NASA can’t be certain that these organic compounds are the footprint of life existing in Mars’ pre-history, It’s important to note that with only the tools on board the Rover. This is the endurance race in space. In a press release issued on September 15th, NASA stated that the discovery was made in a section of the crater thought to be an ancient river Delta, a one meter wide rock formation known as Wildcat Ridge. Four samples were drilled from nearby rocks, and the Rover’s findings confirmed NASA’s suspicions that this Delta would harbor organic matter and possible signs of ancient life persistence. The Rover used its scanning habitable environments with Ramen and luminescence for Organics and chemicals or Sherlock device to assess the samples mounted on the Rover’s arm. Sherlock analyzes samples with spectrometers, cameras, and a laser, and the samples from Wildcat Ridge were full of organic compounds and sulfuric minerals known as sulfates.
Organic compounds can form as a result of geological activity, and while they can definitely result in living organisms, we can’t be certain One of the first locations the Rover explored after landing in 2021 was a location named SATA after the Navajo word for amidst the sand the Rocks there seemed to be igneous rocks formed by magma but even better these rocks showed signs of rapid cooling possibly even the presence of water this more or less confirms NASA’s belief that Aero crater was likely formed by an asteroid impact and then flooded over time to create a lake sometime around three and half billion years ago Wildcat Ridge was chosen as a perseverance target primarily because of its location in the river Delta Delta are where a lot of sediment ends up being deposited as water runs from smaller Rivers into wider Lakes meaning any geological formations here had a much better chance of being the type of Muddy sedimentary rock that usually holds fossils and other organic matter here on Earth more specifically though the locations surrounding the ridge the Delta front is a 40 meter h NASA describes the area as a cross-section allowing easy access to an array of time periods written in the rock, and perseverance isn’t stopping there.
The original plan was to take the Rover further up the Delta, and with the new findings NASA is going to stick to that plan for the next year or so. NASA’s robot surveyor will gather a collection of samples up and down the ancient river mouth, and the team is hoping to gain a robust array of different cores not just to t The Moon to Mars exploration approach is NASA’s procedure for sharpening their skills for a new era of exploration in our larger solar system perseverance is doing everything it can to cover as many fields of study as possible because it is important to this new era of NASA exploration NASA’s new Moon-to-Mars approach, which includes Artemis, is intended to prepare us for human exploration and habitation of these two bodies and possibly more. It’s exciting that perseverance discovered a treasure Trove of organic material, but what’s even more exciting is that this Rover is working it’s doing what it was designed to do almost perfectly that’s not just good news for NASA that’s good news for all of us though especially NASA they could definitely use a wand When you see video from inside the new Shepard capsule, there’s that round thing in the middle that almost looks like a table that’s the top of the abort motor. The Federal Aviation Administration, which oversees licensing and investigations into rocket mishaps, immediately jumped into action.
The FAA quickly confirmed that the capsule touched down safely inside the hazard Zone and that, while no one was injured, the new Shepherd would be grounded until the cause of the anomaly was discovered. For their part, Blue Origin and their supporters were quick to point out that the launch abort systems worked flawlessly. Representatives Don Beyer and Brian Babin expressed their concern in this case because the new Shepherd is a crew-rated vehicle that has previously carried humans. They wrote that on a different day with a different Mission, this vehicle’s anomaly could have put human lives in danger, and that is not an exaggeration. The overwhelming consensus of the space flight industry is that safety cannot be taken lightly. More rockets that fail and or explode do so during their development cycle when they pose the least risk to the lives of crew and technicians. Having an operational vehicle that has flown 31 people to date suddenly failing explosively like this is bound to shake confidence. The abort system working isn’t exactly comforting either; it is designed to save lives and would have done so in the event of a failure. Falling Free Back to Earth, with no idea what just happened or what will happen next, and possibly a few broken bones.
I wonder if you get your $100 million back after that. It’s too early for the FAA or Blue Origin to know exactly what caused the problem. New Shepard is a reusable system, and this particular booster was on its ninth launch, so perhaps the problem lies there. Regardless, it’s going to take some time and engineering hours to get new Shepard up and running again. NASA’s Capstone Scout satellite is tumbling through space on its way to the moon, and NASA isn’t sure they can stop it yet. On September 8th, the microwave-sized satellite was scheduled for a course correction to adjust for the eventual insertion into the planned near rectilinear Halo orbit around the moon, the precise and sustainable orbit that the Capstone Mission was designed for, but something went wrong at the tail end of the maneuver, fortunately the satellite was still on cours Capstone has a reaction system. Wheels are devices that spin to assist in controlling a vehicle’s orientation in zero g, but the tumble is so severe that the wheels weren’t helping and were still in use. For more than 24 hours, the company in charge of the mission advanced space did not know. Capstone is on a super efficient course to the moon, but it takes it into deep space for a little while. Communication is already a little spotty out that far, and adding a tumble to that meant that communications went down. The only reason Advanced Space knew anything was wrong after the burn was that the satellite hadn’t checked back in. Fortunately, Capstone was built to use NASA’s deep space network using the satellite’s low gain. The ground team’s only mode of communication right now is through antennas, and the news isn’t good.
Capstone’s attempts to stop the tumble on its own haven’t been successful, but they’ve also used up a lot of power, and the main computer was all having problems. The ground team repeatedly reset the satellite into safe mode, but between the reaction wheels, the computer resets, and the tumble keeping the Capstone solar panels out of the Sun, the satellite does not have much juice left. Fortunately, the Advanced Space team has performed a d tumble Mission with Capstone before in July after separating from the rocket lab provided upper stage, the team successfully performed a small detunle maneuver, so for now the ground team is preparing to perform. Before making the attempt, Advanced Space stated that they will work to improve the thermal situation of several subsystems and re-evaluate the satellite’s capabilities. Capstone is the first vehicle to attempt this type of orbital insertion around the moon, and its success is critical to future Artemis missions that plan to follow in its footsteps. If Advanced Space can’t get Capstone into position for its capture burn in November, NASA’s Gateway project may have to proceed without their Scout.
