![]() The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) is being used to take high-resolution pictures of potential landing sites for future human and robotic missions. Two Mars rovers, Curiosity and Opportunity, also tested a radio relay with the European Trace Gas Orbiter after that probe's arrival at Mars in November. The rover also looked at active sand dunes and picked its own rock targets using a laser spectrometer. The Curiosity rover found chemicals suggesting that Mars had more oxygen in its distant past than it does now. NASA has also asked five private spaceflight companies to come up with concepts for a potential future Mars orbiter, which will include upgrades in telecommunications and will provide high-resolution images of the Red Planet. The Mars 2020 rover has been approved for final design and construction. While the Insight lander's 2016 launch to Mars was delayed, the spacecraft is now on track for a landing in 2018 to put a drill in the planet's surface. It's possible that cubesats, or microsatellites, will fly along with this mission, following on from 13 cubesats expected to launch with the SLS and Orion in 2018. NASA's Asteroid Redirect Mission hit a milestone in August when it left the planning phase and moved on to further design and development. The Kennedy Space Center has been upgraded to support this flight. Meanwhile, the Space Launch System - NASA's next-generation rocket for deep-space missions - is still expected to launch in late 2018, along with the Orion spacecraft. A record-breaking 18,300 Americans applied to become astronauts in 2016. The agency is still selecting the next class of astronauts, who will be flying into space during that time frame and will arrive at NASA in summer 2017 for training. NASA has said it hopes to send humans to Mars in the 2030s. The ISS will also undergo changes to accommodate the new spacecraft, like the International Docking Adapter installed earlier this year. The Commercial Crew Program continues as Boeing and SpaceX do the final designs, manufacturing and testing of their vehicles to launch crewed spacecraft from U.S. The module will run for two years to test whether it is feasible to use inflatables on deep-space missions. Three Russian and one Japanese cargo re-supply missions also launched to the space station, but one Russian Progress spacecraft failed during launch, in December.Īn inflatable module called BEAM (Bigelow Expandable Activity Module) was successfully deployed on the ISS in May on the second try. Also, a billion base pairs of DNA were sequenced for the first time by astronauts aboard the orbiting lab. Two of the most notable experiments were Saffire-I and Saffire-II, which examined fire in microgravity inside uncrewed Cygnus spacecraft after they'd undocked from the space station and were falling back to Earth. Orbital ATK and SpaceX successfully launched four missions to the ISS in 2016 replete with supplies and equipment. Whitson will also be the first woman to command the ISS twice. ![]() ![]() astronaut with the most cumulative time spent in space, exceeding Jeff Williams' record of 534 days, achieved in 2016. NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson, who arrived at the International Space Station (ISS) in November, is set to become the U.S. Two space travelers - NASA astronaut Scott Kelly and Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko - concluded nearly a year in space (340 days) on March 1, when the men returned safely to Earth.
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