Tag: NASA

NASA to Crash an Unmanned Craft Against an Asteroid as a Test

July 20, 2021
ExoNews Editor

Article by Vishnu V V July 5, 2021 (republicworld.com)

• NASA’S latest project – the ‘Double Asteroid Redirection Test’ (DART) – aims to conduct a ‘defensive test’ to change the motion pattern of an asteroid heading towards the Earth by the ‘kinetic impactor technique’. In other words, NASA will send an unmanned spacecraft crashing into an asteroid as a planetary defense.

• NASA plans to perform a live demonstration by launching a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with an accompanying smaller craft from the Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, and send it towards the near-Earth moonlet of the asteroid ‘Didymos’ millions of miles away. (The Didymos moonlet, or ‘Didymoon’, is a small asteroid that is gravitationally locked with a larger Didymos asteroid, similar to how our Moon is locked to the Earth.) The smaller craft will separate from the larger rocket, and the larger Falcon 9 space craft will crash against the smaller asteroid while the smaller craft takes live pictures of the event so that researchers and scientists at NASA may study how it would work in a real-life threat scenario.

• According to the NASA website: “The DART spacecraft will achieve the kinetic impact deflection by deliberately crashing itself into the moonlet at a speed of approximately 6.6 km/s, with the aid of an onboard camera (named DRACO) and sophisticated autonomous navigation software. The collision will change the speed of the moonlet in its orbit around the main body by a fraction of one per cent, but this will change the orbital period of the moonlet by several minutes – enough to be observed and measured using telescopes on Earth.”

• The highly futuristic project is currently in Phase C at the Marshall Space Flight Center at NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office. The launch window is scheduled for November 2021, and the SpaceX Falcon 9 is expected to collide against the moonlet asteroid in September 2022.

National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) latest project known as the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) aims to do an ultimate ‘defensive test’. According to NASA, the superlative project is set to demonstrate the kinetic impactor technique, which will change the motion pattern of an asteroid heading towards the Earth. The project aims to create an ultimate planetary defence by shifting the orbits of such asteroids in space.

The space organisation aims to change an incoming asteroid’s orbit through kinetic impact. NASA is now planning to perform a live demonstration, which will see the US space agency sending an unmanned spacecraft. The test will be done by launching the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket towards moonlet Didymos from the Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.

The unmanned spacecraft will then travel millions of miles entering space and in turn crash against the Didymos asteroid. The space agency will also be sending a small spacecraft that will separate from DART to take live pictures of the event. The pictures will be used to study the crash in real-time and understand how it would work in a real-life scenario. The ‘defence-driven test’ will be placed intact if successful to prevent any impact of hazardous asteroids on the planet in the future.

READ ENTIRE ARTICLE

FAIR USE NOTICE: This page contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. ExoNews.org distributes this material for the purpose of news reporting, educational research, comment and criticism, constituting Fair Use under 17 U.S.C § 107. Please contact the Editor at ExoNews with any copyright issue.

Successful Space Flight for Richard Branson and Virgin Galactic

July 17, 2021
ExoNews Editor

Article by William Harwood July 12, 2021 (spaceflightnow.com)

• On Sunday July 11th at 8:40 a.m. local time at the Virgin Galactic’s ‘Spaceport America’ launch site near Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, Virgin Galactic owner Richard Branson and five crewmates rocketed into space on a sub-orbital test flight intended to demonstrate his company’s air-launched spaceplane is ready for paying customers at $250,000 or more per seat, in early 2022.

• Virgin’s twin-fuselage carrier jet lifted away with the ‘VSS Unity’ rocket-powered spaceplane bolted under its wing. At about 45,000 feet the Virgin mothership, VMS Eve, disengaged the spaceplane. The Unity spaceplane then soared to an altitude just above 50 miles, giving Branson and crew about three minutes of weightlessness and spectacular views of Earth before plunging back into the atmosphere in a spiraling descent to touchdown again back at the New Mexico launch site.

• “I have dreamt of this moment since I was a kid but honestly, nothing could prepare you for the view of Earth from space,” Branson, 70, said after landing. “It was just magical. … I’m just taking it all in, it’s unreal.”

• The flight upstaged Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who plans a sub-orbital spaceflight of his own aboard Blue Origin’s New Shepard spacecraft on July 2th as the two companies compete for passengers in the emerging commercial space marketplace. Bezos complimented Branson and his team, posting a note on Instagram saying “congratulations on the flight. Can’t wait to join the club!”

• Joining Branson aboard Unity were pilots David Mackay and Michael Masucci, along with Virgin astronaut trainer Beth Moses, flight engineer Colin Bennett and Sirisha Bandla, the company’s vice president of government relations. Mackay and Masucci, both veterans of earlier test flights to space, ignited Unity’s hybrid rocket motor and piloted the spaceplane pitched up onto a near-vertical trajectory. Burning rubberized solid propellant with liquid nitrous oxide, Unity’s hybrid motor fired for about one minute, accelerating the craft to about three times the speed of sound before shutting down.

• As the spaceplane rose upward, Branson and company had a chance to briefly unstrap, float about the cabin and marvel at the spectacular view as Unity reached its maximum altitude of 53.5 miles — three-and-a-half miles above what NASA and the FAA consider the “boundary” of space where the atmosphere is so thin that wings, rudders and other aerodynamic surfaces no longer have any effect. Live video from inside the spacecraft showed Branson and his crewmates floating free of their seats and enjoying the sensation of weightlessness and the out-of-this-world view. (see 3:12 minute video below)

• “To all you kids down there, I was once a child with a dream looking up to the stars,” Branson said while his crewmates floated weighlessly in the background. “Now I’m an adult, in a spaceship with lots of other wonderful adults, looking down to our beautiful, beautiful Earth. To the next generation of dreamers: If we can do this, just imagine what you can do!”

• A few moments later, the spacecraft then began the long plunge back to Earth. The pilots guided the spaceplane through a spiraling descent, lined up on Spaceport America’s 12,000-foot-long runway and settled to a picture-perfect landing, closing out a flight that lasted 59 minutes from takeoff to touchdown.

• Sunday’s launch marked Unity’s 22nd test flight, its fourth trip to space, Virgin’s first with a six-person crew on board and the first for Branson, who beat Bezos into space by nine days. Branson effectively blindsided Bezos, scheduling Sunday’s flight just ahead of the Amazon founder’s, which had already been announced. But Branson insisted again Sunday that he doesn’t view the competition as a “race” for space. “I’ve said this so many times, it really wasn’t a race,” Branson said. “We’re just delighted that everything went so fantastically well. We wish Jeff the absolute best and the people who are going up with him during his flight.”

Virgin Galactic owner Richard Branson rocketed into space Sunday, an edge-of-the-

seat sub-orbital test flight intended to demonstrate his company’s air-launched spaceplane is ready for passengers who can afford the ultimate thrill ride.

And it appeared to do just that, zooming to an altitude just above 50 miles and giving Branson and his five crewmates about three minutes of weightlessness and spectacular views of Earth before plunging back into the atmosphere for a spiraling descent to touchdown at Virgin’s New Mexico launch site.

“I have dreamt of this moment since I was a kid but honestly, nothing could prepare you for the view of Earth from space,” Branson, 70, said after landing, at a rare loss for words. “It was just magical. … I’m just taking it all in, it’s unreal.”

The flight effectively upstaged Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who plans a sub-orbital spaceflight of his own aboard Blue Origin’s New Shepard spacecraft on July 20 as the two companies compete for passengers in the emerging commercial space marketplace.

Bezos complimented Branson and his team after landing, posting a note to Instagram saying “congratulations on the flight. Can’t wait to join the club!”

Branson’s trip began in dramatic fashion as Virgin’s twin-fuselage carrier jet — with the VSS Unity rocket-powered spaceplane bolted under its wing — lifted away from the company’s Spaceport America launch site near Truth or Consequences, New

**Branson and crew weightless in space**

Mexico, at 8:40 a.m. local time (10:40 a.m. EDT).

Joining the globe-trotting billionaire aboard Unity were pilots David Mackay and Michael Masucci, along with Virgin astronaut trainer Beth Moses, flight engineer Colin Bennett and Sirisha Bandla, the company’s vice president of government relations.

With a throng of reporters and a global audience following along on YouTube and across Virgin’s social media channels, the Virgin mothership VMS Eve slowly climbed to an altitude of about 45,000 feet and then, after a final round of safety checks, released Unity high above the New Mexico desert.

3:12 minute video of Richard Branson and crews’ excursion into space (‘Virgin Galactic’ YouTube)

READ ENTIRE ARTICLE

NASA Updates its UFO FAQ Page

July 12, 2021
ExoNews Editor

Article by Andrew Paul July 1, 2021 (avclub.com)

• On June 25th, NASA updated its Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAPs/UFOs) webpage’s FAQ (frequently asked questions). (see here) Among the frequently asked questions and answers (paraphrased): Does NASA actually search for aliens? Yes. Is that something that’s actually worth their time? Sure, why not? How do they search for said aliens?A lot of fancy-pants ways we wouldn’t understand. And, of course, have they found anybody out there? No, please stop asking.

• Says NASA: “There is a possibility and indeed a probability of life beyond Earth. Science is driven by the desire to better understand the unknown – but science is ultimately a matter of evidence, and we have not yet detected extraterrestrial life. We do, however, continue to look.”

• NASA is adamant that they aren’t technically the ones who hunt for UAPs. “NASA does not actively search for UAPs. However, through our Earth-observing satellites, NASA collects extensive data about Earth’s atmosphere, often in collaboration with the other space agencies of the world… While these data are not specifically collected to identify UAPs or alien technosignatures, they are publicly available and anyone may use them to search the atmosphere.”

• You hear that? “Anyone may use them.” [Editor’s Note] Calling on all advocates of UFO disclosure. Get on the NASA site and start scouring the Earth’s atmosphere for anomalies. Who knows, you might capture the definitive image of a flying saucer from above.

Despite our repeatedly provided, ironclad evidence that aliens are obviously, unequivocally here among us (unlike ghosts), a lot of people still seem compelled to“ask the experts” about it. We don’t know if “hurt” is the word to describe their distrust of us, but… like, what more could you need? It’s fine. We’re over it already… because guess what, truth seekers? The professional seekers of truth are real goddamn tired of all your questions, too. How do you like them alien apples, huh?

Recently, NASA updated its (admittedly still sparse) Frequently Asked Questions page on unidentified flying objects unidentified aerial phenomena, we assume to mitigate at least some of the latest uptick in all things extraterrestrial. Among the questions frequently asked: Does NASA actually search for aliens? Is that something that’s actually worth their time? How do they search for said aliens? And, of course, have they found anybody out there?

The respective answers, in a nutshell:
• Yes.
• Sure, why not?
• A lot of fancy-pants ways we wouldn’t understand.
• No, please stop asking.

