What's Next 10/5/2015

What's Next: A quick look into future technology news

Planetary Exploration Missions:

5 missions are being evaluated for possible funding/approval.

The one to Psyche looks particularly interesting. It's an asteroid rendezvous mission like the ongoing Rosetta/Philae mission. But with a much bigger rock to explore.

Open Source all the things:



The VESC project is an effort towards an open source high powered ESC (Electronic Speed Control) for electric motors. Though it is a generic project that will work with many BLDC motors, it's original inception was for an electric skateboard. The great thing is there's an onboard microcontroller that can receive many many types of inputs (R/c, USB, i2c, CAN, uart), or be reprogrammed with new torque curves or whatever else you want.

Would be very useful for a future BLDC milling motor/collet project that I am planning (one day).

What's Next 10/1/2015

What's Next: A quick look into future technology news

Interplanetary Rovers:

As far as we can tell Europa consists on one big global ocean and a thick ice covering on the outside. Due to tidal forces from jupiter there's enough heat for the liquid water ocean, and possibly life.

So NASA's  JPL has come up with this. An underwater rover that would drive along the bottom of the ice covering.

There's no mission drawn up just yet, but perhaps one day..

What's Next 9/30/2015

What's Next: A quick look into future technology news

Space Exploration:

NASA Found strong evidence of LIQUID water on Mars!

I know the "strong evidence" stuff is kind of a downer, but this has been a question without any strong evidence of an answer for so so long.

We've been sending landers there since 1962, and for millenia before that looking up and wondering about the place.

The latest discovery is wonderful news for those who would like to go there (one day).

Image and quote credit

""The ability of MRO to observe for multiple Mars years with a payload able to see the fine detail of these features has enabled findings such as these: first identifying the puzzling seasonal streaks and now making a big step towards explaining what they are," said Rich Zurek, MRO project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

For Ojha, the new findings are more proof that the mysterious lines he first saw darkening Martian slopes five years ago are, indeed, present-day water.

"When most people talk about water on Mars, they're usually talking about ancient water or frozen water," he said. "Now we know there's more to the story. This is the first spectral detection that unambiguously supports our liquid water-formation hypotheses for RSL."

""Our quest on Mars has been to 'follow the water,' in our search for life in the universe, and now we have convincing science that validates what we've long suspected," said John Grunsfeld, astronaut and associate administrator of NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. "This is a significant development, as it appears to confirm that water -- albeit briny -- is flowing today on the surface of Mars."

This is Awesome!

So in other news:
I won't be able to spend much time writing the blog this week. :(

I'll send as many updates as I can though.