rover Payload to Explore the Red Planet as Never Before The next rover NASA will send to Mars in 2020 will carry seven carefully-selected instruments to conduct unprecedented science and exploration technology investigations on the Red Planet. NASA ... more		Los Alamos Laser Selected for 2020 Mars Mission NASA has announced that laser technology originally developed at Los Alamos National Laboratory has been selected for its new Mars mission in 2020. "We are extremely excited to be going to Mar ... more		Mars 2020 rover will carry tools to make oxygen The suite of space-age tools loaded on NASA's next robotic vehicle, bound for the Red Planet in 2020, will include a device for making oxygen out of carbon dioxide. ... more		NASA's Mars Spacecraft Maneuvers to Prepare for Close Comet Flyby NASA is taking steps to protect its Mars orbiters, while preserving opportunities to gather valuable scientific data, as Comet C/2013 A1 Siding Spring heads toward a close flyby of Mars on Oct. 19. ... more

	NASA Long-Lived Mars Opportunity Rover Passes 25 Miles of Driving NASA's Opportunity Mars rover, which landed on the Red Planet in 2004, now holds the off-Earth roving distance record after accruing 25 miles (40 kilometers) of driving. The previous record was held ... more		NASA Seeks Proposals for Commercial Mars Data Relay Satellites NASA has issued a Request for Information (RFI) to investigate the possibility of using commercial Mars-orbiting satellites to provide telecommunications capabilities for future robotic missions to ... more

NASA and Boeing advance control strategies for flexible long span airliner wings

PCBM additive strategy lifts efficiency and durability of inverted perovskite solar cells

Project Pele microreactor reaches key milestone with first TRISO fuel delivery

Emirates paves way for Middle East space program with mission to Mars		NASA's Mars orbiters to witness comet flyby		Transiting Exoplanet with Longest Known Year		NASA's Next Giant Leap		Curiosity's images show Earth-like soils on Mars
India could return to Mars as early as 2017		NASA Rover's Images Show Laser Flash on Martian Rock		Scientists release most thorough map yet of Mars		ASU, USGS project yields sharpest map of Mars' surface properties		Computing Paths to Asteroids Helps Find Future Exploration Opportunities

UAE to create space agency, send unmanned probe to Mars

Curiosity Finds Iron Meteorite on Mars

'Dry Ice' Cause of Gullies on Mars

Further Evidence of Dry Ice Gullies on Mars

NASA Mars Orbiter Views Rover Crossing Into New Zone

Forces of Martian Nature

NASA Spacecraft Observes Further Evidence of Dry Ice Gullies on Mars

Rover Uses Arm to Study Several Rocks and Takes Panoramic Images

Deep in the main asteroid belt

ADS complete heat shields for 2016 ExoMars mission

Martian salts must touch ice to make liquid water

Dropship offers safe landings for Mars rovers

ATK Provides Propulsion, Structure for Test of New Technologies to Land Larger Payloads on Mars

First LDSD Test Flight a Success

Rover Has Enough Energy for Some Late-Night Work

New Type of Dust in Martian Atmosphere Discovered

Curiosity travels through ancient glaciers on Mars

NASA plans to colonize Mars

China plans to land rover on Mars by 2020

Computing Paths to Asteroids Helps Find Future Exploration Opportunities

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