Jet Propulsion Laboratory has announced the selection of three new “key staff” positions on Wednesday. Richard Cook has been appointed to serve as manager of the Mars Sample Return Program Office, while Leslie Livesay will take on a new role as associate director for Flight Projects and Mission Success, JPL said in a written statement. Keyur Patel has been named director of Astronomy and Physics. ... More »
Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s Perseverance Mars Rover is now just over three weeks from completing its seven-month, 292.5-million-mile journey to the Red Planet, culminating with “seven minutes of harrowing descent” before touching down on the surface, according to JPL. The SUV-sized rover was hurtling toward Mars at 1.6 miles per second, the institution said in a written statement. But like its pre... More »
Pasadena-based Motiv Space Systems, in partnership with Jet Propulsion Laboratory, today announced the development of COLDArm, the first-in-kind robotic arm that will be built to survive the extreme cold of the Moon’s South Pole ushering in a new era of extended space exploration on the Moon, Mars, and beyond. COLDArm (short for Cold Operable Lunar Deployable Arm) is a vital component of the Comme... More »
When NASA’s Perseverance rover lands on Mars on Feb. 18 it will be carrying a small but mighty passenger: Ingenuity, the Mars Helicopter. The helicopter, which weighs about four pounds (1.8 kilograms) on Earth and has a fuselage about the size of a tissue box, started out six years ago as an implausible prospect. Engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena knew it was theoretically p... More »
[UPDATED] As the Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s Perseverance Mars rover hurdles toward the Red Planet ahead of touching down next month as part of NASA’s Mars 2020 mission, the mission’s deputy project scientist will be sharing his thoughts about the project and what it could mean for the search for life on another world. Ken Williford, who also serves as Director of the JPL Astrobiogeochemistry Labo... More »
NASA has ended the scientific mission of a heat-detecting, subterranean probe attached to NASA’s InSight Mars lander after concluding it was unable to dig its way into the Martian soil, according to Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Despite nearly two months of efforts, scientists have determined the scoop-like “mole” affixed to the lander, which was designed to dig down into the ground on Mars and gathe... More »
Pasadena community and civic leaders are urging the public to not only commemorate Martin Luther King, Jr., this Monday on the federal holiday bearing his name but also to take his messages of unity and equality to heart during a highly divisive time in American politics and society at large. State Rep. Chris Holden, D-Pasadena, recalled meeting King as a child. “I was only 5 when Dr. Martin Luthe... More »
? Health officials in Pasadena reported 243 new COVID-19 infections on Wednesday, a figure surpassed only by a record 253 cases reported Tuesday. A single person was added to Pasadena’s death toll, city spokeswoman Lisa Derderian said. It was a 70-year-old man who was believed to have contracted the virus from a “household exposure.” Contact tracers continued to link new infections to holiday gat... More »
The Mars 2020 Perseverance rover, which has started its approach to the Red Planet, will help answer the next logical question in Mars exploration. With only about 50 million miles (80 million kilometers) left to go in its 293-million-mile (471-million-kilometer) journey, NASA’s Mars 2020 Perseverance rover is nearing its new planetary home. The spacecraft has begun its approach to the Red Planet ... More »
NASA and the European Space Agency have given the green light for the next phase of planning for a mission to launch a spacecraft to Mars to retrieve samples to be collected by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory-built-and-operated Perseverance Mars rover, which is set to touch down on the Red Planet in just under two months, officials announced last week. The Perseverance rover is scheduled to arrive a... More »
