NASA Hosts International Meeting for Lunar Science Discussions

MOFFETT FIELD, Calif.
NASA hosted a meeting of space agencies from nine countries last week to discuss the next steps in the ongoing scientific exploration of the moon. The meeting laid the groundwork for a new generation of lunar science.

Discussions, led by NASA Headquarters officials, were held at NASA’s Lunar Science Institute, located at the Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, Calif. Representatives from space agencies in Canada, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, the Republic of Korea, the United Kingdom, and the United States attended the meeting. During the meeting, attendees discussed cooperation on an international activity called the International Lunar Network (ILN). The network is designed to gradually place 6-8 fixed or mobile science stations on the lunar surface. The stations will form a second-generation robotic science network to replace hardware left by the Apollo Program to study the moon’s surface and interior.

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Mars Phoenix Lander Finally Samples Ice

A full-circle color panorama of the Phoenix landing site on Mars stitched together from 400 separate images.

The mission of NASA’s Phoenix Mars Lander has officially been extended for one month beyond its original mission, NASA announced today, as mission scientists also celebrated the news that a sample of ice was finally delivered to one of the lander’s instruments.

“I’m very happy to announce that we’ve gotten an ice sample,” said the University of Arizona’s William Boynton, co-investigator for Phoenix’s Thermal and Evolved-Gas Analyzer, which heats up samples and analyzes the vapors they give off to determine their composition.

The news that ice had fallen into TEGA came on Thursday morning, surprising scientists who had run into problems delivering a sample of the icy dirt because of its unexpected stickiness.

“There were champagne corks popping in the downlink room,” Boynton said during a NASA briefing from the University of Arizona at Tucson, where mission control is currently based. “It’s something we’ve been waiting a long time for.”

Mars Phoenix Lander Finally Samples Ice