Category Archives: Mars

June 01, 2022

This series of images from a navigation camera aboard NASAs Perseverance rover shows a gust of wind sweeping dust across the Martian plain beyond the rovers tracks on June 18, 2021 (the 117th sol, or Martian day, of the mission). The dust cloud in this GIF was estimated to be about 1.5 square miles (4 square kilometers) in size; it was the first such Martian wind-lifted dust cloud of this scale ever captured in images.

This image has been enhanced in order to show maximal detail, with some color distortion.

A key objective for Perseverances mission on Mars is astrobiology, including the search for signs of ancient microbial life. The rover will characterize the planets geology and past climate, pave the way for human exploration of the Red Planet, and be the first mission to collect and cache Martian rock and regolith (broken rock and dust).

Subsequent NASA missions, in cooperation with ESA (European Space Agency), would send spacecraft to Mars to collect these sealed samples from the surface and return them to Earth for in-depth analysis.

The Mars 2020 Perseverance mission is part of NASAs Moon to Mars exploration approach, which includes Artemis missions to the Moon that will help prepare for human exploration of the Red Planet.

JPL, which is managed for NASA by Caltech in Pasadena, California, built and manages operations of the Perseverance rover.

For more about Perseverance:

mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/

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Perseverance Views Wind Lifting a Massive Dust Cloud NASA Mars ...

Animation showing an artists rendition of Mars interior structure. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

NASAs Mars Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport (InSight) launched in May 2018 and safely landed on the Martian surface in November of that same year. Its two-year mission was to study the deep interior of Mars to learn how celestial bodies with rocky surfaces, such as the Earth and the Moon, formed. It recently recorded a record-setting, monster quake on Mars, but sadly, it is almost lights out for InSight.

One of InSights key tools for that mission is Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure (SEIS). This round, dome-shaped instrument takes the pulse or seismic vibrations of Mars. Using data from SEIS, scientists have made a new discovery about marsquakes.

Volcanic activity beneath the surface of Mars could be responsible for triggering repetitive marsquakes, which are similar to earthquakes, in a specific region of the Red Planet, scientists from The Australian National University (ANU) suggest.

New research published in Nature Communications shows scientists from ANU and the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing have discovered 47 previously undetected marsquakes beneath the Martian crust in an area called Cerberus Fossae a seismically active region on Mars that is less than 20 million years old.

It can help us answer fundamental questions about the solar system and the state of Mars core, mantle and the evolution of its currently lacking magnetic field.

The authors of the study speculate that magma activity in the Martian mantle, which is the inner layer of Mars sandwiched between the crust and the core, is the cause of these newly detected marsquakes.

The findings suggest magma in the Martian mantle is still active and is responsible for the volcanic marsquakes, contrary to past beliefs held by scientists that these events are caused by Martian tectonic forces.

According to geophysicist and co-author Professor Hrvoje Tkalcic, from the ANU Research School of Earth Sciences, the repetitive nature of these quakes and the fact they were all detected in the same area of the planet suggests Mars is more seismically active than scientists previously thought.

We found that these marsquakes repeatedly occurred at all times of the Martian day, whereas marsquakes detected and reported by NASA in the past appeared to have occurred only during the dead of night when the planet is quieter, Professor Tkalcic said.

Therefore, we can assume that the movement of molten rock in the Martian mantle is the trigger for these 47 newly detected marsquakes beneath the Cerberus Fossae region.

Professor Tkalcic said the continuous seismicity suggests the Cerberus Fossae region on Mars is seismically highly active.

Knowing that the Martian mantle is still active is crucial to our understanding of how Mars evolved as a planet, he said.

It can help us answer fundamental questions about the solar system and the state of Mars core, mantle and the evolution of its currently-lacking magnetic field.

The researchers used data collected from a seismometer attached to NASAs InSight lander, which has been collecting data about marsquakes, Martian weather, and the planets interior since landing on Mars in 2018.

Using a unique algorithm, the researchers were able to apply their techniques to the NASA data to detect the 47 previously undiscovered marsquakes.

The study authors say while the quakes would have caused some shaking on Mars, the seismic events were relatively small in magnitude and would barely be felt if they had occurred on Earth. The quakes were detected over a period of about 350 sols a term used to refer to one solar day on Mars which is equivalent to about 359 days on Earth.