READ ENTIRE ARTICLE

NASA Trains its Sights on Venus Again in 2028

July 5, 2021
ExoNews Editor

June 22, 2021 (timesnownews.com)

• With a budget of $1 billion, NASA will embark on two missions to Venus, each costing $500M. The missions – called DAVINCI+ and VERITAS – indicates renewed optimism in the second planet from the Sun and Earth’s closest neighbor. The missions are planned to launch between 2028 and 2030.

• Despite its similarities with Earth in terms of size and closeness to the Sun, it has been the belief that there is no life on Venus. Surface temperatures on Venus can rise to 471 degrees Celsius – hot enough to turn solid lead into liquid. Its atmosphere made up of largely poisonous carbon dioxide is also not conducive to life as we know it. Then last year, Phosphine – a compound of phosphorus and one of the signatures of life – was discovered in the planet’s atmosphere. This has emboldened scientists’ to question whether Venus may indeed have living organisms.

• The ‘Deep Atmosphere Venus Investigation of Noble gases, Chemistry and Imaging’ or ‘DAVINCI +’ mission aims to trace Venus’ atmospheric origins, how it originally formed and evolved, and why it differs so extraordinarily from Earth’s. Did Venus ever harbor water in the form of oceans or vapor from which life may have emerged, as it did on earth according to mainstream scientists?

• Upon its descent through the Venusian atmosphere, the DAVINCI+ module will drop a spherical probe carrying a mass spectrometer to collect samples of the atmosphere at various altitudes and return measurements back to the orbiting spacecraft to measure the mass of different molecules. DAVINCI+ will also study geological features on Venus known as ‘tesserae’ to uncover whether Venus has continents like those seen on Earth underneath its atmospheric blanket.

• The ‘Venus Emissivity, Radio Science, InSar, Topography and Spectogaphy’, or ‘VERITAS’ orbiter mission also intends to map the surface of the planet to better understand how changes in volcanic activity, climate and terrain caused the topology of Venus to evolve so dramatically differently than Earth’s topography. VERITAS will take high resolution, planet-wide topographic images of the Venusian surface, tracing its mountains and valleys. Additionally, the ‘Venus Emissivity Mapper’ instrument onboard VERTIAS will study gaseous emissions on the planet’s surface. It will also be able to detect water vapor, if any exists.

Recent years have seen Mars overwhelmingly claim the spotlight but news of NASA

greenlighting not one, but two missions to Earth’s closest neighbour, Venus indicates renewed optimism that our blue planet’s hellish twin may have much more to teach us than previously thought.

Both of NASA’s missions, DAVINCI + and VERITAS, will, reportedly, receive roughly $500 million each for development and are scheduled to launch between 2028 and 2030.

For decades, it was believed that there was no life on Venus despite the similarities it has with Earth in terms of size and closeness to the Sun. And the planet’s conditions provide good reason for this. Surface temperatures on Venus can rise to 471 degrees

**spherical probe to test Venus’ atmosphere**

Celsius – hot enough to turn solid lead into liquid. Its poisonous atmosphere made up of largely carbon dioxide is also not particularly conducive to life.

But an interesting discovery – albeit controversial, it is worth adding – made last year has

emboldened scientists’ convictions that Venus may, indeed, have living organisms. Phosphine – a compound of phosphorus and one of the signatures of life – was discovered in the planet’s atmosphere.

DAVINCI+

The discovery has been hotly debated but there is hope that the DAVINCI+ mission will finally put paid to it. The Deep Atmosphere Venus Investigation of Noble gases, Chemistry and Imaging or DAVINCI + mission primarily aims to trace Venus’ atmospheric origins, seeking to identify how it originally formed and evolved, and why it differs so extraordinarily from Earth’s.

READ ENTIRE ARTICLE

Virginia’s Wallops Island Spaceport Seeks to Increase Launch Activity

June 28, 2021
ExoNews Editor

Article by Jeff Foust June 13, 2021 (spacenews.com)

• When the chief executive of the of the Virginia Commercial Space Flight Authority which operates the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS) at Wallops Island on the Virginia Coast, Dale Nash, decided to retire, the authority convened a search committee to select Nash’s successor. On June 10th, Virginia Governor Ralph Northam and the chairman of the board of the authority Jeff Bingham announced that Roosevelt “Ted” Mercer Jr., a retired Air Force major general, will be the next chief executive and executive director of the Virginia Commercial Space Flight Authority starting August 1st.

• In his 32 years in the Air Force, Mercer held a variety of space-related roles including commanding the 30th Space Wing at Vandenberg Air Force Base and serving as deputy director of operations for Air Force Space Command. Mercer retired from the Air Force in 2008. Mercer has since served as director of the Interagency Program Office for the Federal Aviation Administration’s ‘NextGen’ program to modernize management of the national airspace system.

• Northam said of Mercer: “Under his leadership, Virginia is poised to maximize the investments we have made in our world-class spaceport and launch into the future as a leader in space exploration, research and commerce.” Indeed, Mercer said that growing the spaceport’s launch business was second only to looking out for the needs of spaceport personnel. Mercer plans to “get aggressive” about bringing more customers to the MARS spaceport.

• The two existing MARS launchpads currently accommodate Northrop Grumman’s two Antares launches a year sending Cygnus cargo spacecraft to the International Space Station, and occasional launches of Minotaur rockets for various government missions.

• But another player has recently begun to operate at Wallops Island – Rocket Lab. The company built a launchpad for its Electron rocket, and in March, it announced it would launch its new medium-class Neutron rocket from Wallops as well. Getting both Electron and Neutron flying regularly from MARS could dramatically increase launch activity. Electron is designed to launch as frequently as once a month, while Neutron may launch six to eight times a year. “Between the Northrop Grumman launches and the Rocket Lab launches, we could be easily doing 20, 25 launches a year within a couple of years,” Nash predicted.

• Certification of an autonomous flight termination system required by NASA will delay the Electron, however. The first Electron launch from Wallops, originally scheduled for 2020, could slip to as late as November.

• Mercer wants to attract additional launch companies to Wallops. “The opportunity to grow in the next one to five years is extraordinary,” he said, citing interest in small satellites from both companies and government organizations like the Pentagon’s Space Development Agency. “I want MARS to be the place of choice for some of these companies that want to get their satellites into orbit.”

• MARS will have to complete with other spaceports for that launch business, in particular Florida’s Cape Canaveral Space Force Station and Kennedy Space Center. Mercer suggested he would be open to building additional launch infrastructure at MARS if there is demand for it. Nash said NASA’s master plan for Wallops includes the ability to add two or three more launchpads, which could potentially accommodate larger launch vehicles than Antares and Neutron. The state of Virginia has more than $250 million in building the Wallops Island facility.

• But Mercer noted that there are limits to how large MARS could grow. “Will we ever become a Cape Canaveral? Probably not because of limits on the infrastructure that can be built there. …[B]ut we want to expand as much as we can… That will allow more customers to come to this range.”

WASHINGTON — The new head of Virginia’s commercial spaceport on Wallops Island says he wants to increase launch activity at the site, while acknowledging that there are limits as to how big it can grow.

Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam (D) announced June 10 that Roosevelt “Ted” Mercer Jr., a retired Air Force major general, will be the next chief executive and executive director of the Virginia Commercial Space Flight Authority, which operates the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS) at Wallops Island. Mercer will

**MARS launch facility on Wallops Island**

take over Aug. 1 when the current head of the authority, Dale Nash, retires.

“Under his leadership, Virginia is poised to maximize the investments we have made

in our world-class spaceport and launch into the future as a leader in space exploration, research and commerce,” Northam said of Mercer in a statement.

Mercer held a variety of space-related roles in his 32 years in the Air Force, including commanding the 30th Space Wing at Vandenberg Air Force Base and serving as deputy director of operations for Air Force Space Command. Mercer retired from the Air Force in 2008 and, in

2016, became director of the Interagency Program Office for the Federal Aviation Administration’s NextGen program to modernize management of the national airspace system.

The authority convened a search committee to select Nash’s successor, which led them to Mercer. “This committee has unanimously selected the best candidate possible to take the helm of Virginia Space,” Jeff Bingham, chairman of the board of the authority, said in a briefing. “Our new CEO and executive director is uniquely qualified to ensure that we deliver on our objectives and work to become increasing active and competitive over the next decade.”

MARS hosts only a few orbital launches a year currently. Northrop Grumman conducts an average of two Antares launches a year from Pad 0-A, sending Cygnus cargo spacecraft to the International Space Station. Neighboring Pad 0-B hosts occasional launches of Northrop Grumman Minotaur rockets, including a Minotaur 1 launch of a National Reconnaissance Office mission scheduled for June 15.

Mercer said at the briefing that growing the spaceport’s launch business was a top priority, second only to looking out for the needs of spaceport personnel. “One of the cleanest ways we can begin to grow this business, without doing much in terms of infrastructure, is simply get aggressive about getting out and bringing more customers to our launch port and to our range,” he said.

A big factor in the future of MARS is Rocket Lab. The company built Launch Complex 2, a launchpad for its Electron rocket, next to Pad 0-A. In March, it announced it would launch its new medium-class Neutron rocket from Wallops, using the existing Pad 0-A. That rocket will also be manufactured at a facility to be built nearby.

READ ENTIRE ARTICLE

NASA Laser Communications Relay Demo Scheduled in June

June 5, 2021
ExoNews Editor

Article by Carol Collins May 24, 2021 (executivebiz.com)

• The Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland; the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California; and the MIT Lincoln Laboratory in Lexington, Massachusetts have joined forces to send an optical module-equipped payload 22,000 miles above Earth in order to conduct a ‘Laser Communications Relay Demonstration’ (or ‘LCRD’).

• June 23rd, NASA will launch the LCRD optical module-equipped payload on the Department of Defense’s third Space Test Program mission satellite known as the ‘STPSat-6’, the DoD’s primary spacecraft. It will be carried into orbit by the Atlas V 551 rocket of the United Launch Alliance from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.

• Once the optical module is in place, engineers on Earth will experiment on the data transmission process to test various operational situations and improve the tracking capabilities for mission performance. Using infrared lasers invisible to human eyes, the LCRD will attempt to execute data transfer from geosynchronous orbit to Earth at a bandwidth boost up to 100 times greater than radio frequency. NASA is hoping that the LCRD will be able to relay communications signals from the Earth to the Moon and Mars in future missions. (see 2:31 minute video below)

NASA will launch a payload in June in an effort to enable laser- or optical technology-based communications that can potentially deliver a bandwidth boost of 10 to 100 times than radio frequency equipment.

The Laser Communications Relay Demonstration, or LCRD, will be carried by the primary spacecraft of the Department of Defense’s third Space Test Program mission, NASA said Saturday.

The optical module-equipped payload on STPSat-6 will lift off June 23 from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, through the Atlas V 551 rocket of the United Launch Alliance.

