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VIPER (rover)
''VIPER'' (Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover) is a lunar rover developed by NASA (Ames Research Center), and currently planned to be delivered to the surface of the Moon in November 2024. The rover will be tasked with prospecting for lunar resources in permanently shadowed areas in the lunar south pole region, especially by mapping the distribution and concentration of water ice. The mission builds on a previous NASA rover concept called Resource Prospector, which was cancelled in 2018. On 11 June 2020, NASA awarded Astrobotic Technology of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, US$199.5 million to launch ''VIPER'' to the lunar south pole. ''VIPER'' will be carried aboard Astrobotic's Griffin lander as part of NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative. Astrobotic is responsible for end-to-end services for delivery of ''VIPER'', including integration with its Griffin lander, launch from Earth, and landing on the Moon. Overview The ''VIPER'' rover, curr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeeding the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), to give the U.S. space development effort a distinctly civilian orientation, emphasizing peaceful applications in space science. NASA has since led most American space exploration, including Project Mercury, Project Gemini, the 1968-1972 Apollo Moon landing missions, the Skylab space station, and the Space Shuttle. NASA supports the International Space Station and oversees the development of the Orion spacecraft and the Space Launch System for the crewed lunar Artemis program, Commercial Crew spacecraft, and the planned Lunar Gateway space station. The agency is also responsible for the Launch Services Program, which provides oversight of launch operations and countdown management f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, Maryland to its south, West Virginia to its southwest, Ohio to its west, Lake Erie and the Canadian province of Ontario to its northwest, New York to its north, and the Delaware River and New Jersey to its east. Pennsylvania is the fifth-most populous state in the nation with over 13 million residents as of 2020. It is the 33rd-largest state by area and ranks ninth among all states in population density. The southeastern Delaware Valley metropolitan area comprises and surrounds Philadelphia, the state's largest and nation's sixth most populous city. Another 2.37 million reside in Greater Pittsburgh in the southwest, centered around Pittsburgh, the state's second-largest and Western Pennsylvania's largest city. The state's su ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Luna 24
''Luna 24'' was a robotic probe of the Soviet Union's Luna programme. The last of the Luna series of spacecraft, the mission of the ''Luna 24'' probe was the third Soviet mission to return lunar soil samples from the Moon (the first two sample return missions were ''Luna 16'' and ''Luna 20''). The probe landed in Mare Crisium (Sea of Crises). The mission returned of lunar samples to the Earth on 22 August 1976. Spacecraft Luna 24 was based on the Ye-8-5 spacecraft body, consisting of two attached stages, an ascent stage mounted on top of a descent stage. The lander stood 3.96 meters tall and had an unfueled landed mass of 1880 kg. With a full load of fuel its launch mass was between 5600 and 5750 kg. The descent stage was the same as the Ye-8 lower stage for the Lunokhod rovers, a cylindrical body with four protruding landing legs, fuel tanks, a landing radar altimeter, and a dual descent engine complex. The main descent rocket, the KTDU-417, was a throttleable 1920 kg th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nobile (crater)
Nobile is a lunar impact crater that is located near the southern pole of the Moon. It lies to the south of the crater Scott, along the western rim of Amundsen. Between Nobile and the southern pole lie the smaller craters Shoemaker and Faustini. This is an eroded crater formation that is almost constantly cloaked in deep shadows. When sunlight does enter the interior of this crater, it does so at a very oblique angle. The crater rim is overlaid by several lesser craters, the most notable being a formation about half the diameter of Nobile along the western rim. There are also small craters along the southwest and northern parts of the rim. The outer rampart of Amundsen overlies the eastern rim and inner wall. The interior floor of this crater is somewhat irregular, and there are a few small craterlets across the surface. Nobile was previously designated Scott A before being assigned a name by the IAU. On 20 September 2021, NASA selected the western edge of Nobile as the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Resource Prospector (rover)
Resource Prospector is a cancelled mission concept by NASA of a rover that would have performed a survey expedition on a polar region of the Moon. The rover was to attempt to detect and map the location of volatiles such as hydrogen, oxygen and lunar water which could foster more affordable and sustainable human exploration to the Moon, Mars, and other Solar System bodies. The mission concept was still in its pre-formulation stage,Resource Prospector Advanced Exploration Systems, NASA 2017 when it was scrapped in April 2018.NASA scraps a lunar surface missio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Honeybee Robotics
Honeybee Robotics Spacecraft Mechanisms Corporation is a small spacecraft technology and robotics company Erik Baard,Alligators Below City? Try Robo-Inchworms ''The New York Times'' BUSINESS: DIARY; November 10, 2002 headquartered in Brooklyn, New York, with offices in Altadena, California and Longmont, Colorado. It was established in 1983 by Stephen Gorevan and Chris Chapman. In June 2017, Honeybee Robotics was acquired by Ensign-Bickford Industries. In January 2022, Honeybee was sold to Blue Origin. Products Honeybee has particular expertise in developing and operating small mechanical tools used on Mars missions. Some of the robotic devices it has developed and successfully demonstrated on Mars include: * The Rock Abrasion Tool (RAT) instruments used on both Mars Exploration Rovers * The Icy Soil Acquisition Device (ISAD), sometimes called the "Phoenix Scoop", a soil scoop and a precision ice-sampling tool successfully demonstrated on the 2008 Mars Phoenix Lander mi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Johnson Space Center
The Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center (JSC) is NASA's center for human spaceflight (originally named the Manned Spacecraft Center), where human spaceflight training, research, and flight control are conducted. It was renamed in honor of the late US president and Texas native, Lyndon B. Johnson, by an act of the United States Senate on February 19, 1973. It consists of a complex of 100 buildings constructed on in the Clear Lake Area of Houston, which acquired the official nickname "Space City" in 1967. The center is home to NASA's astronaut corps, and is responsible for training astronauts from both the US and its international partners. It houses the Christopher C. Kraft Jr. Mission Control Center, which has provided the flight control function for every NASA human spaceflight since Gemini 4 (including Apollo, Skylab, Apollo–Soyuz, and Space Shuttle). It is popularly known by its radio call signs "Mission Control" and "Houston". The original Manned Spacecraft Center grew out ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Artemis Program
The Artemis program is a robotic and human Moon exploration program led by the United States' National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) along with three partner agencies: European Space Agency (ESA), Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), and Canadian Space Agency (CSA). The Artemis program intends to reestablish a human presence on the Moon for the first time since the Apollo 17 mission in 1972. The major components of the program are the Space Launch System (SLS), Orion spacecraft, Lunar Gateway space station and the commercial Human Landing Systems. The program's long-term goal is to establish a permanent base camp on the Moon and facilitate human missions to Mars. The Artemis program is a collaboration of government space agencies and private spaceflight companies, bound together by the Artemis Accords and supporting contracts. As of July 2022, twenty-one countries have signed the accords, including traditional U.S. space partners (such as the Euro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
NASA Headquarters
NASA Headquarters, officially known as Mary W. Jackson NASA Headquarters or NASA HQ and formerly named Two Independence Square, is a low-rise office building in the two-building Independence Square complex at 300 E Street SW in Washington, D.C. The building houses NASA leadership who provide overall guidance and direction to the US government executive branch agency NASA, under the leadership of the NASA administrator. Ten field centers and a variety of installations around the country conduct the day-to-day work. NASA Headquarters is organized into four Mission Directorates: Aeronautics, Exploration Systems, Science, and Space Operations. The James E. Webb Memorial Auditorium, named for NASA's second administrator James E. Webb, hosts agency news conferences and NASA Social events. A lending library, the history office, archives, production facilities for NASA TV, and a NASA gift shop are also housed in the building. The building, which opened in 1992, was designed by Kohn Ped ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Science Mission Directorate
The Science Mission Directorate (SMD) of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) engages the United States’ science community, sponsors scientific research, and develops and deploys satellites and probes in collaboration with NASA's partners around the world to answer fundamental questions requiring the view from and into space. The Science Mission Directorate also sponsors research that both enables, and is enabled by, NASA's exploration activities. The SMD portfolio is contributing to NASA's achievement of the Vision for Space Exploration by striving to: * Understand the history of Mars and the formation of the solar system. By understanding the formation of diverse terrestrial planets (with atmospheres) in the solar system, researchers learn more about Earth's future and the most promising opportunities for habitation beyond our planet. For example, differences in the impacts of collisional processes on Earth, the Moon, and Mars can provide clues about differ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lunar Water
Lunar water is water that is present on the Moon. Diffuse water molecules can persist at the Moon's sunlit surface, as discovered by NASA's SOFIA observatory in 2020. Gradually water vapor is decomposed by sunlight, leaving hydrogen and oxygen lost to outer space. Scientists have found water ice in the cold, permanently shadowed craters at the Moon's poles. Water molecules are also present in the extremely thin lunar atmosphere. Water (H2O), and the chemically related hydroxyl group (-OH), exist in forms chemically bound as hydrates and hydroxides to lunar minerals (rather than free water), and evidence strongly suggests that this is the case in low concentrations as for much of the Moon's surface. In fact, of surface matter, adsorbed water is calculated to exist at trace concentrations of 10 to 1000 parts per million. Inconclusive evidence of free water ice at the lunar poles had accumulated during the second half of the 20th century from a variety of observations suggestin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Image Shows The Distribution Of Surface Ice At The Moon's South Pole (left) And North Pole (right)
''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things that are already or about to be mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the most frequently used word in the English language; studies and analyses of texts have found it to account for seven percent of all printed English-language words. It is derived from gendered articles in Old English which combined in Middle English and now has a single form used with nouns of any gender. The word can be used with both singular and plural nouns, and with a noun that starts with any letter. This is different from many other languages, which have different forms of the definite article for different genders or numbers. Pronunciation In most dialects, "the" is pronounced as (with the voiced dental fricative followed by a schwa) when followed by a consonant sound, and as (homophone of the archaic pr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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