NASA Perseverance Rover will experience a violent seven-minute descent to Mars - SlashGear

One of the most challenging parts of putting any rover on the surface of Mars is the approximately seven-minute-long descent from orbit to the surface of the Red Planet. NASA is gearing up for the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover to land on Mars about 20 days from now. Currently, Perseverance has about 23.9 million miles left on its 292.5 million mile trip to Mars.

The spacecraft is closing on Mars at a rate of 1.6 miles per second. Once the spacecraft reaches the atmosphere of Mars, its seven-minute descent will begin. The spacecraft will experience extreme heat with temperatures equivalent to the surface of the sun.

It will decelerate rapidly using a parachute that will inflate while the spacecraft is traveling at supersonic speeds. Wrapping up the harrowing landing process will be the first ever autonomous guided landing on Mars. After the landing is successfully completed, Perseverance can prepare to begin studying the surface of Mars.

We mentioned earlier this morning that one of its significant experiments would be deploying the Ingenuity helicopter to see if air travel is possible on Mars. The main reason for Perseverance to cruise the surface of Mars is to search for signs of ancient life and collect samples that will one day be returned to earth for study.

Perseverance was constructed using collective knowledge gained from past missions to Mars. Its operations team hopes that it will expand the knowledge of Mars and solve mysteries about the possibility of ancient life on Mars. Jezero Crater is where Perseverance will be landing, a dry 28-mile basin home to a River Delta and ancient Lake filled with water in the distant past. Perseverance is scheduled to arrive at Mars on February 18.

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Next SpaceX commercial crew mission to launch in April - SpaceNews

WASHINGTON — The second operational SpaceX commercial crew mission to the International Space Station will now launch in mid-April, carrying astronauts from Europe, Japan and the United States.

NASA said Jan. 29 that it set a launch date of April 20 for the Crew-2 mission to the station. NASA astronauts Shane Kimbrough and Megan McArthur will be the commander and pilor, respectively, with Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Akihiko Hoshide and European Space Agency Thomas Pesquet on board as mission specialists.

The four will replace the Crew-1 astronauts who flew to the station in November on the first operational Crew Dragon mission. NASA astronauts Michael Hopkins, Victor Glover and Shannon Walker, and JAXA astronaut Soichi Noguchi, will return in that spacecraft in late April or early May, assuming Crew-2 launches on its current schedule.

NASA earlier announced a no-earlier-than launch date for Crew-2 of March 30. However, it delayed the mission to allow the uncrewed Orbital Flight Test 2 mission by Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner commercial crew vehicle to launch no earlier than March 25 for an approximately one-week mission. Both Starliner and Crew Dragon dock to one of two ports on the station, one of which is occupied by the Crew-1 Crew Dragon spacecraft.

The delay to April 20 also accommodates a Soyuz spacecraft, Soyuz MS-18, scheduled to launch around April 10. It will bring three Russian cosmonauts to the station, with Soyuz MS-17 returning to Earth a week later with Russian cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov and Sergey Kud-Sverchkov, and NASA astronaut Kate Rubins, on board.

“Around the mid-March timeframe we’ll really start to ramp up our preparations for doing some visiting vehicle operations,” Kenny Todd, deputy manager of the ISS program at NASA, said during a Jan. 22 briefing about an upcoming series of spacewalks at the station.

At the briefing he didn’t give a schedule for those missions. “We are still working with our Russian colleagues as well as the Commercial Crew Program to firm up the schedules for the Soyuz 64S and Crew-2 flights,” he said in a Jan. 27 statement to SpaceNews, using the NASA designation for Soyuz MS-18. “Both flights are currently targeting spring 2021, but specific launch dates have yet to be finalized.”

Two of the Crew-1 astronauts, Hopkins and Glover, performed the first in a series of spacewalks Jan. 27, working on the exterior of the Columbus module to support the Bartolomeo external payload platform and to install a new communications antenna there. A second spacewalk on Feb. 1 will complete the installation of a new battery for the station’s power system.

Another pair of spacewalks is tentatively planned for late February or early March, Todd said at the briefing. Those would take place after the arrival of a Cygnus cargo spacecraft currently scheduled for launch Feb. 20.

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SpaceX targets Monday launch of additional Starlink satellites, announces next crew mission - Fox News

SpaceX is gearing up for its next launch of Starlink satellites after its historic delivery last week, according to local reports.

The company is targeting a launch on Feb. 1 to deliver another load of Starlink satellites -- a delay from the initially-planned Sunday morning launch.

And while SpaceX continues to deliver satellites into orbit, NASA and SpaceX jointly announced that they will target an April 20 launch for another crew rotation mission to the International Space Station (ISS).

NASA ASTRONAUTS CONDUCT FIRST SPACEWALK OF 2021

The Monday liftoff is scheduled for 6:41 a.m. from the historic Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Pad 39A, according to FOX 35 Orlando.

The mission would see 60 additional satellites added to the network, following the 10 satellites launched on Jan. 24.

Saturday saw a test-fire of a Falcon 9 rocket, which would deliver the new satellites into orbit. A static test-fire is required before any launch, according to Click Orlando.

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The Starlink satellites are part of an ongoing mission to create a space-based broadband network that would be available worldwide.

SpaceX was set to test-launch a stainless steel Starship SN9 prototype, but the company failed to attain the appropriate FAA approval, Space.com reported. 

SpaceX continues to follow an aggressive timeline at the direction of the company’s founder and CEO, Elon Musk.

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NASA decides to redo SLS Green Run Static Fire - NASASpaceFlight.com - NASASpaceflight.com

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NASA Astronauts Just Shared The Coolest Pics Of The Aurora From The POV Of Space (PHOTOS) - Narcity USA

NASA astronauts just shared the coolest pictures of the aurora from their point of view at the International Space Station and they are out-of-this-world.

Dozens of amazing angles of the aurora australis, or "southern lights," hovering over the Earth were posted to an official NASA Flickr — we'll let the photos speak for themselves. 

Editor's Choice: 12 Bottles Of Wine Are Headed Back To Earth After Spending A Year In Space

The astronauts at the Space Station have the most incredible view and they're giving us an inside look.

NASA Johnson | Flickr

They can see everything from billions of stars to cities across the world. 

NASA Johnson | Flickr

The colorful phenomenon makes the Earth looks like it's glowing!

NASA Johnson | Flickr

Trails of rainbow colors dance across the atmosphere. 

NASA Johnson | Flickr

The pics look like something out of a space movie, but unbelievably, it's real. 

NASA Johnson | Flickr

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Live coverage: SpaceX planning Falcon 9 static fire today – Spaceflight Now - Spaceflight Now

Live coverage of the countdown and launch of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The mission will launch SpaceX’s 18th batch of approximately 60 Starlink broadband satellites. Text updates will appear automatically below. Follow us on Twitter.

Credit: Spaceflight Now

Spaceflight Now Members can watch a live view of the Falcon 9 rocket on pad 39A. SpaceX’s live webcast will be available on this page for everyone beginning around 15 minutes before launch.

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Meet the People Who Paid $55 Million Each to Fly to the International Space Station - Travel+Leisure

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Meet the People Who Paid $55 Million Each to Fly to the International Space Station

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