Reuters
• Will Dunham
Scientists say a reddish igneous meteorite recovered in Mali’s Sahara in 2022 formed in the Martian crust at least 4.1 billion years ago. If confirmed, it would be the oldest of the 435 known meteorites from Mars found on Earth, offering a rare sample of the planet’s early crust.
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NASA has set an ambitious timetable for its lunar program, with Artemis III potentially flying in summer 2027 and two crewed landings planned for 2028. The mission’s rocket assembly has reached a major milestone, while its astronauts met President Donald Trump as they train for a critical test flight of the lunar lander.
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Scientists say a reddish igneous meteorite recovered in Mali’s Sahara in 2022 formed in the Martian crust at least 4.1 billion years ago. If confirmed, it would be the oldest of the 435 known meteorites from Mars found on Earth, offering a rare sample of the planet’s early crust.
NASA’s experimental X-59 QueSST is making its first journey east, leaving California for Kennedy Space Center in Florida on the anniversary of its first flight. The aircraft is pausing flight testing after completing more than 40 test flights and is headed to appear at a NASA air show.
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The article argues that NASA needs SpaceX more than SpaceX needs NASA, giving the company and its chief executive leverage in their relationship. It raises questions about the agency’s dependence on a commercial provider, though the supplied article details no specific contracts, missions or policy changes.
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Reid Wiseman, a retired emeritus astronaut, will become deputy director of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the agency’s premier center for deep-space robotic missions. The appointment moves an astronaut with a human-spaceflight background into a senior leadership role at NASA’s robotic-exploration center.
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NASA has confirmed the UltraViolet EXplorer (UVEX), setting its lifecycle cost at $590 million and committing to launch by January 2031. The telescope is described as roughly 100 times more powerful than GALEX, whose mission ended in 2013, and is intended to expand ultraviolet observations of the universe.
NASA’s Perseverance rover has measured ultrafine dust particles on materials designed to represent spacesuit surfaces, sharpening concerns about crew exposure during future Mars missions. Separately, the rover collected a sample from a rock dubbed Singita that may be more than 3.9 billion years old.
Radiation measurements aboard the uncrewed Orion spacecraft during NASA’s Artemis I mission found that cosmic radiation near the Moon exceeds levels in Earth orbit, though by less than scientists might have anticipated. The data add to the evidence needed to assess radiation exposure on future crewed lunar missions.
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