Private rocket explodes on launch to space station

Private rocket explodes on launch to space station

An Orbital Sciences Antares rocket exploded seconds after its 6:22 p.m. lift-off from Wallops Island, Virginia, Tuesday on a mission to resupply the International Space Station. No one was hurt but the rocket was apparently destroyed and there was “significant property damage,” according to mission control commentators on NASA television.  Read more

Arctic archaeologists find Franklin expedition ship

Arctic archaeologists find Franklin expedition ship

Canadian archaeologists have found one of the Franklin Expedition’s ships — lost since the Arctic explorers famously disappeared in 1846 — off of King William Island in the Canadian Arctic. The ship is either the HMS Erebus or the HMS Terror, Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced on 9 September.  Read more

NASA extends Mars rover and Moon orbiter missions

NASA extends Mars rover and Moon orbiter missions

NASA is on the verge of releasing its long-awaited prioritization of planetary missions, meant to guide the agency if tight budgets force it to switch off an operating spacecraft. But two missions that had been considered on the verge of closure — the Mars Opportunity rover and the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) — have each received a reprieve of another two years of operations, scientists close to the projects have confirmed.  Read more

Updated: Icelandic volcano erupts

Updated: Icelandic volcano erupts

A volcanic eruption has begun near the caldera of Bárðarbunga, the Icelandic Meteorological Office (IMO) announced on 23 August. Officials have raised its aviation colour code to red, signifying that an “eruption is imminent or in progress.”  … Read more

NASA announces instruments for 2020 Mars rover

NASA announces instruments for 2020 Mars rover

The rover that NASA is sending to Mars in 2020 will carry seven instruments geared to choosing just the right rocks to collect and store for future return to Earth. They include several firsts for Mars, including a zoomable camera, a machine to generate oxygen from carbon dioxide, and radar to explore geology up to half a kilometre deep.  Read more

NASA finds asteroids to visit but may lose an important tool for studying them

NASA finds asteroids to visit but may lose an important tool for studying them

NASA’s controversial plan to capture an asteroid and study it is facing a challenge beyond the obvious technical feat: the potential shuttering of the Spitzer Space Telescope, whose observations can help calculate an asteroid’s size.  Read more