Carnival of Space 328

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The Carnival of Space 328 is up at the Chandra Space Telescope blog.

Universe Today – Just where has the Curiosity rover traveled so far and where is it going? This new video provides an aerial tour of the rover’s past, present and future traverses on the Red Planet.

John Grotzinger, Curiosity’s project scientist, narrates an aerial tour of the rover’s past, present and future traverses on the Red Planet.

The Meridiani Journal – Stunning new image from Cassini of Saturn – and Mars, Earth and Venus too

Nextbigfuture – Since the Apollo era, sample return missions have been primarily limited to asteroid sampling. More comprehensive sampling could yield critical information on the formation of the solar system and the potential of life beyond Earth. Hard landings at hypervelocity (1-2 km/s) would enable sampling to several feet below the surface penetration while minimizing the Delta V and mass requirements. Combined with tether technology a host of potential targets becomes viable. The proposed work seeks to design, develop and test a hard impact penetrator/sampler that can withstand the hard impact and enable the sample to be returned to orbit.

NBC and Virgin Galactic founder Richard Branson on Friday announced an agreement to track the development of the SpaceShipTwo rocket plane on television — climaxing in a flight that will put Branson and his children into outer space. If all the flight tests proceed according to plan, that inaugural passenger spaceflight could take off from New Mexico’s Spaceport America during a special edition of NBC’s TODAY show next August, 2014. They are hoping for August, but it’s completely engineering-driven, Scott told NBC News in advance of Friday’s announcement on TODAY. “There’s no guarantee for that. August is the desire.”

If you liked this article, please give it a quick review on ycombinator or StumbleUpon. Thanks

Carnival of Space 328

by

The Carnival of Space 328 is up at the Chandra Space Telescope blog.

Universe Today – Just where has the Curiosity rover traveled so far and where is it going? This new video provides an aerial tour of the rover’s past, present and future traverses on the Red Planet.

John Grotzinger, Curiosity’s project scientist, narrates an aerial tour of the rover’s past, present and future traverses on the Red Planet.

The Meridiani Journal – Stunning new image from Cassini of Saturn – and Mars, Earth and Venus too

Nextbigfuture – Since the Apollo era, sample return missions have been primarily limited to asteroid sampling. More comprehensive sampling could yield critical information on the formation of the solar system and the potential of life beyond Earth. Hard landings at hypervelocity (1-2 km/s) would enable sampling to several feet below the surface penetration while minimizing the Delta V and mass requirements. Combined with tether technology a host of potential targets becomes viable. The proposed work seeks to design, develop and test a hard impact penetrator/sampler that can withstand the hard impact and enable the sample to be returned to orbit.

NBC and Virgin Galactic founder Richard Branson on Friday announced an agreement to track the development of the SpaceShipTwo rocket plane on television — climaxing in a flight that will put Branson and his children into outer space. If all the flight tests proceed according to plan, that inaugural passenger spaceflight could take off from New Mexico’s Spaceport America during a special edition of NBC’s TODAY show next August, 2014. They are hoping for August, but it’s completely engineering-driven, Scott told NBC News in advance of Friday’s announcement on TODAY. “There’s no guarantee for that. August is the desire.”

If you liked this article, please give it a quick review on ycombinator or StumbleUpon. Thanks