Mika McKinnon

ScienceSpace & Spaceflight

Infuriating Fog and Exhilarating Geophysics: Behind the Scenes of NASA’s InSight Launch to Mars

On Saturday, for the first time, a rocket blasted off from the US West Coast to fling its payload on an interplanetary trajectory. Despite being at Vandenberg Air Force Base for Mars InSight’s historic launch atop an Atlas V rocket, I never saw the spacecraft before it tore free from Earth’s greedy grasp. I’ve been … Continued

ScienceSpace & Spaceflight

How Engineers Tested the Super-Sensitive Seismometer That Will Detect Quakes on Mars

If all goes according to plan, NASA’s Mars InSight mission will launch this weekend from California. Onboard the Atlas V-401 rocket is the InSight lander, a nearly 800-pound machine loaded up with cameras, a robotic arm, a heat probe, and a seismometer that, for the first time, will allow us to examine the inner structure … Continued

Tech News

Cassini Took One Last Look at a Mysterious Glitch in Saturn’s Rings Before It Died

Peggy is something along the edge of Saturn’s ring, a glitch whose source we’ve never seen. Cassini took a last peek at Peggy during its Grand Finale destructive plunge, adding a final piece to the puzzle for future researchers to pore over when trying to understand this mysterious disturbance. 27-year Cassini project veteran Carl Murray … Continued

ScienceSpace & Spaceflight

The Cassini Team Reflects on How it Feels to Say Goodbye to Their Spacecraft

Yesterday morning, NASA’s Cassini spacecraft slammed into the day side of Saturn, the brief flash of its vaporization marking the end of a 13-year mission. But it took people to turn this hunk of aluminum and silicon into an extension of our curiosity. For the past three days, I’ve chatted with engineers and scientists at … Continued

ScienceSpace & Spaceflight

The Sun’s Magnetic Field Is a Beautifully Complicated Riddle

It’s taken half a century, but we’re finally getting a handle on our Sun’s complex magnetic field. A new model from NASA captures the strange surface interactions that create dramatic swirls of plasma and coronal mass ejections .If we can better understand the Sun’s magnetic field, we might one day be able to predict when … Continued

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Sherlock Dumps Father, Honey in Latest Elementary

Parent-child relationships are challenging. They just get more complicated when the pair is father Morland Holmes, a universally-feared manipulator of global markets, and his renowned detective of a son, Sherlock. Ready for spoilers for this week’s Elementary? Best parts of this week’s Elementary are, as usual, the character-building side-stories instead of the main mystery that … Continued

ScienceSpace & Spaceflight

This Two-in-One Satellite Will Bring Us One Step Closer to Asteroid Mining

Astronauts fired this small, rectangular hunk from the International Space Station today. The payload will separate into two autonomous satellites as part of a research program to take us one tiny step closer towards making asteroid mining a reality. If we ever want to mine asteroids, we’re going to need to step up our game … Continued

ScienceSpace & Spaceflight

Savor the Snow from Far, Far Away

It’s hard to remember the beauty of winter when constantly shovelling walkways, scraping ice off cars, and tromping through freezing slush. That’s why it’s nice to get a view from above, far away from the chilly realities of the season. NASA astronaut Scott Kelly took this photo from the International Space Station, before an epic … Continued

ScienceSpace & Spaceflight

Wanted: Reusable Rockets for NASA Research

Reusable rockets just went from a party trick to a research necessity. Have a rocket you can launch, land safely, and launch again? NASA wants you, now. NASA relies on commercial vehicles for their near-Earth necessities—research flights, cargo runs to the space station, and satellite launches—while they focus on deep space missions. But the agency … Continued

ScienceSpace & Spaceflight

Curiosity Is Using Sweet New Tools to Explore Martian Sand Dunes

Curiosity is busy poking and prodding the Bagnold Dunes, learning some new tricks in the first-ever interplanetary fieldwork on a sand dune. And of course it looks absolutely stunning while doing it in this latest sand dune selfie. The long-awaited dune scoop. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech Curiosity crept up on Namib Dune, a large dune within … Continued

