landing

27 Jul

Bezos offers NASA $2 bn discount for human lunar lander mission

San Francisco: Fresh from his trip to the edge of space, Amazon Founder Jeff Bezos has offered NASA a discount of up to $2 billion to give his space company Blue Origin the human lunar landing system (HLS) contract, won by Elon Musks SpaceX earlier this year. Escalating his space war with Musk, Bezos in an open letter to the NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said on Monday that his company would close US space agency's near-term budgetary shortfall and producing a safe and sustainable lander that will return Americans to the surface of the Moon ï¿½ this time to stay. "I…

28 Jun

China shares Zhurong rover’s landing footage, sounds from Mars

Beijing: China has released landing process footage from its Zhurong rover as well as video and sounds of the vehicle roving on Mars.Footage of the entry, descent and landing shows the deployment of a supersonic disk-gap-band parachute, separation of the backshell, followed by powered descent, a hazard-avoidance hover phase and landing, SpaceNews reported on Sunday. The China National Space Administration (CNSA) published the footage in a Zhurong mission update on early Sunday Beijing time.Video of the descent of the Zhurong rover from its landing platform, including sounds made by the vehicle's egress, was included in the release. The sounds were created…