Using infrared lasers invisible to human eyes, the LCRD will try to execute data transfer from geosynchronous orbit to Earth at a rate of 1.2 Gbps.

When the optical module is placed 22,000 miles above Earth, engineers will experiment on the data transmission process to test various operational situations and improve the tracking capabilities for actual mission performance.

The space agency also plans to use LCRD to examine the possibility of enabling laser communications for missions to the Moon and Mars in the future.

The Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, is leading the LCRD mission together with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory of NASA in Southern California and the MIT Lincoln Laboratory.

2:31 minute video demo of the Laser Communications Relay
(‘NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center’ YouTube)

READ ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Elizondo Claims that US Government Possesses Exotic UFO Materials

June 5, 2021
ExoNews Editor

Article by Nirmal Narayanan May 22, 2021 (ibtimes.co.in)

• In 2017, when Luis Elizondo resigned as the head of the Pentagon’s secret UFO investigation program to join the ‘To The Stars Academy of Arts and Sciences’, two Navy cockpit videos of UFOs off of the East and West Coasts of America were released to the public. The Pentagon has since authenticated those and other UFO images and videos taken by US Navy personnel.

• Elizondo recently appeared on Fox News with Tucker Carlson. Carlson asked Elizondo whether the US government has collected any debris from flying UFO craft that might have crash-landed. “The United States government is in possession of exotic material and I will leave it at that,” said Elizondo. “More analysis needs to be done. There is enough uniqueness about it where it requires additional analysis and additional expertise and thankfully there are pockets in the US government that are willing to have the conversation and conduct the analysis.”

• Elizondo’s revelation came just a few days after documentary filmmaker Jeremy Corbell released a UFO clip that showed a spherical UFO plunging into the ocean off of San Diego in 2019, shot by US Navy officials aboard USS Omaha. Many UFO enthusiasts believe that alien existence on Earth is being covered-up by the US government and space agencies like NASA to avoid public panic.

It was on December 16, 2017, that the New York Times published an explosive report about the Pentagon’s secret UFO investigation program named Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP). The news soon went viral on online spaces, and it was followed by the release of two UFO videos that showed mysterious flying objects screeching across the skies at a breathtaking speed. As pressure started mounting on the defense department from various corners, the Pentagon admitted that UFO videos released by To The Stars Academy of Arts and Sciences were real. And now, Luis Elizondo who led AATIP has

shockingly claimed that the US government is in possession of exotic UFO materials.

Luis Elizondo makes unbelievable claims

Elizondo claimed that the US government got these exotic materials from mysterious space vessels that reached earth. After leading AATIP from 2007 to 2012, Elizondo finally resigned from the Pentagon in 2017 as a part of his protest against government secrecy while dealing with UFO events.

As the Pentagon is expected to release some mindblowing details about UFOs later this year, Elizondo appeared on Fox News to speak about what could be expected.

**spherical UFO plunging into the ocean off of San Diego in 2019**

During the show, host Tucker Carlson asked Elizondo whether the US government has collected any debris from the alleged flying vessels that might have crash-landed.

“The United States government is in possession of exotic material and I will leave it at that. More analysis needs to be done. There is enough uniqueness about it where it requires additional analysis and additional expertise and thankfully there are pockets in the US government that are willing to have the conversation and conduct the analysis,” said Elizondo.

The mysterious spherical UFO that plunged into the oceans

READ ENTIRE ARTICLE

NASA Hails China Space Ambitions As ‘Unifying Force’

May 21, 2021
ExoNews Editor

Article by Tom O’Conner May 5, 2021 (newsweek.com)

• On April 28th, China’s massive 18-story Long March 5B rocket roared out of the atmosphere to the flag waving cheers of the crowd and a symphony orchestra on the southern island Hainan province, carrying into orbit the core cabin module for the Tiangong modular space station (pictured above). (Note: After positioning the module in orbit, the 22.5 ton core stage of the spent rocket reentered the atmosphere and fell into the Indian Ocean on May 8th.)

• The People’s Liberation Army China Manned Space Engineering Office hailed the launch as an inauguration of “the third step” of the country’s human space exploration campaign. The first was to send a ‘taikonaut’ to and from space safely (as it did in 2003), and the second was to conduct extravehicular activity and orbital docking, tasks accomplished in 2008 and 2011.

• At this point, the Chinese have robotically gathered soil from, and planted a flag on the Moon. The China National Space Administration even landed the Chang’e 4 unmanned mission on the ‘yet untouched’ the far side of the Moon. But with the two temporary space labs comprising the beginning of the Tiangong modular space station, China can lay claim to the only other space station in Earth’s orbit, besides the International Space Station (ISS). Even the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs has nine projects already lined up for the Tiangong space station. But China has also announced plans for an International Lunar Research Station (ILRS), a scientific base either on or orbiting the Moon. Russia signed onto the ILRS in March, and put out a call for more international partners to join.

• Meanwhile, Beijing’s expanding economic, political and military influence has led to a significant deterioration of its relationship with Washington. Concerns about China’s business practices linger among U.S. policymakers. During his recent nomination hearing to head NASA before the Senate Commerce Committee, former Florida Senator Bill Nelson said, “There is a threat China poses in basically getting a lot of our secrets and getting a lot of our technology and invading a lot of our privacy.” The now head of NASA continued, “Now when you take that global concern and bring it to the space program, then you have to be concerned about the same thing.”

• Today, the International Space Station hosts personnel from the U.S., Russia, the European Union, Canada and Japan. But Chinese personnel are banned from ISS by the US Congress, citing intellectual property theft and development of an intercontinental ballistic missile program. It would take special consent of the FBI for NASA to even be allowed to participate with the Chinese space administration.

• In a statement sent to Newsweek, NASA insisted that it welcomes the strides made by its Chinese counterpart, viewing them as a mutual gain for all of mankind in spite of the terrestrial tensions between the two top powers. “NASA uses space and science as a unifying force. Exploration is a global endeavor – each milestone contributing to humanity’s understanding of the universe. And we look forward to China’s contributions to increased scientific understanding.”

• [Editor’s Note] NASA is a “unifying force?” “Exploration is a global endeavor?” In 1963, two weeks after John F. Kennedy expressed support for this same ‘unifying force’ between NASA and the Soviet Union, the deep state murdered him. Now deep state-controlled NASA claims that it wants to set aside our geopolitical tensions and join together in space harmony, even though NASA is legally prohibited from doing so. But publications like Newsweek report it and so it magically becomes hard news, readily defended by the likes of Drudge and Snopes.

The reality is that the deep state has worked hard to keep anyone from going to the Moon since the Apollo Moon landings’ dog and pony show that came to an end in 1972. Behind the scenes, however, the deep state elite developed highly advanced secret space programs, establishing trade with other races and civilizations throughout the galaxy. They want the people on Earth to be obedient, mind-controlled economic slaves. They want us to believe that propellant-fueled rockets, digging up dirt on the Moon and Mars, and putting two space stations into orbit is the extent of our space technology.

Since WWII, the Western deep state has successfully gained control of nearly all of our planet’s banking and financial system, political system, mass media, social media, oil industry, medical and pharmaceutical industries, high tech, and our expansion into space. But the deep state has never managed to control Russia. And it pisses them off. This is why Russia has been the sworn enemy and scapegoat for every false flag or political scandal instigated by the deep state since their fabricated “Cold War” began.

Regardless of the so-called “news” reported by Newsweek, NASA and the deep state are not at all thrilled about Russia and China pushing past the institutional lethargy to resume our planet’s natural development, which has been strangled by the deep state’s occulted cabal since the time of Tesla. But it is this innate human desire to continue to push forward that has inspired the global military white hat Alliance, led by US military patriots, to embrace the groundswell of an awakening populist and move against the a thoroughly corrupted and evil deep state. We will soon succeed in removing the negative and greed-driven deep state completely from power so that our planet can move ahead toward a space-faring future, positive interaction with our galactic neighbors, and the release of advanced technologies that will utterly transform our society.

There’s a new major player in the final frontier, but the United States’ space agency under President

Joe Biden sees an upside to its top competitor’s success, even if U.S. scientists remain formally banned from cooperating with their Chinese counterparts.

For decades, the realm of outer space travel was dominated by the U.S. and Russia, a reality set by their Cold War-era space race that ultimately helped fuel historic developments now also being advanced by a range of countries across the globe, including in Europe, India, Israel, Japan and the United Arab Emirates.

No country’s rapid rise has grabbed as much global attention, however, as that of China, whose

accelerated ascendance into space mirrors its lightning growth back on Earth. Beijing’s expanding economic, political and military influence has led to a significant deterioration of its relationship with Washington, which has enjoyed unmatched superpower status since the fall of the Soviet Union.

As China celebrates the landmark launch of the first module to its planned space station, NASA is welcoming the strides made by its Chinese counterpart, viewing them as a mutual gain for all of mankind in spite of the terrestrial tensions between the two top powers.

“NASA uses space and science as a unifying force,” the agency said in a statement sent to Newsweek. “Exploration is a global endeavor, each milestone contributing to humanity’s understanding of the universe, and we look forward to China’s contributions to increased scientific understanding.”

China’s planned Tiangong (Heavenly Palace) large modular space station came closer to reality over the weekend in the southern island Hainan province where a massive 18-story LongMarch 5B rocket roared out of the atmosphere, successfully bringing the Tianhe (Harmony of the Heavens) core cabin module into orbit. Citizens waving national flags cheered on and the Xi’an Symphony Orchestra performed.

READ ENTIRE ARTICLE

NASA’s New JWS Telescope to Detect Life Across the Universe

May 12, 2021
ExoNews Editor

Article by Conor Clark April 26, 2021 (express.co.uk)

• NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) – “the largest, most powerful and complex space telescope ever built and launched into space”, was to be launched into space in 2007. But it exceeded its budget and was rescheduled for March 2018. Then the telescope’s sunshield ripped during a practice deployment and was further delayed. Then the COVID pandemic hit. Now the JWST is scheduled to launch from French Guiana aboard an Ariane 5 rocket in October of this year.

• The JWST is 100x more powerful than NASA’s Hubble Telescope which it will replace. Hubble has orbited the Earth’s lower atmosphere since 1990. But the JWST will orbit the Sun, a million miles away from Earth at a point which is four times further away than the Moon.

• The JWST will give scientists the ability to look even closer at exoplanets and learn which are most likely to harbor living beings, specifically gas dwarfs or super-earths that are surrounded by a thick atmosphere made up of an array of gases. Some of these gases, such as ammonia, could indicate that there is life beneath them on the planet. Scientists at Ohio State University say that the JWST will have the ability to detect some of the aforementioned gases in just 60 hours (the equivalent of a few orbits).

