NASA’s Curiosity rover is analyzing drilled samples on Mars in one of its onboard labs for the first time in more than a year. “This was no small feat. It represents months and months of work by our team to pull this off,” said Jim Erickson, project manager of the Mars Science Laboratory mission, which is…
Drilling Success: Curiosity Is Collecting Mars Rocks
Engineers working with NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover have been hard at work testing a new way for the rover to drill rocks and extract powder from them. This past weekend, that effort produced the first drilled sample on Mars in more than a year. Curiosity tested percussive drilling this past weekend, penetrating about 2 inches…
NASA’s First Deep-Space Cubesats Say: ‘Polo!’
NASA has received radio signals indicating that the first-ever CubeSats headed to deep space are alive and well. The first signal was received at 12:15 p.m. PST (3:15 p.m. EST) yesterday; the second at 1:58 p.m. PST (4:58 p.m. EST). Engineers will now be performing a series of checks before both CubeSats enter their cruise…