According to Professor Tkalcic, the marsquake findings could help scientists figure out why the Red Planet no longer has a magnetic field.

The marsquakes indirectly help us understand whether convection is occurring inside of the planets interior, and if this convection is happening, which it looks like it is based off our findings, then there must be another mechanism at play that is preventing a magnetic field from developing on Mars, he said.

All life on Earth is possible because of the Earths magnetic field and its ability to shield us from cosmic radiation, so without a magnetic field life as we know it simply wouldnt be possible.

Therefore, understanding Mars magnetic field, how it evolved, and at which stage of the planets history it stopped is obviously important for future missions and is critical if scientists one day hope to establish human life on Mars.

Reference: Repetitive marsquakes in Martian upper mantle by Weijia Sun and Hrvoje Tkalcic, 30 March 2022, Nature Communications.DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-29329-x

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Volcanic Activity Beneath the Surface of Mars: Magma Makes Marsquakes Rock Red Planet - SciTechDaily

A long-running NASA rover imaged twisted Red Planet rock pillars.

The Curiosity rover spotted (opens in new tab) the sinewy rocks on May 15, according to raw images the mission sends down to Earth. The images were obtained on Sol (Martian day) 3474 of the mission, as Curiosity speeds towards completing its first decade of work on Mars on Aug. 6.

"The spikes are most likely the cemented fillings of ancient fractures in a sedimentary rock," the SETI Institute wrote (opens in new tab) of the feature on May 26. Sedimentary rock is formed by layers of sand and water, but the rest of the rock feature "was made of softer material and was eroded away," the institute added on Twitter.

Related: 12 amazing photos from the Perseverance rover's 1st year on Mars

The delicate features may also have been shaped by the planet's lighter gravity, which is about one-third of what we experience on Earth. SETI, however, did not elaborate on other environmental factors in its tweet. The size of the features was also not specified.

On sols 3473 and 3475, Curiosity was working at a location on Mount Sharp (Aeolis Mons) nicknamed Mirador Butte, according to a statement posted to the mission's official blog (opens in new tab) at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory on May 13.

Curiosity's Mast Camera or Mastcam, which took the odd Mars rock picture sometime during this period, was going to be "very busy in this interesting landscape," according to Curiosity blog post writer Susanne Schwenzer, a planetary geologist at The Open University in the United Kingdom.

"There will be a mosaic on the hill just off at a distance, now called 'Sierra Maigualida,' which will tell us more about the textures of the uppermost unit of the hill," Schwenzer said of the imaging plan.

The rover was also expected to examine "interesting structures" on a target nicknamed "La Paragua," to do multispectral analysis on a second target called "San Pedro," and to use stereo imaging on a feature called Tapir, which was likely formed by sediments forming rock via chemical and physical changes.

Curiosity is on a long-term plan to seek habitable conditions at Gale Crater, and is now climbing Mount Sharp to look at environmental depositions over the eons.

A newer NASA rover, Perseverance, landed Feb. 18, 2021, to seek potential ancient microbes in an ancient river delta inside Jezero Crater. Perseverance plans to cache some samples for a future mission to pick up for shipment to Earth in the 2030s.

Follow Elizabeth Howell on Twitter@howellspace. Follow us on Twitter@Spacedotcomor Facebook.

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These bizarre spiky Mars rocks likely formed by erosion and ancient fractures (photo) - Space.com

A daunting, three-hour presentation to NASA leadership about the MAVEN Mars orbiter's future was supposed to be the biggest challenge for the mission team early this year. But just as the presentation was going smoothly on Earth, the spacecraft itself was in serious trouble millions of miles away.

As she finished leading the presentation on that February day, Shannon Curry, recently appointed principal investigator for the MAVEN mission, felt confident about the team's work making the case that the Mars mission should continue at least three more years, an argument based on six months of exhaustive work from the team.

Then her phone rang. "We finally finish the presentation, I turn everything back on, and our project manager calls me immediately," Curry told Space.com. "Now, I'm thinking he's calling me to be like, 'Congratulations, you did it, you're doing great,' and he was like, 'We're in safe mode.'"

Related: The boldest Mars missions in history

Safe mode means that a spacecraft has run into a problem it can't solve on its own, so it has shut down everything it doesn't need to survive until engineers on Earth can assess the situation. Sometimes, the solution is simple, the cosmic equivalent of rebooting an internet router.

