NASA and JPL continue to work towards the first flight of the Injenuity Helicopter on Mars. That flight will take place no earlier than April 14. Engineers are at work testing out the helicopter's systems to make sure everything is go before the first flight attempt.
Coming up at 12 midnight Eastern Time and 11 p.m. Central Time, Fraser Cain of Universe Today and his team of astronomers will be having a new Virtual Star Party!
This is their eighth one of the year, and the last one before the team goes on hiatus for the summer.
So, tune in! Always great observations and great talk about astrophotography!
NASA's Juno Probe is hours away from Jupiter! It will enter orbit at 11:53 p.m. EDT (0353 GMT on Tuesday), after it completes a 35-minute engine burn. Juno faces Jupiter's onslaught of intense radiation. There is also the debris that surrounds Jupiter. Even though the particles might be tiny, they could impact Juno at high speed. And, at that level of high energy, the probe could be potentially damaged.
So, it's a high-wire act! But, hopefully all will go well!
NASA is working on plans for its Mars 2020 Rover. It is based on the design of the Curiosity rover, which landed in 2012 and is still going strong!
There is an array of instruments on board. The one that strikes me as coolest is the MOXIE, Mars Oxygen In-situ resource utilization Experiment. It will attempt to do what people hoping for a manned mission have been wanting: a device that takes in Mars' carbon dioxide, and produces oxygen. If successful, this would accomplish a task that would help astronauts live on Mars.
There are plenty of other instruments that will be onboard. So, read the article and see which one is your favorite!
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