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ESA Highlights: the best of ESA in 2023
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By European Space Agency
High above the Arctic Circle, on the rugged terrain of Andøya, three ESA radionavigation engineers take a rare moment to unwind with a game of shuffleboard. Outside, sheep graze under the shimmering northern lights, a serene backdrop to their demanding mission: test how navigation technologies withstand interference signals. With 100TB of data collected over 5 days, their efforts promise to strengthen the reliability of satellite navigation for the benefit of us all.
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By NASA
Curiosity Navigation Curiosity Home Mission Overview Where is Curiosity? Mission Updates Science Overview Instruments Highlights Exploration Goals News and Features Multimedia Curiosity Raw Images Images Videos Audio Mosaics More Resources Mars Missions Mars Sample Return Mars Perseverance Rover Mars Curiosity Rover MAVEN Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Mars Odyssey More Mars Missions Mars Home 3 min read
Sols 4475-4476: Even the Best-Laid Plans
NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity acquired this image of “Gould Mesa,” named for a hill near NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, using its Right Navigation Camera on March 6, 2025 — sol 4472, or Martian day 4,472 of the Mars Science Laboratory mission — at 01:37:17 UTC. NASA/JPL-Caltech Written by Deborah Padgett, OPGS Task Lead at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Earth planning date: Friday, March 7, 2025
In Curiosity’s last plan, the team decided to drive toward a very interesting nodular rock. The rover team hoped to do a detailed study of its surface texture over the weekend. However, Curiosity did not receive its expected Friday morning downlink of images taken after its drive. The MSL team did receive a tiny bit of data confirming that Curiosity’s drive finished as expected. Unfortunately, without images to determine exactly where Curiosity was located relative to its intended destination, the team was unable to do any instrument pointing at nearby objects, known as “targeted” observations. However, the rover team showed its resilience by filling the weekend plan with a full slate of fascinating remote observations of the terrain and sky around Curiosity’s current perch, high in the canyons of Mount Sharp. Our science and instrument teams always keep a list of backup observations close at hand — frequently those taking too much time to fit in a typical sol plan — in case they get an unexpected opportunity to use them!
On sol 4475, Curiosity will start its first science block midday with two back-to-back dust-devil surveys with Navcam. These searches for Martian whirlwinds will be followed by a measurement of atmospheric dust with Mastcam. Mastcam will then do its first large panorama image of the plan, an 11×3 mosaic starboard of the rover to document bedrock and regolith in an area with a dark band of material seen from orbit. This long observation will be followed by an AEGIS activity, using Navcam to find targets for ChemCam’s laser spectrograph. Curiosity will then repeat its post-drive imaging at high quality, hopefully to be received at JPL before Monday’s planning day. In the evening, APXS will do atmospheric composition studies for several hours.
The next day will be a “soliday,” without any observations. Early in the morning of sol 4476, Mastcam will take its second large panorama, which will be a fantastic 37×4 mosaic of sunrise on the slopes of Gould Mesa (see image). In the afternoon, there will be a Mastcam dust measurement, ChemCam calibration observation, ChemCam passive sky, and two more dust-devil surveys. The next morning, there will be a set of Navcam cloud movies, a dust measurement, and sky phase function observations to support the Mars aphelion cloud-belt campaign. On sol 4477, we will use the post-drive imaging taken over the weekend to plan contact science, then drive away from this location on sol 4478, continuing Curiosity’s journey toward the mysterious boxwork features to the west.
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Last Updated Mar 11, 2025 Related Terms
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By European Space Agency
Marking another step towards new insights into Earth’s forests and their role in the carbon cycle, ESA’s groundbreaking Biomass satellite has arrived at Europe's Spaceport in French Guiana, to be prepared for liftoff on a Vega-C rocket at the end of April.
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By NASA
NASA’s Worm logo is displayed in front of the agency’s headquarters in Washington.Credit: NASA For the 13th straight year, NASA has earned the title of Best Place to Work in the Federal Government – large agency – from the Partnership for Public Service. The ranking reflects employee satisfaction and workplace elements across the agency while executing NASA’s mission to explore the unknown and discover new knowledge for the benefit of humanity.
“NASA’s greatest asset has always been its people – those who rise to the challenge of leading in air and space,” said NASA acting Administrator Janet Petro. “This recognition reflects a culture of collaboration, innovation, and excellence that fuels our mission every day and defines NASA as the best place to work in the federal government. I’m honored to lead this remarkable team as we continue benefiting humanity and inspiring the world in the process.”
Throughout 2024, NASA’s workforce supported the agency’s groundbreaking accomplishments, including landing new science and technology on the Moon with an American company for the first time and launching a new mission to study Jupiter’s icy moon Europa. NASA teams also collaborated to maintain more than 24 years of continuous human exploration and scientific research aboard the International Space Station and unveiled its supersonic quiet aircraft.
The agency also shared the wonder of a total eclipse with millions of Americans, conducted the final flight of its Ingenuity helicopter on Mars, and announced the newest class of Artemis Generation astronauts. With the release of its latest Economic Impact Report, NASA demonstrated how its work impacts the U.S. economy, creates value to society, and returns investment to taxpayers.
The Partnership for Public Service began to compile the Best Places to Work rankings in 2003 to analyze federal employee’s viewpoints of leadership, work-life balance, and other factors of their job. A formula is used to evaluate employee responses to a federal survey, dividing submissions into four groups: large, midsize, and small agencies, in addition to their subcomponents.
Read about the Best Places to Work for 2024 online.
To learn more about NASA’s missions, visit:
https://www.nasa.gov
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Last Updated Mar 07, 2025 Related Terms
People of NASA Life at NASA Missions NASA Centers & Facilities View the full article
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