NASA’s next mission to Mars is off and running. The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter lifted off a couple of days ago and should arrive at Mars in 7 months. This one will orbit the planet, map its surface at really high resolution, and send back a lot more detailed information about what’s on the surface of the Red Planet.
It’s exciting that we have the ongoing exploration of the solar system. Mercury is due for a visit from MESSENGER in a couple of years. That mission will fill in the gaps of our knowledge left behind by the Mariner mission. Cassini continues to give us more information about Saturn, and of course we have our flotilla of orbiters and rovers on Mars. What’s not to like about all this?
We went up to Canada for some vacation time this past week and so I didn’t have much chance to keep up with the news about the space shuttle landing. We did find out that it was delayed, and I woke up this morning to hear that it landed safely. So, that’s a big “whew!” even if we don’t have any shuttles going up for the foreseeable future. At least this crew proved that the shuttle could still fly; now if we could just get the fuel tank folks to fix it so that debris doesn’t smash into the shuttles during launch, that would be great!
Of course I’m interested because I want to see Hubble Space telescope refurbished and kept on orbit a few more years. Every time I see images from HST like the one below, I just hope that we can hold it together for a couple more years until the shuttle can get back up there and deliver a crew to bring HST back into full functionality.
Hubble Spies a Zoo of Galaxies
HST gives us a peek at the distant, early past of the universe. The more it looks farther into space, the further back in our history it lets us see, and to my way of thinking, that’s pretty cool stuff!