But not this time.

"The safe mode event was catastrophic is too strong, but I mean, we did get close to losing the spacecraft," Curry said, calling the incident "incredibly serious" and "scary." And when the team wanted to be celebrating the end of the six-month mission extension campaign, the timing stung. "It was like getting the wind knocked out of you. On your birthday."

MAVEN, more formally known as Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution, arrived in orbit around the Red Planet in 2014. Since then, the spacecraft has not only studied the Martian atmosphere, as its name promises, but has also acted as a key relay station for communications between NASA and its Martian landers and rovers, which cannot directly signal Earth.

It's not a mission that NASA wants to end, and indeed, at the end of the review process that culminated in the grueling presentation, the agency authorized the mission to continue work for three more years. However, MAVEN has spent more than eight years in space, far longer than it was initially designed for, and one particular part is giving the team trouble.

The spacecraft carries two of what engineers call inertial measurement units, or IMUs: one primary version, dubbed IMU-1, and an identical backup called IMU-2. Whichever IMU the spacecraft is using at any given time is responsible for keeping MAVEN in the right attitude, or orientation in space. (Attitude is crucial: functions like charging solar panels and communicating with Earth can't occur properly when a spacecraft loses attitude.)

After worrying IMU-1 issues cropped up in late 2017, the MAVEN team switched the spacecraft to its backup unit. But late last year, the team noticed that the IMU-2 unit was starting to, essentially, wear out much faster than expected. So in early February, the team returned the spacecraft to its original IMU-1 unit.

Two weeks later, on Feb. 22, the very day of MAVEN's mission extension presentation, the spacecraft suddenly couldn't seem to use either IMU to properly position itself.

"For different reasons, both of our [IMU]s started showing problems," Curry said. "When we went into safe mode, it was because one of them really crashed, basically, and then the other just was losing lifetime."

The first challenge was to stabilize the spacecraft, which required a procedure engineers call heartbeat termination.

The term "is not just for dramatic effect: basically, it's like ripping the cord out of the wall," Curry said. "The spacecraft rebooted its main onboard computer, and then when that didn't work, it had to swap to the backup computer, and we've never been on the backup computer before."

After more than an hour of the spacecraft trying to revive IMU-1, the computer swap, which also put MAVEN on IMU-2, held. And not a moment too soon: the spacecraft's focus on the sun was beginning to stray, an existential threat in and of itself.

But even once the MAVEN team had addressed the most urgent issues, the situation remained dangerous, since the team knew that using IMU-2 was courting disaster. "We've got one IMU left, and we don't have much time on it. At all," Curry said. "We recovered from the safe mode, and then we were still in pretty hot water."

So the team set to work developing what spacecraft managers call "all-stellar mode." That mode allows the spacecraft to determine its attitude by matching the stars it sees with its internal map of the cosmos. It's not quite as precise as using an IMU, but it doesn't have a limited lifetime. Unfortunately, all-stellar mode takes time to develop. The MAVEN team had intended to do that work later this year. "We already had it bookmarked for October as a 'just in case,' thinking we were, like, doing our extra credit homework," Curry said.

The spacecraft had other ideas. Once MAVEN was stable on IMU-2, the team scrambled to develop all-stellar mode as quickly as possible, completing the process in time to send the relevant commands to the spacecraft on April 19, just shy of two months after the crisis began.

For about a month after all-stellar was implemented, the MAVEN team gradually began to turn on and check instruments, although the spacecraft had to remain pointing to Earth throughout the time, limiting the science the mission could do.

Curry especially regrets the loss of data from MAVEN's extreme ultraviolet instrument, which can't observe at all when the spacecraft is pointing at Earth. Among other work, that instrument can measure certain types of ultraviolet and X-ray radiation from the sun as it arrives at the Red Planet.

And while MAVEN has been recovering, the sun has produced several major flares that the spacecraft has missed. "That's a real kicker," she said. "A couple of X-class flares have propagated past Mars and impacted Mars, and MAVEN is the only one who would be able to observe them and has not been able to."

The slow ramp-up back to full operations also meant that MAVEN spent an extra month unable to serve as a relay satellite for the InSight lander and Curiosity and Perseverance rovers, the three NASA robots currently active on the Martian surface. Although other satellites also participate in this work, MAVEN bears one of the largest loads. So the spacecraft's three-month outage meant not just reduced science from MAVEN but reduced science from Mars overall.