• The JWST is about half the size of a 737 jet and will be the largest telescope ever sent into space. Its main goal will be to find light radiated by the universe’s oldest stars and galaxies that were born after the Big Bang over 13.5 billion years ago, enabling scientists to learn more about the origins of life and the formation of stars and planetary systems. The JWST’s mission lifetime is “5-10+ years” meaning that we could potentially have answers about extra-terrestrial life within the next decade.

• Over 1,200 scientists, engineers and technicians from 14 countries have worked on the JWS Telescope to get it ready for take off. “My research suggests that for the first time, we have the scientific knowledge and technological capabilities to realistically begin to find the answers to these questions,” said graduate student Caprice Phillips.

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) would give scientists the ability to look even closer at planets and learn which are most likely to harbour living beings, if all goes to plan. These planets are most commonly known as gas dwarfs or super-earths and are surrounded by a thick atmosphere made up of an array of gases.

Some of these gases, such as ammonia, could indicate that there is life beneath them on the planet.

This has been hard for scientists to establish in the past, given that there are no gas dwarf planets in our solar system and the massive clouds of dust are opaque to visible-light observatories.

According to NASA’s website, the JWST “will be the largest, most powerful and complex space telescope ever built and launched into space”, claiming it “will fundamentally alter our understanding of the universe”.

Study author graduate student Caprice Phillips said: “Humankind has contemplated the questions: Are we alone? What is life? Is life elsewhere similar to us?”

“My research suggests that for the first time, we have the scientific knowledge and technological capabilities to realistically begin to find the answers to these questions.”

The telescope is 100x more powerful than NASA’s Hubble Telescope which is being replaced. That telescope orbiting the earth’s lower atmosphere since 1990.

Scientists at Ohio State University have determined that the JWST will have the ability to detect some of the aforementioned gases in just 60 hours (the equivalent of a few orbits).

It will orbit the sun, a million miles away from Earth at a point which is four times further away than the moon.

READ ENTIRE ARTICLE

SpaceX Endeavor Has Close Call With UFO

May 9, 2021
ExoNews Editor

Article by Kenneth Garger April 25, 2021 (nypost.com)

• On April 24th, SpaceX’s Crew Dragon Endeavor spacecraft blasted off to rendezvous with the International Space Station. But as they approached the space station, US Space Command warned the crew of a possible collision with an unknown object. (see 8 second video below)

• “[T]here wasn’t time to compute and execute a debris avoidance maneuver with confidence, so the SpaceX team elected to have the crew don their pressure suits out of an abundance of caution,” said NASA spokesperson Kelly Humphries.

• The object ultimately passed about 28 miles from the spacecraft. Crew Dragon Endeavour made it to the International Space Station and “there was no real danger to the crew or the spacecraft,” assured Humphries.

**SpaceX’s Crew Dragon Endeavor capsule**

SpaceX’s Crew Dragon Endeavor spacecraft had a close call with an unidentified

object before reaching the International Space Station, a report said.

US Space Command warned the crew aboard the spacecraft of a possible collision with an unknown object after launching into orbit on Friday, Futurism reported.

“The possibility of the conjunction came so close to the closest approach time that there wasn’t time to compute and execute a debris

**Endeavor approaching the International Space Station**

avoidance maneuver with confidence, so the SpaceX team elected to have the crew don their pressure suits out of an abundance of caution,” NASA spokesperson Kelly Humphries told Futurism.

At its closest point, the object passed about 28 miles away from the spacecraft, the report said.

Ultimately, “there was no real danger to the crew or the spacecraft,” Humphries told the outlet.

Crew Dragon Endeavour made it to the International Space Station on Saturday.

8 second video of object streaking past the Space X capsule (‘Rohan Tom’ YouTube)

READ ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Look for Ancient Alien Spacecraft on the Moon, Mars and Mercury Say NASA Scientists

April 4, 2021
ExoNews Editor

Article by Jamie Carter March 22, 2021 (forbes.com)

• In 1993, pressure by budget-conscious politicians stopped NASA funding of programs searching for extraterrestrial life in the solar system. But in recent decades, NASA has been working more and more with organizations such as SETI – the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. But a recent NASA-funded study paper published in the journal Acta Astronautica suggests that as NASA goes about its business in space, perhaps it should also keep an eye out for ‘technosignatures’ – or evidence of technology or industrial activity – without much additional spending.

• The study paper suggests that a permanent radio telescope could be set up on the far side of the Moon to search for alien signals. Interstellar probes from extraterrestrial civilizations might have been sent into our solar system long ago, and there may be artifacts or aliens “lurking” on asteroids or UFO crash sites on other planets giving off a laser or radio signal. “Such artifacts might have been captured by solar system bodies into stable orbits or they might even have crashed on planets, asteroids or moons,” reads the paper. “Bodies with old surfaces such as those of the Moon or Mars might still exhibit evidence for such collisions.”

• About every 100,000 years, the closest star ‘Proxima Centauri’ comes within nearly a light-year from the Sun – one quarter its usual distance. So there have been literally “tens of thousands” of opportunities for a technologically advanced civilization from that system to launch probes into our solar system, according to the paper.

• The study includes a list of nine ways that NASA missions could detect observational “proof of extraterrestrial life” beyond Earth in our solar system and beyond:

1. Conduct ultra-high resolution scans of the surfaces of the Moon, Mars, Mercury and Ceres for signs of impact or artifacts in crash sites that could be millions and billions of years old.

2. Look for CFC gases or nitrogen dioxide – pollutions typically associated with industrial activity or a byproduct of combustion or nuclear technology around distant exoplanets.

3. Conduct an all-sky survey using an infrared space telescope to search for “waste heat emission” from technological waste or Dyson spheres.

4. Put a permanent radio telescope dish on the “radio-quiet” far side of the Moon to conduct super-sensitive searches for distant technosignatures, free of human radio contamination.

5. Look for aliens and alien artifacts lurking on resources-rich asteroids orbiting the Sun with Earth.

6. Have an intercept mission ready to launch when a target like ‘Oumuamua’ next presents itself, tumbling through our solar system. The Vera C. Rubin Observatory’s all-sky surveys that is scheduled to begin later this year may very well find such a rogue object heading towards our star system.

7. Search existing NASA and academic data for objects in orbit around known exoplanets, atmospheric pollution and night-time illumination on exoplanets.

8. Conduct all-sky infrared laser pulse searches for in visible light and in wide regions.

9. Identify small asteroids under 10m in diameter that we may have previously overlooked, that may be artificial.

• [Editor’s Note] If deep state fronts such as NASA and SETI truly did any of these obvious things that their study paper suggests, they would find that we inhabit a solar system and star sector of this galaxy that is absolutely teaming with technologically advanced extraterrestrial activity. Of course, the deep state knows this. This is why they make a big deal out of publishing their “latest efforts” in their never-ending search for signs of extraterrestrial life. It is all for show.

From UFO crash sites on other planets and aliens “lurking” on asteroids to a permanent radio telescope on the far side of the Moon, a new NASA-funded study into the search for intelligent extraterrestrial life (SETI) details how future NASA missions could purposefully look for the “technosignatures” of advanced alien civilizations.

Described as evidence for the use of technology or industrial activity in other parts of the Universe, the search for technosignatures has barely begun, but could unearth something surprising without much additional spend, says the study.

After more or less ceasing its search for technosignatures in 1993 after pressure by politicians, NASA has become increasingly involved in SETI.

**‘Oumuamua’ – rogue asteroid or alien tech?**

Published in the specialized journal Acta Astronautica, the study includes a list of what’s NASA missions could detect as observational “proof of extraterrestrial life” beyond Earth.

Perhaps most intriguingly, the paper suggests that interstellar probes might have been sent into the Solar System a long time ago, perhaps during the last close encounter of our Sun with other stars.

The closest star to the Sun right now, Proxima Centauri, is over 4.2 light-years distant, but roughly every 100,000 years a star comes within nearly a light-year from the Sun. There have therefore been “tens of thousands” of opportunities for technologies similar to ours to have launched probes into our Solar System, according to the paper.

READ ENTIRE ARTICLE

Does Biden Take Space Seriously?

March 23, 2021
ExoNews Editor

Article by Charles Beams March 12, 2021 (politico.com)

• In 2017, President Trump resurrected the National Space Council where senior government and industry leadership would plan and organize the U.S. and the world roles in a new ‘space century’. Putting the Vice President in charge was vital to the council’s integrity. Now, the Biden administration’s decision to assign oversight of space to the National Security Council has fueled speculation that the high-level National Space Council will be discontinued.

• Does Administrator Biden and his senior advisers truly appreciate the gravity of the situation and the opportunities before us in the final frontier? Seventeen industry groups representing hundreds of companies critical to our nation’s space future have recently endorsed keeping the National Space Council. They says that retaining the council “will provide stability and continuity to the United States’ space endeavors, enabling historic exploration and scientific achievement”. Its continuation would reflect that space is indeed a real priority.

• Serious questions regarding space need to be addressed in the next few years. These will require senior attention and active support across the Executive Branch. Should one person, ie: Elon Musk, monopolize the commercial space sector? Or should it be regulated to encourage small business growth in space? How should we encourage fair play among nations in space? How should we respond to anti-competitive Chinese business practices? And how can we prevent the growing menace of space debris from inhibiting future generations’ expansion into space?

• One specific policy issue that the National Space Council would manage is the evolution of the United States Space Force. Space Force is charged with protecting and ensuring free and fair access to space and defending contested domains where commercial companies and developing nations are increasingly operating. Space Force must create a culture to recruit and retain world class intellects and leaders to guide a developing military domain that is more defined by artificial intelligence, autonomous robotics and machine learning, than bullets and bombs. In the coming decades, Space Force must become a military service that understands, partners with, and sometimes puts commercial and civil needs before warfighting requirements. Guidance from the highest levels is essential for the Space Force to be successful.

• To date, however, no senior appointees have been nominated for the most senior space positions, including the NASA administrator or the space policy and space acquisition positions in the Pentagon. Without the high-level attention of a strong National Space Council, low earth orbit will become a no man’s land of discarded satellite and rocket debris, exploited only by the ultra-wealthy. The unique ability of the space sector to promote commerce, enhance international trade, strengthen diplomacy, and prevent military conflict will be lost.

• If the Biden administration cannot see the value in the National Space Council to lead a coherent space policy for a new century, it should disband it. Pretending it is important while assigning it no clear purpose would be a waste of time and resources, and actually hamper progress in space. The decisions the Biden administration makes regarding the National Space Council, Space Force, NASA and commercial space policies will determine whether space will remain a safe, nonpartisan domain for an economy to flourish or will become an inhospitable orbital minefield where only military hegemons joust for supremacy.

The early signs coming from the Biden administration have more than a few of us

worried about its approach to space policy.

The decision to assign oversight of space to the National Security Council has fueled speculation that the high-level National Space Council will be discontinued. And it comes at a time when a similar lack of seriousness by White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki and her flippant comments about the Space Force are playing out in the media.

