“We were very close to succeeding, but an anomaly has occurred, which requires further investigation”.
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Iraqi army declares first major victory over Islamic State in Ramadi
The capture of Ramadi by the Iraqi forces might be the biggest loss of Islamic State militants in 2015. He said roadside bombs were strung together in “networks” that can take hours to defuse.
“For InSight, that 2016 launch window existed from March 4 to March 30”, the space agency said.
Afghan forces confident to fight against Taliban in Helmand
The northern city of Kunduz briefly fell to the Taliban in late September – the biggest victory for the group in 14 years of war. Sharif’s visit to Kabul , however it is expected talks will be held on the Afghan peace process with the Taliban group.
On a Mars mission, InSight will go beneath the Mars surface and measure the planet’s seismology, heat-flow probe, and learn about its reflexes by precision tracking. If not ultimately cancelled, the InSight mission would be delayed until at least 2018, which would be the next launch opportunity for any craft heading to Mars.
Scenes of bushfire-razed homes as Australia braces for more heatwaves
A CHRISTMAS Day bushfire destroyed more than 100 homes in Victoria, Australia, and led to 1500 people being evactuated. The Premier shared a brief moment with CFA captain Roy Moriarty, who has been hailed as a hero.
An artist’s conception shows the InSight lander on the surface of Mars.
Another factor is that the “Discovery” class mission is cost-capped at $675 million-a number that includes the launch vehicle and all phases.
The lander will be the first mission to permanently deploy instruments directly onto Martian ground using a robotic arm.
Unlike missions to Earth orbit, which have launch windows that can recur every day, and ones to the Moon that can recur monthly, planetary missions involve a complex ballet of two bodies revolving about the Sun. According to NASA, the geophysical instruments onboard InSight would be able to take readings of the planet’s interior to reveal clues about how terrestrial planets form.
A USA science satellite slated to launch to Mars in March has been grounded due to a leak in a key research instrument, NASA said on Tuesday, creating uncertainty about the future of a widely anticipated effort to study the interior of the planet.
Technicians from the French space agency CNES, which built the tool, discovered the leak in a vacuum-sealed sphere containing the three seismometers earlier this.
However, the instrument once again failed to hold a vacuum during testing on Monday in extreme cold temperatures.
NASA, French seismometer manufacturer Centre National d’Études Spatiales, and spacecraft contractor Lockheed Martin will now spend the next four to six weeks reviewing data and determining how to proceed.
NASA and its partners will have to decide whether to pursue the mission after they discover the source of the new leak.
The next time the earth and Mars are favourably aligned for a launch will be in 2018.
“The vacuum issue is the only thing that was standing between us and launch”, Bruce Banerdt, InSight’s principal investigator at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, told CNN.
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This image released August 27, 2003 captured by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope shows a close-up of the red planet Mars when it was just 34,648,840 miles (55,760,220 km) away.
