#01

Thing were recently looking good for the "mole," a burrowing instrument on the Mars lander Insight. Reports were that the mole was moving again after months stuck in place after the lander used its robot arm to compress soil around the probe. In a surprise Act II, the mole has now backed out of its hole and is once again exposed on the surface. The robot arm has now been retracted and new images made as the team figures out what to do next.

#02

The race between Boeing and SpaceX to become the first private company to ever deliver astronauts to space is heating up. On November 1st, Boeing declared their launchpad abort test a success (this is the system that would eject the spac capsule away from a malfunctioning rocket) despite a loose pin that cause one of the three parachutes to not open. SpaceX completed a similar test years ago, but it a snag when an un-crewed capsule exploded on the ground in April. They recently recovered from that incident by successfully completing a test fire of the pad abort engines on the ground. This paves the way for a yet to be scheduled in flight abort test.

#03

The MOSAiC expedition to freeze the 118-m long icebreaker RV Polarstern into the arctic ice for a year is well underway. As of a couple days ago the ship saw last light, and will not experience sunlight again again until the polar spring. You can follow along with the ships progress yourself as it moves with the arctic ice flows.

Another oceanic expedition aboard the Okeanos Explorer continues to perform remotely operated vehicle (ROV) dives off the coast of the southeastern united states. They've sucessfully completed 8 dives since the expedition got underway on October 31, despite poor weather which resulted in a number of no-dive days. The most recent dive was 18 nautical miles from Miami, and may have resulted in discovery of "three different carnivorous sponges (demosponges) that may be new to science." There's still a lot down there we don't know about. You can follow along with the expedition through their daily updates and live video feeds.

#04

The Japanese spacecraft Hayabusa-2 has been orbiting the asteroid Ryugu since June 2018. On November 14th it fired its thrusters to return to Earth. On board is precious cargo: samples from the asteroid itself. "Hayabusa 2 is carrying two samples: a surface sample of the asteroid’s regolith, and a sub-surface sample of monolithic bedrock, excavated with an impactor. (It’s the first spacecraft to sample the inside of an asteroid.)." The capsule containing the samples will return to earth in December of 2020 as the spacecraft flies by.

#05

As part of NASA's continued emphasis on lunar exploration, they announced a new rover mission called VIPER (Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover). The 100 day mission will land in the southern polar region of the moon and, "Using scientific instruments including a one-meter drill and a neutron spectrometer system ... the VIPER will help scientists to understand the location of the water and other resources on the lunar surface and aid in plans to extract it." The mission is slated for launch in 2022.

In other lunar news, Boeing submitted its concept to NASA for a crewed lunar lander, and NASA has installed the engines in the first iteration of the SLS mega-rocket. Future versions will hopefully someday take people back to the moon.

#06

Getting eyes in the right place at the right tie can be difficult, and sometimes outright dangerous. Fortunately, Unmanned Ariel Systems (UAS, or more popularly, drones) are making inroads into the research world. NOAA with four interesting ways that drones are being used today to study diverse topics from seal pups to hurricanes.

What to Read

Reading material that I've found worthwhile, often related to exploration, sometimes just a good book worth picking up!

"Founded in 1904 to promote exploration 'by all means possible,' The Explorers Club is an international organization dedicated to the advancement of field exploration and scientific inquiry." The club publishes a quarterly magazine called The Explorer's Journal and I just received my first copy the other day. The artfully designed booklet contains stories written by explorers actively doing work in the field. My favorite from this issue was a story about how the nomadic tradition of using hawks to hunt is being preserved in Mongolia. Far from a typical magazine that I throw out after consuming, I have a feeling this series will claim a prominent place on my bookshelf for some time to come.

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This newsletter was produced as a private venture and not in the author's capacity as an employee of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory/California Institute of Technology or of Griffith Observatory. Any views and opinions expressed herein or on exploreandobserve.com are his own and not those of his employers.

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