The two recent events beg the question: do President Joe Biden and his senior advisers truly appreciate the gravity of the situation and the opportunities before us in the final frontier?

The rumors of dismantling of the National Space Council should give us all pause. Resurrecting the council in 2017 and putting the vice president in charge was vital to focusing senior government and industry leadership on organizing the U.S. and the world for a space century.

Which is exactly why 17 industry groups representing hundreds of companies critical to our nation’s space future have recently endorsed keeping it. Retaining the council “will provide stability and continuity to the United States’ space endeavors, enabling historic exploration and scientific achievement,” they wrote in their letter to President Biden’s chief of staff. Its continuation would reflect that space is a real priority for our new president.

Serious space questions need to be addressed in the next few years that require senior attention and active support across the executive branch.

READ ENTIRE ARTICLE

To Quarantine the Moon and Mars

March 19, 2021
ExoNews Editor

March 7, 2021 (rtd.rt.com)

• In July 1964, representatives from several institutions including NASA held a conference to discuss the topic of preventing ‘back contamination’ – bringing contaminants from extraterrestrial bodies back to Earth. They feared that such contamination of the Earth could multiply and lead to unpredictable consequences, up to and including the extinction of our civilization. The attendees at the ‘Conference on Potential Hazards of Back Contamination from the Planets’ concluded there was no way to protect a spacecraft returning from the Moon from any possible extraterrestrial life forms. The best solution to prevent a disease from spreading among people would be isolation until a vaccine could be produced.

• In July 1969, when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin returned to their Apollo 11 lunar module after walking on the Moon and took off their helmets, they could smell the acrid stench of Moon dust on their suits. They brushed it off as best they could, but it was impossible to get rid of it all. If there were traces of microorganisms in it, astronauts would inevitably become infected. When their space module touched down in the ocean, the first thing that the retrieval team did was to treat the module door with disinfectant.

• Upon reaching the aircraft carrier, the Apollo 11 crew changed into biological protection suits, traveled in an isolated quarantine van aboard the aircraft carrier, then through special tunnels from the aircraft carrier to land and then onward to a special laboratory. The three astronauts along with six other technicians who were exposed to a film cassette that had fallen on the lunar surface, and any lunar rock samples, objects and equipment that the astronauts had handled on the Moon, were isolated and quarantined for three weeks while scientists examined how the people and objects exposed to the Moon’s surface now interacted with terrestrial plants, animals and living tissue.

• In June 2020, NASA unveiled its new policies regarding bio-protection during manned or robotic flights to the Moon or Mars and back to Earth. The latest NASA guide looked at preventing ‘back contamination’ of moon microbes from invading Earth but also ‘forward contamination’ to protect other celestial bodies from Earth/human contamination. Now that the world is preparing for Mars missions, the planet where life forms are more likely to be found than on the Moon, planet protection policies have become a widely discussed issue.

• There is currently a debate whether the responsibilities and liabilities imposed under the Outer Space Treaty of 1967 and signed by world governments including the US also pertain to private commercial space flights. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk claims the treaty does not apply to the private sector, and that the planet Mars is free from “Earth-based government… authority or sovereignty over Martian activities”.

• With the probability of humans landing on Mars, scientists are proposing that a Martian “exploration zone” be established on the planet’s surface where visiting humans can isolate themselves for a period to prevent their contaminating Mars. It has now been demonstrated that people and objects exposed to the Moon’s surface do not pose any risk of ‘back contamination’ on Earth. But there is a concern whether Moon tourists would faithfully follow NASA recommendations regarding the protection of other moons and planets from ‘forward contamination’ of Earth-born bio-contamination.

• The CEO of fashion retailer Zozo, Yusaku Maezawa, plans to take more than a dozen civilians to the Moon under the ‘dearMoon project’. Foreseeing the rise of such space tourism, last summer (2020) NASA released updated biosafety guidance for such civilian space missions. The risk of catching an ‘alien plague’ on the Moon, or the contamination of other celestial bodies with Earth bacterias is no joke to space experts.

**Apollo 11 astronauts in the quarantine module**

With space tourism on the rise, the risk of space contamination may undermine the

endeavour. The CEO of fashion retailer Zozo, Yusaku Maezawa, who started a project to launch the first civilian flight to the moon in 2023, has recently announced he’ll pay for five randomly chosen candidates as well. But it is still unclear whether the dearMoon project offers the required biosafety level while taking more than a dozen civilians to the moon. Even though no-one has been infected, the risk of catching an ‘alien plague’ on the moon is not a joke to space experts. In the summer of 2020, NASA released updated guidance for civilian missions, foreseeing the rise of space tourism. The advice added new rules concerning contamination of other celestial bodies with Earth bacterias.

**Nixon greeting the Apollo astronauts**

Throughout the 70s, NASA scientists were testing space systems for biosafety during

the Apollo programme. After years of research, they only concluded that biosafety is impossible in space. NASA developed a guide for preventing bio-emergencies half a century ago. However, until now, social isolation and containment remain the most reliable ways of avoiding space viruses and bacterias from invading Earth.

Interplanetary contamination

Following the first flight into space, the United States set a goal to send a manned mission to the moon earlier than the USSR. But a closer look into the prospects of the mission led to safety concerns over the biological threat. The US spent hundreds of millions of taxpayer’s dollars researching whether it’s true. Scientists from NASA were seriously considering the worst outcome of what they named ‘back contamination’.

READ ENTIRE ARTICLE

NASA’s Perseverance Rover’s Test Drive on Mars

March 17, 2021
ExoNews Editor

Article by Jesse O’Neill March 5, 2021 (nypost.com)

• On March 4th, NASA’s Mars 2020 Perseverance rover (pictured above) took its first test drive of about 21 feet on Mars. For thirty-three minutes, the rover negotiated turns and backed up into a new parking space at a snail’s pace, officials said. The mobility test is one of many milestones to check off Perseverance’s do-to list, as team members calibrate every system and instrument on the rover. When scientists decide all systems are ‘go’, the rover will begin regularly driving the length of several football fields at a time.

• “When it comes to wheeled vehicles on other planets, there are few first-time events that measure up in significance to that of the first drive,” said Anais Zarifian, Mars 2020 Perseverance rover mobility test bed engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “The rover’s six-wheel drive responded superbly. We are now confident our drive system is good to go, capable of taking us wherever the science leads us over the next two years.”

• Since the February 18th Mars landing, mission controllers have also completed software updates, deployed Perseverance’s wind sensors and tested the rover’s 7-foot-long robotic arm. The rover is now poised to begin more complicated missions, including finding a launch site for its mini helicopter next month.

• Scientists hope its multi-year mission gathering Mars samples and data will provide insight into the region’s geology and climate history, and determine if life once existed on the planet. Perseverance will ultimately prepare astronauts for human exploration on Mars.

NASA’s Mars 2020 Perseverance rover took its first test drive on Mars Thursday,

covering about 21 feet of the extraterrestrial landscape, the space agency said.

The mobility test is one of many milestones to check off Perseverance’s do-to list, as team members calibrate every system and instrument on the rover.

When scientists decide all systems are go, it will begin regularly driving the length of several football fields at a time.

“When it comes to wheeled vehicles on other planets, there are few first-time events that measure up in significance to that of the first drive,” said Anais Zarifian, Mars 2020 Perseverance rover mobility test bed engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.

“This was our first chance to ‘kick the tires’ and take Perseverance out for a spin. The rover’s six-wheel drive responded superbly. We are now confident our drive system is good to go, capable of taking us wherever the science leads us over the next two years.”

The drive lasted about 33 minutes, as the rover negotiated turns and backed up into a new parking space at a snail’s pace, officials said.

READ ENTIRE ARTICLE

NASA Invests in Building Landing Pads and Structures Out of Moon Regolith

March 16, 2021
ExoNews Editor

Article by Andy Tomaswick March 4, 2021 (universetoday.com)

• The NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts (NIAC) Fellowship is considering sixteen ‘Phase 1 selectees’ to flesh out advanced Moon mission concepts ranging from a solar system-wide “Pony Express” to autonomous deep drilling rigs on off planet worlds. One of these proposals is entitled ‘Regolith Adaptive Modification System (RAMs) to Support Early Extraterrestrial Planetary Landings (and Operations)’. The RAM would allow flexible landing pads flown down to the lunar surface and anchored directly to the regolith (rocks) with minimal effort, ensuring that the pads won’t simply blow away the first time they are hit with a booster engine blast.

• The RAM proposal comes from Dr. Sarbajit Banerjee, a chemist at Texas A&M. The process of making use of materials found on celestial bodies in the solar system is known as ‘in-situ resource utilization’. A previous NIAC program foused on developing the flexible landing platforms. The RAM component focuses on anchoring the platform to the lunar surface. This provides an early-stage infrastructure that would be useful before larger infrastructure such as sintering or geopolymerization equipment can be put in place.

• RAMs also employs a novel anchoring technique centered around “precursors” that weld anchor points to the underlying regolith on the surface. Other precursors can be directly introduced into the regolith itself to stabilize certain regions directly. The precursors are made up of a combination of nanothermites and organosilanes. When heated, they blend together with the surrounding regolith to create much more stable structures. Interesting, the source of much of the energy needed to create the bonds that stabilize the material is actually pulled from the material itself.

Materials are a crucial yet underappreciated component of any space exploration

program. Without novel materials and ways to make them, things that are commonplace today, such as a Falcon 9 rocket or the Mars rovers, would never have been possible. As humanity expands into the solar system, it will need to make more use of the materials found there – a process commonly called in-situ resource utilization (ISRU). Now, the advanced concepts team at NASA has taken a step towards supporting that process by supporting a proposal from Dr. Sarbajit Banerjee, a chemist at Texas A&M. The proposal suggests using lunar regolith to build a stable landing pad for future moon missions.

The proposal, entitled Regolith Adaptive Modification System (RAMs) to Support Early Extraterrestrial Planetary Landings (and Operations), focuses on providing early-stage infrastructure that would be useful before larger infrastructure such as sintering or geopolymerization equipment can be put in place.

Alternatively, RAMs uses a novel anchoring technique centered around “precursors” that can weld anchor points on the surface to the underlying regolith. Other precursors can be directly introduced into the regolith itself to stabilize certain regions directly.

The precursors are made up of a combination of nanothermites and organosilanes. When heated, they blend together with the surrounding regolith to create much more stable structures. Interesting, the source of much of the energy needed to create the bonds that stabilize the material is actually pulled from the material itself.

READ ENTIRE ARTICLE

NASA’s Europa Clipper Mission Gets Launch Date

March 2, 2021
ExoNews Editor

Article by Paul Rincon February 11, 2021 (bbc.com)

• NASA has conformed that in October 2024, it will send the Europa Clipper spacecraft to Jupiter’s icy moon Europa (pictured above), scheduled to arrive there in April 2030. Europa holds an ocean under its frozen outer shell and is regarded as one of the most promising targets in the search for life elsewhere in our solar system.

