Topic: Apollo 11

NASA’s Perseverance Rover to collect Mars’ Rock, Dust in Sample Tubes

December 23, 2020 |

Pasadena, CA – The tubes carried in the belly of NASA’s Mars 2020 Perseverance rover are destined to carry the first samples in history from another planet back to Earth.

Future scientists will use these carefully selected representatives of Martian rock and regolith (broken rock and dust) to look for evidence of potential microbial life present in Mars’ ancient past and to answer other key questions about Mars and its history. Perseverance will land at Mars’ Jezero Crater on February 18th, 2021.

A tray holding 39 sample tubes – each protected in a gold-colored sheath – is installed in NASA’s Perseverance rover in this picture taken at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center on May 21st, 2020. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/KSC)

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NASA reflects Laser Beams to Moon and Back

August 12, 2020 |

Greenbelt, MD – Dozens of times over the last decade NASA scientists have launched laser beams at a reflector the size of a paperback novel about 240,000 miles (385,000 kilometers) away from Earth. They announced today, in collaboration with their French colleagues, that they received signal back for the first time, an encouraging result that could enhance laser experiments used to study the physics of the universe.

The reflector NASA scientists aimed for is mounted on the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), a spacecraft that has been studying the Moon from its orbit since 2009.

Artist’s rendering of NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. (NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center)

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NASA’s Mars Perseverance rover is set to launch soon

June 18, 2020 |

Pasadena, CA – NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover is just over a month from its July 20th, 2020 targeted launch date. The rover’s astrobiology mission will seek signs of past microscopic life on Mars, explore the geology of the Jezero Crater landing site, and demonstrate key technologies to help prepare for future robotic and human exploration.

And the rover will do all that while collecting the first samples of Martian rock and regolith (broken rock and dust) for return to Earth by a set of future missions.

In a clean room at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, engineers observed the first driving test for NASA’s Mars 2020 rover on Dec. 17, 2019. (NASA/JPL-Caltech)

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NASA’s Perseverance Mars Rover’s unique Sample Gathering System

June 3, 2020 |

Pasadena, CA – The samples Apollo 11 brought back to Earth from the Moon were humanity’s first from another celestial body. NASA’s upcoming Mars 2020 Perseverance rover mission will collect the first samples from another planet (the red one) for return to Earth by subsequent missions.

In place of astronauts, the Perseverance rover will rely on the most complex, capable and cleanest mechanism ever to be sent into space, the Sample Caching System.

JPL engineers monitor testing of the Perseverance rover’s Sample Caching System. (NASA/JPL-Caltech)

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NASA’s Artemis Lunar Program moves full speed ahead

December 27, 2019 |

Washington, D.C. – In 2019, NASA celebrated the 50th anniversary of the agency’s Apollo 11 Moon landing, the most historic moment in space exploration, while also making significant progress toward putting the first woman and next man on the Moon by 2024 under the Artemis program.

Through America’s Moon to Mars exploration approach, Artemis gained bipartisan support this year among members of Congress, the U.S aerospace industry, as well as with international partners, including Canada, Australia, and Japan, and member states of the European Space Agency.

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NASA says Apollo 12, Mars 2020 are Two of a Space Kind

November 21, 2019 |

Pasadena, CA – NASA says fifty years ago today, during their second moonwalk, Charles “Pete” Conrad Jr. and Alan Bean became the first humans to reach out and touch a spacecraft that had previously landed on another celestial body.

NASA’s 1969 Apollo 12 Moon mission and the upcoming Mars 2020 mission to the Red Planet may be separated by half a century and targets that are 100 million miles apart, but they share several mission goals unique in the annals of space exploration.

“We on the Mars 2020 project feel a special kinship with the crew of Apollo 12,” said John McNamee, Mars 2020 project manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

(Left) Apollo 12 astronaut Charles “Pete” Conrad Jr. stands beside NASA’s Surveyor 3 spacecraft; the lunar module Intrepid can be seen in the distance. Apollo 12 landed on the Moon’s Ocean of Storms on Nov. 20, 1969. (Right) Mars 2020 rover, seen here in an artist’s concept, will make history’s most accurate landing on a planetary body when it lands at Mars’ Jezero Crater on Feb. 18, 2021. (NASA/JPL-Caltech)

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NASA’s Apollo 11, Mars 2020 have same goal, collect Samples

August 14, 2019 |

Pasadena, CA – NASA’s Apollo 11 command module Columbia splashed down in the Pacific Ocean, fulfilling President John F. Kennedy’s goal to land a man on the Moon and return him safely to Earth on July 24th, 1969.

Among the mission’s many firsts was the acquisition and return of the first samples from another celestial body. Findings based on the 47 pounds (21.5 kilograms) of lunar rock and soil rewrote the textbooks on both the Moon and solar system, and the samples are still being studied today by researchers using new and more sensitive instruments.

From left to right: Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin stands on the Moon; 47 pounds (21.5 kilograms) of samples were brought back to Earth from that mission; the Mars 2020 rover, seen here in an artist’s concept rover, will be taking the first planetary samples at Jezero Crater, Mars (on right). (NASA/JPL-Caltech)

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NASA takes a look at Marsquakes

July 23, 2019 |

Pasadena, CA – A recent set of earthquakes shook up Southern California. But NASA says Earth isn’t the only place that experiences quakes: Both the Moon and Mars have them as well. NASA sent the first seismometer to the Moon 50 years ago, during the Apollo 11 mission; the agency’s InSight lander brought the first seismometer to Mars in late 2018, and it’s called the Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure (SEIS).

Provided by the French space agency, Centre National d’Études Spatiales (CNES), the seismometer detected its first marsquake on April 6th, 2019.

This artist’s concept is a simulation of what seismic waves from a marsquake might look like as they move through different layers of the Martian interior. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/ETH Zurich/ Van Driel)

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U.S. Vice President Mike Pence Unveils Spacecraft for NASA Artemis 1 Lunar Mission

July 22, 2019 |

Washington, D.C. – On Saturday, July 20th, 2019, at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Vice President Mike Pence gave remarks in the Neil Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the agency’s Apollo 11 Moon landing and announce to America the completion of NASA’s Orion crew capsule for the first Artemis lunar mission.

“Thanks to the hard work of the men and women of NASA, and of American industry, the Orion crew vehicle for the Artemis 1 mission is complete and ready to begin preparations for its historic first flight,” said Vice President Pence.

Vice President Mike Pence addresses invited guests, elected officials and NASA, Lockheed Martin and other industry leaders at Kennedy Space Center’s Neil Armstrong Operations Checkout Building on July 20, 2019. Pence, who visited the Florida spaceport in honor of the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission, also spoke about NASA’s progress and future plans to return to the Moon and on to Mars. (NASA)

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NASA celebrates the 50th Anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon Landing

July 21, 2019 |

Houston, TX – NASA lands “Men Land On The Moon”.

Words such as these were emblazoned in dozens of languages on the front page of newspapers around the world, echoing the first part of President John F. Kennedy’s bold challenge to the nation, made more than eight years earlier – to land a man on the Moon.

That part was successfully accomplished on July 20th, 1969. The second part of the challenge, the safe return to Earth, would have to wait four more days.

Eagle shortly after undocking. (NASA)

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