"It's been really hard on all of the surface assets," Curry said. And in turn, the rescue was about more than MAVEN itself. "It wasn't just simply to make sure we saved our spacecraft. This was enabling a lot of data at Mars in general."

After more than three months out of commission, MAVEN finally returned to its normal operations on Saturday (May 28), according to a statement from the University of Colorado Boulder's Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, where the mission is headquartered. But the milestone doesn't mean the spacecraft team's work is done.

Although all-stellar mode can do the job for normal operations, it isn't precise enough to see MAVEN safely through its most delicate maneuvers, and the spacecraft still has precious little time left on its IMUs.

"We have to spend this summer and the next year or two coming up with very clever ways to stop using the IMU when we normally would," Curry said. "If we did nothing, we would not make it the next 10 years." (The recent mission extension sees the spacecraft through 2025, but NASA has said it wants to use MAVEN's relay capability during its planned Mars sample-return mission campaign, which is currently targeting delivery at Earth in 2033.)

Curry said she's confident the MAVEN team can tackle this challenge as well. "When all of a sudden, you're faced with this, frankly, existential threat of saying, 'Figure it out or you're gonna lose the spacecraft,' people figure it out. And so we have a path forward, we have a bunch of ideas to start testing," she said. "Is everything ironed out? No. It's going to take a lot more work to iron out some clever ways to do that. But again, this is a very, very, very creative and smart team."

In the meantime, now that MAVEN is back to normal operations, there's precious science to be done regarding Mars' atmosphere. In particular, Curry is excited to see upcoming data that will show how the atmosphere responds to the sun's increasing activity. The sun's activity fluctuates over an 11-year solar cycle, with the star on an upswing now that scientists expect will peak around 2025.

"The solar cycle is just cranking right now and we're still at least 18 months off the peak, so we could not be more excited to get back up and running in full," Curry said.

And the 2025 solar maximum is particularly intriguing because scientists expect it will coincide with the Red Planet's next serious dust-storm season. During the southern hemisphere's summer, weather conditions can trigger dust storms so large that some encompass the entire planet. It's dust-storm season on Mars now and MAVEN has watched previous seasons as well, but the alignment of cycles ups the stakes.

"MAVEN will be observing the most extreme conditions it ever has, because there'll be dust, so it's a driver from below, and then extreme solar activity as a driver from above," Curry said of the tantalizing 2025 opportunity. "We are anxious just to get back into it."

Email Meghan Bartels at mbartels@space.com or follow her on Twitter @meghanbartels. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

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NASA's Mars MAVEN spacecraft spent 3 months on the brink of disaster - Space.com

Of all the little space robots scattered across the cosmos right now,Ingenuity, NASA's Mars helicopter, is probably my favorite. It has vastly exceeded its original mission goals and is now buzzing around like an alien gnat across the red sands of Mars, enjoying the thrill of flight on another world.

On Saturday, NASA dropped the latest video ofIngenuity, allowing you to experience those thrills for yourself.

During Ingenuity's 25th flight, on April 18, the little rotorcraft that could most certainlydid. The autonomous flight covered a distance of 2,310 feet more than seven football fields at a pace of 12 miles per hour. It was a record-breaker, the fastest and longest flight yet (though based on how well it's performed on Mars, expect that record to be broken too, no hex), and the whole thing was recorded with the chopper's downward-facing camera.

You can see the video below:

"For our record-breaking flight, Ingenuity's downward-looking navigation camera provided us with a breathtaking sense of what it would feel like gliding 33 feet above the surface of Mars at 12 miles per hour," said Teddy Tzanetos, who leads the Ingenuity team out of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.

Ginny, as it's affectionately known, recently experienced ashort bout of silence after entering a low-power state, but it's almost ready to fly again. Its next flight will be its 29th. Not bad for a helicopter that was only supposed to make five flights in 30 days. Maybe next time it'll even find a secret doorway.

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NASA Mars Helicopter Delivers Epic View of the Red Planet During Record Flight - CNET

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Five hundred years is a long time, even for human civilization. Thats why it is significant and worth considering that the colonization of space, which finally appears to be on the near horizon, is a phenomenon mankind really hasnt experienced for half a millennium. Not since the discovery of the New World, in particular North America, has the opportunity to craft a major society out of (more or less) whole cloth been around the corner.