• During a virtual meeting of NASA’s ‘Outer Planets Assessment Group’ organized by Arizona State University, project scientist Dr. Robert Pappalardo stated: “Europa’s about the size of Earth’s moon, yet we think it contains twice as much water as all of Earth’s oceans.”

• The spacecraft was to have launched on NASA’s Space Launch System rocket. But that has now changed to the use of a commercial launch vehicle.

• Interest in Europa as a potential habitat for extra-terrestrial life was given a boost in the 1990s, when NASA’s Galileo spacecraft provided evidence that Europa harbored an ocean of liquid water beneath its outer shell. Europa probably has a rocky core surrounded by around 50 miles of liquid water covered by a shell of water-ice that’s roughly 12 miles thick.

• “At the bottom of the Earth’s oceans are places where water and rock interact, where water seeps down, contacts hot rock and emerges charged with chemical nutrients – reductants,” said Dr. Pappalardo. When these reductants get together with other chemicals called oxidants, they react. These reactions could, “potentially power life at the ocean floor of Europa – even where there is no light to allow for photosynthesis”.

• The Europa Clipper spacecraft will get close enough to analyze chemicals in the frozen water that has welled up to the surface from beneath the ice shell and sample the water plumes spurting out into space from the Jovian moon.

A mission to study a moon of Jupiter that could be home to extra-terrestrial life has been given a launch date.

Nasa is sending a spacecraft to the icy world of Europa, which holds an ocean under its frozen outer shell.

Scientists have long regarded the moon as one of the most promising targets in the search for life elsewhere in our Solar System.

The Europa Clipper spacecraft will now launch to the jovian moon in October 2024, arriving in April 2030.

The spacecraft was to have launched on Nasa’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket. But the space agency is reported to no longer be considering that launch vehicle.

It will instead lift off on a commercial rocket.

The details were disclosed by the mission’s project scientist, Dr Robert Pappalardo, during a virtual meeting of Nasa’s Outer Planets Assessment Group (Opag).

“We now have clarity on the launch vehicle path and launch date,” Dr Pappalardo, who is based at the space agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, told the meeting.

Interest in the moon as a potential habitat for extra-terrestrial life was given a boost in the 1990s, when Nasa’s Galileo spacecraft provided evidence that Europa harboured an ocean of liquid water beneath its outer shell.

Europa probably has a rocky core surrounded by around 80km (50 miles) of liquid water covered by a shell of water-ice that’s roughly 20km (12 miles) thick.

“Europa’s about the size of Earth’s moon, yet we think it contains twice as much water as all of Earth’s oceans,” Dr Pappalardo said during a virtual talk organised by Arizona State University (ASU) last week.

Discussing the moon’s potential for life, he said: “At the bottom of the Earth’s oceans are places where water and rock interact, where water seeps down, contacts hot rock and emerges charged with chemical nutrients – reductants.”

READ ENTIRE ARTICLE

Why Has NASA Not Sent Anyone to Mars?

February 28, 2021
ExoNews Editor

Article by Jess Romeo February 10, 2021 (daily.jstor.org)

• In 1969, humans first set foot on the Moon. With each step, the entire universe seemed to open up. Where would NASA and its brave astronauts go next? “At the time of the Moon landing, it was generally expected that the United States would quickly go on to Mars,” writes aerospace engineer and founder of the Mars Society Robert Zubrin.

• As Zubrin relates in The New Atlantis: “Apollo 11 astronaut Michael Collins recalled thinking ‘perhaps I could help [NASA] plan a Mars mission’. Edgar Mitchell, the sixth man on the Moon, remembered feeling that ‘it wasn’t unreasonable to hope’ he’d be assigned to a Mars-bound crew. Gene Cernan, the twelfth and last man on the Moon, recounted with sadness the time that he finally faced the facts: ‘I’m not going to Mars.’”

• In the half-century following Apollo 11, NASA’s human spaceflight program stagnated. After 1972, no astronaut would stray further than 300 miles from Earth.

• People might blame this lack of human spaceflight on waning public support for the endeavor, lack of funding for NASA, or the fickleness of a democratic government during peacetime. But Zubrin is of a different mind. Historically, Zubrin argues, public support played a relatively small role in the space program in the 1960s. Lack of money is no excuse either. NASA actually has significantly more money today (adjusted for inflation) than it did when it first sent astronauts to the moon.

• As for that democratic “fickleness”, Zubrin points out that “many great things have been accomplished by democratic means during times of peace in the United States, including massive public works like the Erie Canal, the Hoover Dam, and the Interstate Highway System.”

• The real problem is what Zubrin calls a “change in mode of operation.” After Apollo 11, NASA lost sight of its clear, driving purpose. Human spaceflight projects became aimless and slow-moving. NASA has spent hundreds of billions of dollars over the past half-century with very little results. George H.W. Bush’s ‘Space Exploration Initiative’ in 1989 quickly collapsed. Barack Obama’s ‘Journey to Mars’ had no specific deadlines to accomplish anything. And despite establishing Space Force, the Trump administration’s ambitions were vague and Mars was never a top priority.

• Nowadays, Earth’s interaction with the Red Planet begins and ends with robots. But with people like Elon Musk vowing to colonize the Moon by 2026, perhaps the dream is closer than it seems.

• [Editor’s Note] The facts given in this article point to the causes for the NASA space program’s stagnation over the past fifty years, but not the underlying reason. The reason is that the deep state elite who presided over the creation of vast and competing secret space programs were incredibly greedy. They wanted to keep all of the advanced extraterrestrial technologies, to which they were exposed through their off-planet exploits, only to themselves. So in the 1950s, they set up the “civilian” NASA under the authority of the military industrial complex and invented a “Moon mission” using outdated rocket technology, while they continued to develop their secret space programs using advanced electromagnetic anti-gravity warp drive propulsion technology. Once the deep state put on their Apollo 11 show in 1969 and gave the world a bone to keep them quiet, they came up with other sinister ways to divert the public’s attention over the decades. Deep state agents used any excuse to discredit any real-world space program through the influence of a complicit media (just as they discredited the UFO phenomenon), paving the way for complicit legislators to give space activities the lowest priority. But don’t be fooled. There are millions of people currently residing on the Moon, Mars, and many other celestial bodies within and outside of our solar system.

In 1969, humans first set foot on the Moon. With each step, the entire universe seemed to open up. Where would NASA and its

brave astronauts go next? As it turns out, nowhere. In the half-century following Apollo 11, NASA’s human spaceflight program stagnated. Even our closest planetary neighbor, Mars, seems like an impossible destination—but this wasn’t always the case.

“At the time of the Moon landing, it was generally expected that the United States would quickly go on to Mars,” writes aerospace engineer Robert Zubrin, founder of the Mars Society and advocate for human exploration of Mars. As Zubrin relates in The New Atlantis: “Apollo 11 astronaut Michael Collins recalled thinking “
‘perhaps I could help them [NASA] plan’ a Mars mission. Edgar Mitchell, the sixth man on the Moon, remembered feeling that ‘it wasn’t unreasonable to hope’ he’d be assigned to a Mars-bound crew. Gene Cernan, the twelfth and last man on the Moon, recounted with sadness the time that he “finally faced the facts: ‘I’m not going to Mars.’”

After 1972, no astronaut would stray further than 300 miles from Earth.

People might blame this lack of human spaceflight on waning public support for the endeavor, lack of funding for NASA, or the

fickleness of a democratic government during peacetime. Zubrin is of a different mind: “Each of these explanations is intuitively plausible,” he argues, “But […] taken together, they amount to a profound misunderstanding of how democratic peoples can do great things.”

Historically, Zubrin argues, public support played a relatively small role in the space program in the 1960s. “An analysis by historian Roger Launius found that […] lunar exploration in general almost never enjoyed majority support in contemporary polls.” Lack of money is no excuse either, Zubrin adds, as NASA actually has significantly more money today (adjusted for inflation) than it did when it first sent astronauts to the moon.

As for that democratic “fickleness,” Zubrin points out that “many great things have been accomplished by democratic means during times of peace in the United States, including massive public works like the Erie Canal, the Hoover Dam, and the Interstate Highway System.”

READ ENTIRE ARTICLE

Incredible Perseverance Rover Mars Landing

February 23, 2021
ExoNews Editor

Article by Ashley Strickland February 19, 2021 (cnn.com)

UPDATED

• On Thursday February 18th, NASA’s Perseverance rover reached Mars’ thin atmosphere. The rover’s ‘jetpack’ lowered the rover on tethers near to the planet’s surface where the rover disengaged from the jetpack and descended by parachute to the ground. Meanwhile, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (which has been orbiting Mars since 2006) flew overhead taking pictures of the descent and landing. The orbiter will relay data from the rover on the ground to the science team back on Earth. The rover and its jetpack were also snapping images along the way.

• While the first images taken by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter’s HiRISE camera on Thursday evening were black and white glimpses showing the rover safely landing on Mars, by Friday color images of the ‘Red Planet’ were being transmitted from the rover itself.

• Perseverance landed about 1.2 miles away from the Jezero Crater river delta, which hosted a lake 3.9 billion years ago. The rover switched over to the software it will use while driving on the Martian surface where it will spend the next two years investigating the crater and delta in search for evidence of ancient life that may have existed when Mars was a more habitable place.

• These first images shared during a NASA press conference were “exhilarating” for the team. A camera on the descent stage of the rover spacecraft captured a unique perspective. “This shot from a camera on my jetpack captures me in midair, just before my wheels touched down,” related the Perseverance rover on its Perseverance Twitter account. “The moment that my team dreamed of for years, now a reality.” “An open horizon, with so much to explore. Can’t wait to get going,” the Perseverance account tweeted. ”Dare mighty things.”

• “The team is overwhelmed with excitement and joy to have successfully landed another rover on the surface of Mars,” said Adam Steltzner, the Perseverance rover’s chief engineer. “When we do such investments, we do them for humanity, and we do them as a gesture of our humanity.” “We can only hope, in our efforts to engineer spacecraft and explore our solar system, that we might be able contribute yet another iconic image to this collection, and I’m happy to say that I’m hopeful that today we can with this.”

• Aaron Stehura, deputy phase lead for entry, descent and landing also reflected on the moment the science team saw the image of the rover from the perspective of the ‘jetpack’ descent stage. “This is something that we’ve never seen before. It was stunning and the team was awestruck. And, you know, there’s just a feeling of victory that we’re able to capture these and share them with the world.” After the successful landing, members of the team celebrated with virtual parties, ice cream and the best night’s sleep they’ve have in a long time.

• “The rover is doing great and is healthy on the surface of Mars and continues to be highly functional and awesome,” said Pauline Hwang, strategic mission manager for the rover. This weekend, the rover will go through some hardware checkouts to make sure everything is working properly, Hwang said. The head, or mast, will unfold and cameras on the mast will capture more images of the rover’s surroundings to provide a panorama, as well as a “selfie” panorama of the rover.

