Mars helicopter Ingenuity aborted latest flight attempt because of anomaly | Chinese satellite declared lost following back-to-back launches | Astronaut snaps stunning photos of massive Hurricane Sam from space
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NASA's Mars helicopter Ingenuity didn't get off the ground as planned earlier this month. Ingenuity was scheduled to make its 14th Red Planet sortie on Sept. 18, a relatively short and simple hop that would have demonstrated the little chopper's ability to fly with slightly higher rotor speeds — 2,700 revolutions per minute (RPM) rather than the usual 2,537 RPM.
China has confirmed the loss of its Shiyan-10 satellite, despite an otherwise successful liftoff on Monday (Sept. 27). The Shiyan-10 satellite launched to space on a Long March 3B rocket, which lifted off from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in southwest China on Monday (Sept. 27). It was China's second orbital launch of the day, following the Jilin-1 Gaofen 02D satellite, which was carried by a Kuaizhou-1A rocket that lifted off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China. That spacecraft is reported to have entered orbit successfully.
NASA astronaut Megan McArthur shared three photos of the massive Hurricane Sam as seen from the International Space Station, showing off the storm's vast clouds and distinct eye. Fortunately, Hurricane Sam is chugging over the Atlantic Ocean without posing much of a threat to folks on land. Nevertheless, the duties of astronauts living and working in orbit regularly include photographing Earth from space, and there Sam is.
On October 5, an unusual crew will fly to the International Space Station. Director Klim Shipenko and actor Yulia Peresild will spend a week and a half on the station shooting scenes for the Russian movie Challenge. Peresild plays a surgeon who must conduct a heart operation on a sick cosmonaut. This is an exciting — if controversial — development for the station, which orbits around 250 miles (400 kilometers) above Earth. Commercial use of its facilities could be a funding avenue to keep it in orbit. A Japanese documentary and an American movie starring Tom Cruise are also in the works.
Catastrophic floods from overflowing lakes on early Mars may have carved out many of the Red Planet's valleys, a new study finds. Although Mars is now cold and dry, decades of evidence suggest it was once covered with rivers, streams, ponds, lakes and perhaps even seas and oceans. One set of marks all that water left behind come in the form of a network of valleys etched across the Red Planet. Previous research suggested that flowing water carved the network during an era that mostly ended about 3.5 billion to 3.7 billion years ago, and the new study offers another perspective on this time.
SpaceX founder Elon Musk isn't impressed by his rival Jeff Bezos' legal approach to a moon shot. Musk was asked about the situation on Tuesday (Sept. 28) at Vox Media's annual Code Conference. "You cannot sue your way to the moon, OK?" Musk said. "No matter how good your lawyers are."
Newly released footage shows a spectacular fireball blazing at 32,000 mph (51,500 kph) across the skies above North Carolina on Friday evening (Sept. 24), the American Meteor Society (AMS) reported. More than 80 people spotted the fireball, which NASA said was just one of five such meteors reported soaring over the United States that evening. The fiery meteor "skimmed the coast of North Carolina, becoming visible 48 miles [77 kilometers] above the ocean off Camp Lejeune," at around 7:40 p.m. ET, NASA said.
