NASA, NOAA and university partners are taking to the skies, and the ground, to chase smoke from fires burning across the United States. The Fire Influence on Regional to Global Environments and Air Quality (FIREX-AQ) is starting in Boise, Idaho, with a long-term of goal of improving our understanding of how smoke from fires affects air quality across North America.
Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/Scientific Visualization Studio/Kathryn Mersmann (USRA): Lead Producer/Samson K. Reiny (Wyle Information Systems): Lead Writer/Alex Kekesi (GST): Lead Visualizer/LK Ward (USRA): Producer/Ellen T. Gray (ADNET): Producer/Music: “Broad Horizons” by Chris White [PRS] from Killer Tracks
Mars 2020 is a Mars rover mission by NASA’s Mars Exploration Program with a planned launch on 17 July 2020, and touch down in Jezero crater on Mars on 18 February 2021. It will investigate an astrobiologically relevant ancient environment on Mars and investigate its surface geological processes and history, including the assessment of its past habitability, the possibility of past life on Mars, and the potential for preservation of biosignatures within accessible geological materials. It will cache sample containers along its route for a potential future Mars sample-return mission.
The currently unnamed Mars 2020 mission was announced by NASA on 4 December 2012 at the fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco. The rover’s design is derived from the Curiosity rover, and will use many components already fabricated and tested, including different scientific instruments and a core drill.
NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) has discovered 21 planets outside our solar system and captured data on other interesting events occurring in the southern sky during its first year of science. TESS has now turned its attention to the northern hemisphere to complete the most comprehensive planet-hunting expedition ever undertaken.
TESS began hunting for exoplanets (or worlds orbiting distant stars) in the southern sky in July of 2018, while also collecting data on supernovae, black holes and other phenomena in its line of sight. Along with the planets TESS has discovered, the mission has identified over 800 candidate exoplanets that are waiting for confirmation by ground-based telescopes.
To search for exoplanets, TESS uses four large cameras to watch a 24-by-96-degree section of the sky for 27 days at a time. Some of these sections overlap, so some parts of the sky are observed for almost a year. TESS is concentrating on stars closer than 300 light-years from our solar system, watching for transits, which are periodic dips in brightness caused by an object, like a planet, passing in front of the star.
On July 18, the southern portion of the survey was completed and the spacecraft turned its cameras to the north. When it completes the northern section in 2020, TESS will have mapped over three quarters of the sky.
Credits: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/Scott Wiessinger (USRA): Lead Producer/Ravyn Cullor (GSFC Interns): Lead Writer/Claire Saravia (NASA/GSFC): Public Affairs Officer/Padi Boyd (NASA/GSFC): Narrator/Scott Wiessinger (USRA): Editor/Chris Smith (USRA): Animator/Walt Feimer (KBRwyle): Animator/Brian Monroe (USRA): Animator/Music: “Elapsing Time” from Killer Tracks
The Lockheed Martin X-59 QueSST (“Quiet Supersonic Transport”) is an American experimental supersonic aircraft being developed for NASA’s Low-Boom Flight Demonstrator program. Preliminary design started in February 2016, with the X-59 scheduled for delivery in late 2021 for flight tests from 2022. It is expected to cruise at Mach 1.42 (1,510 km/h) and 55,000 ft (16,800 m), creating a low 75 Perceived Level decibel (PLdB) thump to evaluate supersonic transport acceptability.
Dragon 2 is a reusable spacecraft developed and manufactured by U.S. aerospace manufacturer SpaceX, intended as the successor to the Dragon cargo spacecraft. The spacecraft launches atop a Falcon 9 Block 5 rocket and return via ocean splashdown. In comparison to Dragon, Dragon 2 has larger windows, new flight computers and avionics, redesigned solar arrays, and a modified outer mold line.
The spacecraft is planned to have two variants – Crew Dragon, a human-rated capsule capable of carrying up to seven astronauts, and Cargo Dragon, an updated replacement for the original Dragon. Cargo Dragon capsules are repurposed flown Crew Dragon capsules. Crew Dragon is equipped with an integrated launch escape system in a set of four side-mounted thruster pods with two SuperDraco engines each. Crew Dragon has been contracted to supply the International Space Station (ISS) with crew under the Commercial Crew Program, with the initial award occurring in October 2014 alongside Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner.
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