• ‘Ingenuity’, the little helicopter tucked up under the rover, will also go through a checkup before embarking upon a series of test flights over a 30-day period, said Hwang. The Perseverance rover will drive to a predetermined helipad location, lower the helicopter to the ground, roll back away from the helicopter. and record images and video of these historic flights. Ingenuity also carries two cameras and will be able to share its aerial views.

• Katie Stack Morgan, deputy project scientist for the rover has been helping to lead a team of 450 scientists around the world as they prepare to explore the Jezero Crater. Now, they’re ready to study these images and plot out a path for the rover to use as it navigates the intriguing features of the crater. The rover will explore nearby rocks on the crater floor to determine if they are volcanic basalt or sedimentary rocks and investigate the presence of a mineral called olivine that could be an explosive ash deposit, Morgan said.

• Holes present in some the rocks visible in images taken by the rover could suggest either gas that escaped the rocks if they were formed from lava, or fluids that dissolved part of the rock if they’re sedimentary. “Between us and the delta, we have a lot of interesting science to do,” said Morgan. “As soon as we got that color image from the surface of Mars, our chats lit up with the science team saying ‘look over here’ and’ look over here.’ And that’s exactly what we were hoping for… [W]e can’t believe that we’re really doing science now on the surface of Mars.”

After safely landing on the surface of Mars Thursday, NASA’s Perseverance rover has sent back a never-before-seen view: what it

looks like to land on Mars.

The rover also returned some beautiful postcards of its landing site.

The first image shared during a NASA press conference Friday was “exhilarating” for the team when they received it. It shows the rover nearing the Martian surface during entry, descent and landing. A camera on the descent stage of the spacecraft captured the perspective, something that wasn’t possible on previous missions.

“This shot from a camera on my ‘jetpack’ captures me in midair, just before my wheels touched down,” according to a tweet from the Perseverance Twitter account. “The moment that my team dreamed of for years, now a reality. Dare mighty things.”

Little dust plumes can be seen kicking up from the Martian surface, stirred by the engines landing the rover when it was just 6.5 feet above the surface.

“The team is overwhelmed with excitement and joy to have successfully landed another rover on the surface of Mars,” said Adam Steltzner, the rover’s chief engineer. “When we do such investments, we do them for humanity, and we do them as a gesture of our humanity.”

Steltzner cited iconic space images from the Apollo mission, like Buzz Aldrin on the surface of the moon, Voyager’s first image of Saturn and the Hubble Space Telescope’s awe-inspiring “Pillars of Creation” photo.

“We can only hope, in our efforts to engineer spacecraft and explore our solar system, that we might be able contribute yet another iconic image to this collection, and I’m happy to say that I’m hopeful that today we can with this.”

While the first images returned by the rover Thursday evening were black and white glimpses showing it safely landed on Mars, color images made available Friday show the characteristic red color of the Martian surface.

“An open horizon, with so much to explore. Can’t wait to get going,” the Perseverance account tweeted.

Rocks are also seen scattered across the flat surface of the landing site in Jezero Crater, but they’re small when compared to the large rover wheels.

Rocks spotted by the rover have holes in them — which has the scientists curious to see what would cause them.

Another tweet with the image read, “I love rocks. Look at these right next to my wheel. Are they volcanic or sedimentary? What story do they tell? Can’t wait to find out.”

The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter’s HiRISE camera, which flew over the landing site as Perseverance was coming in for a landing, captured an incredible view as the spacecraft’s parachutes opened.

“The Beauty of Flight! HiRISE captured this image of @NASAPersevere on its way to the landing site from over 700 km (435 mi) away!” the HiRISE account tweeted.

4:15 minute summary of the NASA Perseverance Mars landing (‘TODAY’ YouTube)

2:43 minute depiction of the Ingenuity helicopter (‘WKMG News 6 Orlando’ YouTube)

READ ENTIRE ARTICLE

Strange Radio Signal Discovered Coming From Jupiter’s Moon

January 21, 2021
ExoNews Editor

Article by Chris Ciaccia January 12, 2021 (foxnews.com)

• In 2018, NASA researchers monitoring the Galileo Probe spacecraft observed extraordinary electromagnetic waves, or “chorus waves,” on Jupiter’s moon, Ganymede. NASA recently published in the scientific journal Geophysical Research Letters that NASA’s Jupiter space probe ‘Juno’ (pictured above) detected a “decametric radio emission” as it traveled over Jupiter’s polar region at a speed of 111,847 mph. The radio emission lasted for only five seconds, but it was enough time to confirm the source.

• “It’s not ET,” says NASA’s Patrick Wiggins. “It’s more of a natural function.” Electrons spiraling in Jupiter’s magnetic field are thought to be the cause of the radio noise. Scientists have known about radio waves on Jupiter since the mid-1950s, but this is the first time the phenomenon has ever been seen emanating from Ganymede.

• The Juno spacecraft launched in 2011and was scheduled to stop functioning in July 2021. But NASA recently extended the duration of the Juno mission around Jupiter to September 2025, if it survives that long. During its mission, Juno has made a number of discoveries and captured remarkable images of the planet and its moons. Juno will continue to observe the gas giant and its rings, and is planned to make close flybys of moons Ganymede, Europa and Io.

• Ganymede, the largest of Jupiter’s moons, has long fascinated astronomers. In 2015, NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope spotted evidence that Ganymede has an underground ocean. Jupiter’s moon Europa is the sixth-largest moon in the solar system and home to an ocean that “could be habitable,” say researchers.

NASA recently extended the life of two of its planetary discovery missions, including the Juno mission to Jupiter. Now it’s come to light Juno has discovered an FM signal emanating from one of the gas giant’s moons, Ganymede.

The discovery is not an indication of extraterrestrial life, but it is fascinating nonetheless, given it’s the first time it’s been discovered coming from the celestial satellite.
“It’s not E.T.,” Patrick Wiggins, one of NASA’s ambassadors to Utah, said in comments obtained by Fox 8 Cleveland. “It’s more of a natural function.”

The spacecraft, which launched in 2011, happened to be traveling across Jupiter’s polar region at a speed of 111,847 mph when it crossed the radio source, known as a “decametric radio emission,” or simply Wi-Fi. It saw the radio emission for only five seconds, but it was enough time to confirm the source.

According to NASA, the decametric radio waves have frequencies between 10 and 40 MHz, but never above 40 MHz. “Electrons spiraling in Jupiter’s magnetic field are thought to be the cause of the radio noise we hear,” the space agency added.

Scientists have known about radio waves on Jupiter since the mid-1950s, but this is the first time the phenomenon has ever been

seen emanating from Ganymede.
The findings were recently published in the scientific journal Geophysical Research Letters.

While notable, this is not the first time scientists have discovered strange occurrences on Ganymede. In 2018, researchers observed “extraordinary” electromagnetic waves, also known as “chorus waves,” thanks to the Galileo Probe spacecraft.

Jupiter’s moon Ganymede has long fascinated astronomers—as it is the largest of the planet’s moons. In 2015, NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope spotted evidence that Ganymede has an underground ocean.

READ ENTIRE ARTICLE

NASA Scientists Will Send This Robot Dog to Mars

January 10, 2021
ExoNews Editor

Article by Kristin Houser December 27, 2020 (freethink.com)

• So far, NASA has landed four rovers on Mars. But because they’ve all used wheels to move around, they’ve only been able to explore the parts of the planet that are relatively flat. The parts they can’t reach with a wheeled Mars rover, however, are some of the most enticing to explore. More than sixty researchers and engineers from NASA, CalTech, MIT, and other organizations built a robot dog that they think could be the ideal Mars rover for exploring those hard-to-reach areas.

• Mars is riddled with caves and lava tubes. Those underground structures could be the best places to look for evidence of ancient extraterrestrial life. They could also be the key to human life surviving on Mars in the future. Martian colonists might be able to seek shelter underground, avoiding radiation, frigid temperatures, and meteorites that could jeopardize their safety on Mars’ surface.

• Boston Dynamics’ robot dog, “Spot”, became the possible answer. Spot already has an eclectic resume — it’s herded sheep in New Zealand, scouted factories for Ford, and even helped the NYPD during a recent hostage situation. While the robot dog is highly capable, it wasn’t ready for a job as a Mars rover right out of the gate. So the engineers made some modifications, which they presented during the American Geophysical Union’s annual meeting on December 14th.

• They gave Spot a new sensor package, including a thermal camera and LiDaR (laser-scanning) sensor, and mounted a new power and computing package to its back. They also equipped the robot dog with AI software to help it learn as it explores, and a communication system it could use to send data from below ground to the surface. They renamed their newly upgraded robot dog “Au-Spot”, and it has already taken first place in a DARPA challenge that required it to navigate courses designed to look like underground urban environments.

• The researchers are currently testing the robot’s ability to navigate obstacle courses and map outdoor locations similar to the subterranean structures of Mars, such as the lava tubes found in Northern California. NASA hasn’t announced any impending plans to send Au-Spot to the Red Planet. But Au-Spot’s behaviors could one day enable revolutionary scientific missions to take place on the Martian surface and subsurface.

Boston Dynamics’ robot dog Spot has an eclectic resume — it’s herded sheep in New Zealand, scouted factories for Ford, and even helped the NYPD during a recent hostage situation.

However, the multi-talented bot’s next job might be the most remarkable yet: exploring Mars for NASA.

Limitations of a Wheeled Mars Rover

NASA has landed four rovers on Mars so far, and because they’ve all used wheels to move around, they’ve only been able to explore the parts of the planet that are relatively flat.

Scientists want to be able to scope out the entire planet, though — and the parts they can’t reach with a wheeled Mars rover are some of the most enticing.

Mars is riddled with caves and lava tubes, and those underground structures could be the best places to look for evidence of ancient extraterrestrial life.

They could also be the key to human life surviving on the Red Planet in the future — Martian colonists might be able to seek shelter underground, avoiding some of the radiation, frigid temperatures, and meteorites that could jeopardize their safety on Mars’ surface.

Now, more than 60 researchers and engineers from NASA, CalTech, MIT, and other organizations have built a Spot robot dog they think could be the ideal Mars rover for exploring those subsurface structures.

The Roving Robot Dog

While Boston Dynamics’ robot dog is already highly capable, it wasn’t exactly ready for a job as a Mars rover right out of the box, so the researchers had to make some modifications, which they presented during the American Geophysical Union’s (AGU) annual meeting on December 14.

