It will be about 11:16 Pacific Time in the USA when the old ISEE-3 (International Sun / Earth Explorer 3) space probe, also known as ICE (International Cometary Explorer) will fly by the Moon. The team of the ISEE-3 Reboot project will follow the flyby and anyone can watch an animation on the Internet thanks to Google, that among its experiments has created a website dedicated to this probe.
ESA’s Rosetta space probe is continuing its approach to the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko and the photos that are coming are more and more decomaed. In July, the images of the comet’s nucleus had revealed its binary nature, now scientists but also merely curious people can see it in a much better quality. Its coma begins to show an interesting activity too and Rosetta has provided more surprising data.
Right now it’s simply called Mars 2020 but waiting to find a real name for the next NASA’s Mars Rover the agency announced the instruments it will bring in the next robotic mission to Mars. NASA received 58 proposals from researchers around the world, a remarkable quantity, twice the number received for the missions of the recent past.
On July 27, 2014, which corresponds to the Sol – as in Martian day – 3,735 of its mission, the Mars Rover Opportunity has set the record for the driving distance covered by a human vehicle on another world, reaching 40.25 km (25.01 miles). The previous record belonged to the Soviet Lunokhod 2 rover, which in 1973 covered 39 km (24.2 miles) on the Moon.
After several attempts, the project team ISEE-3 Reboot announced that it managed to run the thrusters of the ISEE-3 (International Sun / Earth Explorer 3) space probe, also known as ICE (International Cometary Explorer). On July 2, the team was able to activate the thrusters but then they gave no other signs of life. After several days of trying to identify the problem, this probe now 36 years old seems to really go back to being operational.