When we think about colonizing the Moon, or Mars, we tend to consider water supply, food, how people will breathe, and that's all very natural. But a far more complicated, and ultimately important question is how will these first space-humans govern themselves? And this is no longer the domain of science fiction, humans in space will be crafting and breaking laws before we know it.

INSIDE BILLIONAIRES ELON MUSK AND JEFF BEZOS' RACE FOR SPACE

There are dual purposes served by considering how our space colonies will operate politically. One is that it is coming soon and needs to be worked out, but the other is that it provides an opportunity to really reflect on the nature of our own government. The question of how we would structure our political life if we had to start over is no longer esoteric, it is upon us. So, what should we keep and what should we perhaps disregard in forging the governments of space.

From an American perspective, the most basic answer to this question ought to be, whatever the colonists want. Polls show that as many as a quarter of Americans would go live on a Mars colony. When they start going, it ought to be with some kind of space-age Mayflower Compact. And history shows the advantages of a hands-off approach from the old, or home world.

FILE - Oliver Daemen, from left, Mark Bezos, Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon and space tourism company Blue Origin, and Wally Funk, right, participates in a post launch briefing where they discussed their flight experience aboard the Blue Origin New Shepard rocket at its spaceport near Van Horn, Texas, on July 20, 2021. The Federal Aviation Administration said Friday, Dec. 10, 2021, they are no longer present commercial astronaut wings starting next year, too many people are launching into space. All 15 people who rocketed into space this year on private flights from the U.S. will still receive their wings from the FAA. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez, File)

A vital wrinkle in the creation of the Massachusetts Bay Company in the 1620s was that the governing body would reside in the colony, not in England. This was new, and it afforded a level of autonomy that its governor, John Winthrop, used to create a thriving, self-governed, society. One free to aspire to its own moral and political ends.

Winthrop wrote before setting off, "All other churches of Europe are brought to desolation, and it cannot be, but the like Judgement is comminge upon us: And who knows, but that God hath provided this place, to be a refuge for manye, whom he meanes to save out of the general destruction." Thats rather gloomy stuff, and yet, is it so far from the general despair that so many in America and the West feel today?

Of course, the Massachusetts Bay Colony was a financial endeavor, as well. And that is also going to be the case as future billionaires like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos propel our expansion into the unknown. How much control should the earthbound shareholders and CEOs have over the nonworking lives of citizens of Mars?

Perhaps political autonomy is an idea too outdated for space dwellers, perhaps democracy is, as well. America and the West wont be the only ones in space. Couldnt we lose out to an authoritarian Chinese colony ordered and efficient, coursing with the oil of social credit systems? Or a Russian colony bogged down by corruption, but willing to kill or be killed for power?

In the 17th Century what set American colonies apart wasnt just the autonomy, but the people drawn to that autonomy even at the risk of financial ruin or death. They werent moving to Florida to test it out, they were trying to create a whole new place made in their own image. The immense power of that little idea would eventually defeat the might of British arms. Lets hope it never comes to that with Mars.

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Throughout history the settler and colonial class has shown zeal and ambition that is only amplified by the promise of living on their own terms. And unlike 500 years ago, this compact, or social construct will be agreed to by all the people.

Many things in American society today feel stuck, many are. From baby formula shortages to ever-mangled and dangerous foreign affairs, to stark and sad partisan division, but we, too, are just a step in the broader experiment of freedom and democracy.

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As the billionaires toy rockets go up, we know that soon they will be tools that build a new society. We also know that society must be free. Amidst the difficulty we ought to spare some moments to think about this marvelous opportunity we give to the next generation, and let it bring us joy. Maybe all isnt lost after all.

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Mars colony would be new beginning as humans enter the final frontier - Fox News

Humans will only be able to realize Elon Musks dream of colonizing Mars by becoming a race of cyborgs, according to Britains top astronomer.

Martin Rees, who holds the title of Royal Astronomer, told the Telegraph that it could take a couple of generations to create a new race that is capable of withstanding the rigors of the Red Planet.

Lets imagine by the end of the century there are little communities away from the Earth, Rees said.

By that time, genetic modification and cyber techniques will be far more advanced than today. One hopes they will be regulated here on Earth but these intrepid explorers on Mars will have every incentive to modify themselves.