11:43 minute video of Au-Spot, NASA’s robot dog (‘Thomas Touma’ YouTube)

READ ENTIRE ARTICLE

Alien Life on Mars Could Help Humans in Space Exploration

January 9, 2021
ExoNews Editor

Article by Kirill Kurevlev December 27, 2020 (sputniknews.com)

• NASA plans to land the Perseverance rover on Mars in February 2021. The agency plans to return US astronauts to the surface of the Moon by the end of 2024, and a manned mission to Mars by the early 2030s. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk is determined to land humans on Mars and start a colony by 2026.

• “[M]icrobial life is [what] we’re most likely to find within our solar system,” states NASA’s chief scientist, Dr. James Green. “Intelligent life we may find outside of our solar system…” Dr. Green, believes that the discovery of even microbial life on planets like Mars may allow future astronauts to be genetically engineered into being able to live in the same environments. Dr. Green says that the discovery of life in the Solar System – any life – would completely change the worldview of mankind.

• Studying life that has evolved in an environment completely different from Earth would provide an example of how they’ve developed mechanisms to survive in it. Says Dr. Green, “[I]f we’re able to crack the concept of being able to live and grow using, using new changes in our DNA structure that maybe other life forms have really done, then we can go anywhere in the galaxy we want to, I mean, it just opens up everything!”

For many years of manned missions, scientists have been searching for other planets and moons that could be suitable for human life. However, most of them present very harsh conditions for us. The problem may be solved with a little help from Martians.

American National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) chief scientist, Dr. James Green, believes that the discovery of life on other Solar System planets, like Mars, may allow future astronauts to be genetically engineered into being able to live in the same environments, Green said in a podcast of “Gravity Assist”.

According to the scientist, studying life that has evolved in an environment completely different from Earth would provide an example of how they’ve developed mechanisms to survive in it.

“[…] if we’re able to crack that, if we’re able to crack the concept of being able to live and grow using, using new changes in our DNA structure that maybe other life forms have really done, then we can go anywhere in the galaxy we want to, I mean, it just opens up everything!”, the physicist stated.

READ ENTIRE ARTICLE

NASA is Sending Spiders to Space

January 4, 2021
ExoNews Editor

Article by Kristen Currie and Eric Henrikson December 21, 2020 (krqe.com)

• When it comes to arachnids, NASA scientists noticed that a spider’s web tends to be lopsided with the center slightly displaced towards the upper edge. Also, while resting, spiders tend to point their heads down towards gravity to get to their prey faster.

• NASA wanted to know what a spider would do without gravity. Would the middle of the web be more centered? Would a spider still face down in a zero-gravity environment? So astronauts on the International Space Station did an experiment. They put a few spiders to the test and found that in the absence of gravity, the spider’s webs tended to be more symmetrical and their body position more variable.

• Without gravity, spiders used light as a way to orient themselves. They found that the webs built under lamp light, as opposed to in darkness, were like those build on Earth under the influence of gravity. (see 2:10 minute video on space spiders below)

AUSTIN (KXAN) – Have you ever noticed that a spider’s web tends to be lopsided? Often times, the center is slightly displaced towards the upper edge. And while resting, spiders tend to point their heads down – towards gravity – to get to their prey faster.

Well NASA scientists noticed both characteristics and wanted to know – what would a spider do without gravity? Would the middle of the web be more centered? Would a spider still face down in a zero-gravity environment?

After a couple mishaps on board the International Space Station, astronauts put a few spiders to the test. They found that in the absence of gravity, the spider’s webs tended to be more symmetrical and their body position more variable.

The scientists took it a step further observing that without gravity, spiders used light as a way to orient themselves. When comparing darkness to lamplight, they found that the webs built under light were like those build on Earth under the influence of gravity.

2:10 minute video on NASA sending spiders to space (‘KXAN’ YouTube)

READ ORIGINAL ARTICLE

The Black Knight Satellite Conspiracy Theory

December 28, 2020
ExoNews Editor

Article by Caroline Delbert December 16, 2020 (popularmechanics.com)

• In 1899, Nikola Tesla claimed to have heard an extraterrestrial signal, and exclaimed. “I have a deep conviction that highly intelligent beings exist on Mars.” In 1923, Tesla told a reporter from the Albany Telegram: “I caught signals which I interpreted as meaning 1–2–3–4. I believe the Martians used numbers for communication because numbers are universal.” At the turn of the 20th century, before airplanes, canals were important for worldwide commerce. There was a theory that Mars had canals made by some kind of intelligent species. According to NASA, it follows that Tesla would have assumed that the mystery signals that he was detecting were from a intelligent beings on Mars.

• The late Gordon Cooper, one of the original Mercury Seven astronauts in the early 1960s, claimed to have seen a UFO in space. Although NASA would not support him on it, they admitted to spotting something in the sky, and after ruling out the small number of satellites at the time, decided it must be something else. People in the 1960s were paranoid with the Cold War space race and keen to identify anything in the sky. Time magazine mentioned the space object in 1960, This, together with Tesla’s claim, gave rise to the existence of an alien satellite in a polar orbit perpendicular to ordinary equatorial satellite orbits, dubbed the ‘Black Knight’ satellite (pictured above). And a 1970 paper added the “13,000-year-old alien” origin twist.

• According to Vice, declassified documents have revealed that the mystery object was part of the US military’s Cold War ‘CORONA Project’, the world’s first successful space photo-reconnaissance flights to monitor Soviet missile facilities. In 1998, NASA astronauts on the International Space Station saw and photographed the “amorphous black object” in space, noting its dark and curious shape. NASA dismissed it as an errant thermal blanket.

• NASA is satisfied that the object, glimpsed very occasionally, is probably a piece of lost space junk. Believers cite signals dating back to Nikola Tesla of observations of a polar satellite many millennia older than human technology. Scientists have now determined these signals to be naturally occurring by pulsating space objects known as ‘pulsars’.

The Conspiracy

The Black Knight is a space object that, believers insist, is both artificially made and approximately 13,000 years old. That’s supposedly it in the NASA photo above. The agency says the object, glimpsed very occasionally and “detected” sometimes over the decades, is probably a piece of space junk lost from a mission. But believers cite history dating back to Nikola Tesla of observations of a polar satellite many millennia older than human technology. Could it come from ancient aliens?

The Origins

Vice reported on the Black Knight in 2015: “In 1899, Nikola Tesla heard from aliens. ‘I have a deep conviction that highly intelligent beings exist on Mars,’ Tesla told a reporter from the Albany Telegram in 1923. ‘I caught signals which I interpreted as meaning 1–2–3–4. I believe the Martians used

numbers for communication because numbers are universal.’”

**The ‘CORONA Project’ “bucket satellite”**

At the time, there was an influential theory that Mars had canals made by some kind of intelligent species. “The importance of canals for worldwide commerce at that time without a doubt influenced the popular interest in ‘canals’ on Mars,” NASA explains. The zeitgeist coil surely have affected Tesla—a genius by any measure, but still a human being trying to understand the confusing things he might have encountered.

READ ENTIRE ARTICLE

Will Biden Cede Space Preeminence to the Chinese?

December 24, 2020
ExoNews Editor

Article by Douglas MacKinnon December 12, 2020 (thehill.com)

• On December 9th, Vice President Mike Pence addressed an assembly of the National Space Council, and to introduce the NASA astronauts selected for the Artemis Program’s return of humans to the Moon. During his speech, Pence made mention of the growing threat posed to the United States by China’s militarized space program. “China is increasingly emerging as a serious competitor in space,” said Pence. “As the world witnessed, China recently landed an unmanned craft on the moon and, for the first time, robotically raised the red flag of Communist China on that magnificent desolation.”

• “China is increasingly emerging as a serious competitor in space,” said Pence. “In four short years (ie: Trump’s administration), America is leading in space once again.” The reality is that China emerged as a serious competitor well over a decade ago, becoming the preeminent space-faring nation on Earth. The Trump administration has been forced to play catch-up after the setbacks in the space program enacted under his previous administration. And now that Joe Biden may be assuming the White House in January, China knows that the US is could to slip further behind.

• Virtually every incoming President has tended to scale back or dismantle the space policies enacted by his predecessor. When Barack Obama replaced George W. Bush, his administration oversaw the shutdown of America’s ability to send astronauts into space on US spacecraft. We came to rely on the Russians to get Americans to the mostly U.S.-built International Space Station – at a cost of $90 million per astronaut.

• The political and military leadership of China are thrilled that an incoming Biden administration, which despises Trump, would put Trump’s space policies – such as the Space Force, the return of American astronauts to the Moon, and the very existence of the National Space Council – squarely in the crosshairs of Team Biden. Much of Biden’s NASA transition team is led and staffed by Obama-era retreads who have made it abundantly clear that they favor redirecting NASA and Space Force dollars toward domestic programs and fighting climate change.

• Such stated goals are music to the ears of the People’s Republic of China. Every US tax dollar directed away from the American space program is a victory for China and their ultimate endgame. China understands its greatest competition, and its greatest threat, is the United States. They look for any opportunity to create an advantage over the US to further its goal to dominate the cislunar theater from Earth to the Moon. Recent news of the Chinese government seeking to compromise certain US politicians is evidence of China’s long-term strategy to usurp American power.

• You can be sure the Chinese leadership is hopeful that Biden will not only dismantle all that Trump has done regarding space, but will relegate the US space program to a back burner. In this case, historic precedent is on the side of the Chinese.

This past week, Vice President Mike Pence, in his capacity as chair of the National Space Council, addressed a meeting of that group at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Although his speech was rather generic and filled with too much partisan praise of President Trump, he did manage to briefly address a critically important topic: the growing threat posed to the United States by China’s militarized space program.

But, as they say in the news business, even with that warning, Pence still managed to “bury the lead.” In remarks that stretched almost two hours, he spoke about the threat from China for only one brief paragraph.

Said Pence: “China is increasingly emerging as a serious competitor in space, just as they are in other areas of the global economy and to the strategic interest of the United States. As the world witnessed, China recently landed an unmanned craft on the moon and, for the first time, robotically raised the red flag of Communist China on that magnificent desolation.”

The political and military leadership directing China’s space program must have burst out laughing when they heard or read Pence’s assessment that “China is increasingly emerging as a serious competitor in space,” or when, later in the speech, he declared: “In four short years, America is leading in space once again — it’s true.”

In fact, China “emerged” as a “serious competitor” well over a decade ago.

China knows it is the preeminent space-faring nation on Earth, and that the United States may be about to slip much further behind them with the coming change in presidential administrations.

For all those in the United States who understand the critical need for the United States to have robust civilian and military space programs, almost every presidential election becomes a recurring nightmare realized.

The main reason is that virtually every incoming president tends to scale back or dismantle the space policies enacted by his predecessor. The fact that the “predecessor” in this case will be Donald Trump, who is despised by much of the incoming Biden administration, puts Trump’s space policies and programs squarely in the “cancel it” crosshairs of Team Biden — policies such as the Space Force, a return of American astronauts to the moon, and the very existence of the National Space Council itself.

READ ENTIRE ARTICLE