James Webb Space Telescope’s first pictures of Mars could reveal more about the atmosphere

The James Webb Space Telescope is still snapping its first pictures of Solar System planets, and the latest batch could be particularly useful. NASA and the ESA have shared early images of Mars, taken on September 5th, that promise new insights into th…

Hilton will design suites and sleeping quarters for Voyager’s private Starlab space station

Voyager and Lockheed Martin have found a partner to design astronaut facilities for their space station. Hilton will develop suites and sleeping quarters for Starlab, CNBC reports. Under the partnership, Hilton and Voyager will also look at marketing opportunities related to Starlab and trips to what may be one of the first space hotels.

NASA has granted contracts to four private companies who are building private space stations ahead of the agency’s planned decommissioning of the International Space Station at the end of the decade. Axiom Space, Blue Origin and Northrop Grumman are also working on space stations. Voyager’s operating company Nanoracks received the largest contract, which was valued at $160 million.

Voyager and Lockheed Martin hope to have the first Starlab up and running by 2027. I wonder how many Hilton Honors points it will cost for a trip there.

毅力號發現迄今有機物含量最高的火星岩石樣本

一塊寬約 1 公尺，被命名為「Wildcat Ridge」的石塊，經過毅力號專門設備 SHERLOC 初步的分析，科學家判定該岩石含有一種硫基的有機物質，是 NASA 至今分析過的樣本中，有機物質含量最高的岩石樣本。…

Uncrewed Blue Origin capsule lands safely after New Shepard rocket failure

Blue Origin’s recent NS-23 flight didn’t go according to plan. On Monday morning, the private space firm was forced to abort the uncrewed mission after one of its New Shepard rockets suffered an unspecified “booster failure.” The problem came up about a minute after the flight took off from Blue Origin’s West Texas launch site at 10:26AM ET. You can see the entire incident unfold in the video the company shared on Twitter.

“It appears we have experienced an anomaly with today’s flight,” a commentator said during the NS-23 livestream. “This was unplanned and we don’t have any details yet. But our crew capsule was able to escape successfully, we’ll follow its progress through landing. As you can see, the drogues have deployed, and the mains are going to be pulled out next.”

The capsule was carrying NASA-funded research equipment. “It’s useless to speculate about what happened at this point. Not even the company knows the cause,” tweeted Eric Berger, senior space editor at Ars Technica, adding in a separate post that had the spacecraft been manned, the crew “would have felt a serious jolt, but would have been safe.”

Blue Shepard won’t be able to fly again until Blue Origin investigates the incident and the Federal Aviation Administration signs off on the company’s findings. 

FCC 提案要求失效的衛星應在五年內於大氣焚毀

FCC 稍早推出了一個提案，將原本只是自願性在 25 年內處理掉失效衛星的現有規則，改為強制性要求美國的衛星公司（或想進入美國市場的外國衛星公司），必須以最快速度處置失效衛星，並且最長不得超過五年。…