ScienceSpace & Spaceflight

A Timeline of the Tragic Shuttle Launch That Changed NASA Forever

Thirty years ago, the space shuttle Challenger exploded. The tragedy shocked a nation caught in launch fever, and reshaped how NASA thought about risk. The Challenger space shuttle had a lot of good missions before the disaster. Image credit: NASA Challenger was the first space-worthy shuttle built, the second shuttle manufactured after the test-only Enterprise. … Continued

ScienceSpace & Spaceflight

Cygnus Is the Cutest of the Space Station Cargo Craft

The new Cygnus spacecraft is the cheeriest of the cargo tugs hauling gear to the International Space Station. Those new round solar panels are effective, efficient, and adorable! Solar panel on a new Cygnus spacecraft high over Africa. Image credit: NASA/Scott Kelly When the S.S. Deke Slayton II launched in December, it was the first … Continued

ScienceSpace & Spaceflight

This Robotic Arm Slips James Webb’s Mirrors Exactly Where They Need to Be

We’re openly obsessed with the assembly of the segmented origami mirror for the James Webb Space Telescope. A gorgeous photo released today reveals the secret of an enormous robotic arm used to place the mirror segments to within a paper’s width of perfection. Here’s the full photograph: James Webb Space Telescope is the first space … Continued

ScienceSpace & Spaceflight

This Might Be the Prettiest Mine We’ve Ever Seen 

All these rich greens usually mean vegetation, but this is an arid, salty land almost totally inhospitable to plants. Instead, those are the markers of a brine rich in minerals, concentrated as the water evaporates. Dabuxun Lake in China is a strangely eye-catching mine, where water evaporates to leave behind thick layers of mineral salts. … Continued

ScienceSpace & Spaceflight

The Tragedy of Apollo 1 Reshaped the Future of NASA

Today was supposed to mark a step forward in human flights for the Apollo program. Instead, flames exploded inside the capsule during a pre-flight test. The fatal accident changed the nature of America’s space program. Scorch marks on the Apollo 1 capsule. Image credit: NASA The fatal flames on January 27, 1967 killed Gus Grissom, … Continued

ScienceSpace & Spaceflight

Sink Into the Beauty of This Frozen Mountain Lake

Our planet can be too beautiful to be plausible some days. This frozen lake in the Himalayas is shockingly deep blue set against the slightly-oxidized rusty landscape. And it’s completely real, photographed from the International Space Station. NASA astronaut Scott Kelly photographed this patch of the Himalayan mountains, posting it on January 9, 2015. Top … Continued

ScienceSpace & Spaceflight

Astronaut Scott Kelly on Liquid Salt, a Stinky Station, and Sleeping in Freefall

There are lots of things most of us never contemplate when we fantasize about living in space: What happens to your arms when they don’t naturally fall at your sides? Do you keep your callouses when you aren’t walking? What’s it like to sleep in free fall? NASA astronaut Scott Kelly—he of the Year in … Continued

ScienceSpace & Spaceflight

Blue Origin Relaunched the Rocket it Landed in November

On Friday, Blue Origin launched their same New Shepard rocket booster that it launched into space two months ago. Looks like the commercial space race for reusable rockets is on—SpaceX is flashier with bigger trajectories, but Blue Origin keeps winning the race to first. The original New Shepard flight in November boosted the rocket to … Continued

ScienceSpace & Spaceflight

Saturn Tries to Hide Behind the Space Station in This Awesome Pic

We’ve seen the International Space Station transit in front of the Sun and the Moon, but passing in front of Saturn is something entirely different. Nice composite shot! The relative sizes and distances involved are particularly neat for this composite photo of the transit. Saturn is over a million times larger than the space station, … Continued

ScienceSpace & Spaceflight

SpaceX’s Crew Dragon Rocks Latest Hover Tests

Go go Dragon! SpaceX just posted video of its Dragon 2 spacecraft testing its ability to hover. Once certified, this spacecraft will carry astronauts to the space station as part of NASA’s commercial crew program. Crewed test flights are tentatively planned to start in 2017. The Dragon 2 (or Crew Dragon) is the spacecraft that … Continued