Rees continued: They will use all these techniques to adapt themselves and within a generation or two they may become a different species, a mix of flesh and blood and robot.

So a scenario for the next millennium could be that some of the progeny of the pioneer Martian explorers will become cyborgs.

Musk has stated in the past that he believes artificial intelligence will overtake human intelligence, and that the only hope for the human species to survive and compete with AI is to become cyborgs.

Generally, people underestimate the capability of AI, Musk said at a conference in Shanghai in 2019.

They sort of think its like a smart human, but its going to be much more than that. Itll be much smarter than the smartest human.

Musk added: If you cant beat em, join em.

Musk is doing his part. His company, Neuralink, aims to implant chips into human brains so as to make humans hyper-intelligent and let paralyzed people walk again. He is also CEO of SpaceX, which is building spacecraft that is designed to conduct interplanetary travel and delivery of cargo.

Rees told the Telegraph that the idea of humans evolving into a post-human race is not far-fetched.

Most of us, unless we live in Kentucky or somewhere, know we are the outcome of four billion years of evolution, he said.

Rees said that Musks vision of humans emigrating en masse to Mars was a dangerous delusion.

It is a doddle dealing with climate change compared to terra-firming Mars, he said.

Rees added: The phrase space tourism should never be used because it will never be risk-free.

It should be called space adventure for people who like high risks, people who like hang gliding.

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Elon Musk's dream of Mars colonies will be realized by 'human cyborgs': astronomer - New York Post

In the Season 2 finale of For All Mankind, astronauts Gordo and Tracy had managed to prevent the reactor at Jamestown moonbase from melting down but couldnt save themselves, succumbing to the vacuum of space when their makeshift duct tape spacesuits proved inadequate.

That sad scene is apparently ancient history as the storyline jumps ahead to the early 1990s for Season 3 of the Apple TV+ alt-history space race drama.

Premiering Friday, the 10-episode season finds tensions having eased between the United States and Soviet Union but the space race is as hot as ever, only now there is a new frontier, Mars, and also a third player in the mix, an entrant from the private sector with a lot to prove and even more at stake.

Much of the cast from the first two seasons returns, including Joel Kinnaman as astronaut Ed Baldwin, Shantel VanSanten as his wife Karen, Jodi Balfour as astronaut Ellen Wilson, Wrenn Schmidt as NASA engineer Margo Madison, Sonya Walger as astronaut Molly Cobb and Krys Marshall as astronaut Danielle Poole.

New to the cast is Edi Gathegi (StartUp) as Dev Ayesa, a character Apple publicity describes as a charismatic visionary with his sights set on the stars. For his part, Gathegi couldnt elaborate much beyond that lest he give away spoilers, except to say that he thinks hes a very cool addition to the show.

He admits he hadnt watched FAM until he auditioned for the role but he soon found himself drawn in by the shows intelligent writing and a freedom to explore his character in depth.

It felt very much like an actors playground, he said. I felt the creators provided a landscape for the artist to be able to breathe within their performances, which is an actors dream, is not to feel the pressure of rushing through moments but to breathe and live through experiences. So I was excited to be able to do that kind of work with a lot of just great actors that I saw.

And it didnt hurt that the show just felt very, very well produced, he added. You know, it was written big in scope. Its a show about space, for God sakes. And they do it right.

Gathegi says he was also intrigued by the shows alt-history storyline and the Easter eggs that it leaves for viewers, such as the presence of electric cars in the 80s.

Watching (that) and go(ing), Hey, yeah. Technology, in our world, was expanding at a much more rapid rate because the arms race never ended, so what other innovations happened at a faster rate ? Thats cool, is all these Easter eggs that you can watch. And I think this season, Season 3, is going to have even more.

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The race for Mars is on in Season 3 of For All Mankind - Boston Herald

Amazon re:MARS

As a frequenter of tech shows, I'm very familiar with the big-budget spectacle and fanfare that frequently accompany them. It can sometimes feel a bit overblowndata storage with a side of pyrotechnics is still data storage. However, one upcoming event on my calendar may warrant such a display. Amazon re:Mars, coming June 21-24 in Las Vegas, is Amazon's big showcase for its work on some of the hottest topics in tech and sciencemachine learning, AI, robotics and space. I'm very much looking forward to getting a closer look at the work Amazon is doing in partnership with educational and research organizations and those in the private sector. I got the chance recently to sit down with AWS's Rachel Thornton, CMO, and Swami Sivasubramanian, VP of Database Analytics and Machine Learning, and receive some more information on the upcoming to-do.

