There is a good discussion in this post and in the comments of that post about what the Trump administration might do with regards to NASA’s mission… a return to the Moon?
Month: December 2016
Mars Sample Return and Red Dragon: A new plan
This is a great plan by former NASA Science Mission Directorate Associate Administrator John Grunsfeld… put a communication satellite in Mars orbit, plus a ground penetrating radar and high resolution imager. Then send a SpaceX Red Dragon to land on Mars and pick up Mars 2020 cached samples… makes sense to me!
Update Opportunity’s trek along the rim of Endeavour Crater
The Planetary Society has a detailed discussion of the Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity’s current progress on its 10th extended mission. Opportunity is headed south along the rim of Endeavour crater en route to a Noachian-aged gully that appears to have been carved by water. It will be an interesting feature to investigate!
Possible signs of life found by Spirit rover
My Mars Exploration Rover colleagues Steve Ruff and Jack Farmer published their work in Nature Communications comparing the silica-rich nodules found by Spirit to biologically mediated silica sinter nodules observed at the high altitute El Tatio site in Chile. The link to their paper is here.
