14 June 2019
First experiments on Chinese Space Station announced
... around $74 million, the project cost a fraction of the $671 million NASA spent on its Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) spacecraft, which launched in 2013. Prior to the deployment of a space station however, the country needs...
21 February 2020
MMX mission gets green light to land on Phobos
... surface. The inner rocky planets are thought to orbit too close to the Sun to have retained many volatiles during formation. Water for example is suspected to exist in large quantities hidden out of sight underground on Mars. But...
24 February 2020
First results from InSight reveal a seismically active Mars
... which a much deeper crustal layer extends down to 8 and 11 kilometres. These crustal layers contain a small amount of volatiles but are mostly composed of basaltic rocks – the same type of rock found in vast quantities on the surface...
13 July 2020
UAE's mission to Mars scheduled for launch tomorrow
... to collate data on the martian atmosphere, it differs from past missions such as NASA's Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) spacecraft, by focusing on observations at Mars’ equator; Once at Mars, Hope is programmed to enter an elliptical...
30 November 2020
Researchers discover solid phosphorus in comet 67P
... of the Royal Astronomical Society. “It is possible to seed the required elements with solid cometary matter, that is rich in volatiles. Although, more importantly, the compounds must be reactive and soluble, no matter how they are delivered,” they...
18 February 2021
Success for NASA as Perseverance lands on Mars
... Space Network and it’s two orbiters; the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) and the Mars Atmospheric and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) orbiter. However, because the final two minutes of the descent and landing were mostly...