Background

AWS held the first re:Mars event in 2019, the culmination of a plan to bring together communities, experts, product people, developers, researchers and more to share their enthusiasm and expertise on four of the most exciting topics in the world of tech: machine learning, AI, robotics and space. After taking a break for several years (presumably due to the pandemic), re:Mars is back this year in full force.

The event promises an opportunity to get hands-on and in-depth on these topics, but on a higher level also aims to inspire and get people excited over what is coming down the pipeline. The event is open to anyone and will feature three days of keynotes, innovation spotlights, labs, sessions and hackathons centered around these next-generation technologies and concepts. According to Thornton, developers, engineers, academics, research communities, business leaders and product teams stand to benefit from the event programming.

ML&AI

Admittedly, these are four very "buzzy" topicsthough there's a lot to be genuinely excited about around each, there's also a lot of noise to cut through. Perhaps the buzziest of the bunch are Machine Learning and AI. With the disclaimer that it would be the hardest question I asked during our interview, I asked my friends from AWS if they believed the hype around AI and ML and where they saw the discussion going over the next five to ten years. Not surprisingly, Sivasubramanian was effusive about the technology's potential. Similar to how the cloud transformed the IT industry, he predicts that ML and AI will transform practically every sector in the coming years, including healthcare, public sector, finance, fashion, retail and more. Sivasubramanian voiced optimism around the innovation AWS is seeing its customers undertake. He cited an effort in San Diego to leverage ML models to help mitigate wildfirestop of mind for many on the West Coast as we head into the dry, hot summer months.

This hits on the point that is perhaps most exciting to me about these technologies right nowthey no longer belong to just a few companies. As they get into the hands of more and more businesses and organizations, we'll see them utilized in novel, transformative ways. There's so much potential to be unlocked and we're only scratching the surface.

Sivasubramanian was recently invited to join the US Dept. of Commerce's National AI Advisory Committee, a consortium of representatives from the private sector, research and education and even labor organizations like the AFL-CIO. I asked him about the diverse group and how this wide range of voices impacts conversations about Artificial Intelligence. He stressed the importance of exploring topics such as the education and retraining of the workforce and determining suitable regulations for the nascent technology. Naturally, since AI will impact everyone, it's crucial to have a diverse panel of voices at the table advising the President on such issues.

Robotics

Next, we moved over to robotics, the third of the four technology areas featured at re:Mars. The topic of robotics has been on my mind lately, as I read article after article on the current labor shortage and other issues such as the declining birth rates in Japan and other countries. Something must fill the gap, and I believe robotics will almost certainly be part of the solution. I'm very curious about what will change in work and society as we incorporate robotics more and more into our lives.

In the workforce, robotics holds a lot of potential for both highly routine and monotonous tasks and those that are unsafe for human workersespecially when combined with machine learning. As an example, Sivasubramanian highlighted robotic implementation in Amazon fulfillment centers. Amazon has a robotic arm called Robin that the company has trained to pick up packages from conveyor belt areas based on shape and size. It then places the packages on a vehicle called Drive, which transports the packages to the loading dock.

While robotic arms are not a new concept, Sivasubramanian pointed out that very few companies are utilizing them in production daily at the scale Amazon is doing. Thornton elaborated that re:Mars aims to provide the audience a link between future technology and actual product integrationswhat's already out there and how to start bringing it into their daily operations.

Space

Next, we discussed the "final frontier" of the re:Mars conferenceSpace. We should hear a lot more about Project KuiperAmazon's low Earth orbit satellite constellationat the event and the sorts of applications it will enable. For one, Internet and connectivity stand to benefit significantly from Kuiper, allowing underserved or hard-to-reach populations access to the fabric of our modern society. Additionally, Sivasubramanian says Kuiper will transform modern manufacturing, automotive, transportation, agriculture and more.

He mentioned AWS Ground Station, a fully managed service that gives customers the ability to control their satellite communications, process data and scale up operations without having to build their own satellite ground station infrastructure. According to AWS, users gain direct access to AWS services and global infrastructure, including a low-latency global fiber network. Like many managed services, subscribers only pay for what they usein the case of Ground Station, "antenna time."

He also referenced AWS customer Capella Space, which uses AWS's image processing and other ML technologies to observe various Earth activities from space (such as deforestation, volcanic activity, etc.). In general, I've been very intrigued by low Earth orbit satellites, the high-resolution images they've been taking, and their potential to supply us with actionable insights and a common source for truth (e.g., what's going on in the supply chain, where to plant certain crops, troop movements in the ongoing Russian assault on Ukraine). When paired with machine learning algorithms, there are many potential applications.

Wrapping up

I concluded my interview with Sivasubramanian and Thornton by asking what they were most looking forward to at re:Mars. Sivasubramanian looks forward to delivering his keynote on how ML and AI are already transforming lives and businesses daily. Thornton said she is looking forward to the tech showcase and demonstrations such as Spot, a robotic dog, and BattleBots (yes, from the TV show).

Evident in our conversation was how interconnected these four topicsML, AI, robotics and spacereally are. Advances in any of these areas are likely to influence and enhance the others. In other words, these subjects AWS didn't throw them together to get four buzz-worthy topics in the same conferenceit makes a lot of sense to discuss them in conjunction with each other. If you're an engineer, developer, product person, researcher, educator or even just a layperson enthusiast in machine learning, artificial intelligence, robotics or space, re:Mars (June 21-24) is the event for you. I'll see you there!

Note: Moor Insights & Strategy writers and editors may have contributed to this article.

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Amazon Re:Mars Is The Place To Be If You're Into Machine Learning, AI, Robotics And Space - Forbes

A navigation system glitch that struck NASA's MAVEN orbiter at Mars earlier this year has hobbled the spacecraft's ability to conduct science and study the Red Planet's atmosphere.

The MAVEN spacecraft, which has orbited Mars since 2014, went into a protective "safe mode" on Feb. 22 when its vital inertial measurement units "began exhibiting anomalous behavior," NASA officials wrote in a May 18 update. While in safe mode, a spacecraft shuts down all science and awaits instructions from its flight controllers on how to recover.

In the weeks that followed, NASA managed to revive MAVEN from safe mode, but in a limited capacity. The orbiter is in a stable orbit with its primary antenna pointed at Earth to maintain high-rate communications with its flight control team.

"In this configuration, however, MAVEN cannot perform communications relays for other spacecraft on Mars and is performing only limited science observations," NASA officials wrote in the update (opens in new tab). "The mission team began science instrument recovery on April 20." The orbiter normally serves as a communication relay for NASA's Curiosity rover and Perseverance rover on Mars to beam the latest images and research from the Martian surface to Earth.

Related: A brief history of Missions to Mars

MAVEN's inertial measurement unit (IMU) system relies on ring laser gryroscopes, that detect the spaceraft's inertial motion, and four reaction wheels arranged in a four-sided pyramid that can spin independently to position the orbiter in the proper orientation, according to a NASA press kit (opens in new tab). The orbiter is also equipped with two star tracker cameras that can take images of stars and feed them into a stellar detection algorithm to help the spacecraft determine its orientation in space.

NASA officials reported that MAVEN was in safe mode until April 19, when flight controllers switch the spacecraft from its IMUs to the star-tracking system in what is known as "all-stellar mode."

"All MAVEN's science instruments are currently online, but not all of them have been able to take data while the high gain antenna is restricted to pointing toward Earth," NASA officials wrote in the update. "The team is currently working to finish checkouts of 'all stellar' mode to enable the spacecraft to operate in other orientations prior to resuming nominal science and relay operations by the end of the month."

NASA launched the MAVEN mission (its name is short for Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN mission) in November 2013 and arrived at the Red Planet in October 2014. Its mission is to study how Mars lost its surface water to become the dusty red world we see today. Last month, NASA extended the MAVEN mission, which originally cost $671 million, by another three years to allow the orbiter to continue its science work.

Email Tariq Malik attmalik@space.com (opens in new tab)or follow him@tariqjmalik (opens in new tab). Follow us@Spacedotcom (opens in new tab), Facebook (opens in new tab) and Instagram (opens in new tab).

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A navigation glitch on NASA's Mars orbiter MAVEN has stalled its science work - Space.com