Confirmed full mobility before 400-meter trek to a spot dubbed 'Glenelg'

NASA’s Astrophysics Division plans to form a 12- to 15-member external team to assess potential science missions for a pair of surplus Hubble-class National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) space telescopes. The team’s work will be focused on addressing study priorities outlined by the National Research Council’s latest decadal survey in astronomy and astrophysics, according to an agency Notice of Intent. The team will assess two options: use of the surveillance satellites “as is,” and with a coronagraph suitable for exoplanet studies.

STATION INTEGRATION: Barrios Technology Ltd. of Houston will lead a team providing a range of mission and program integration support services for the International Space Station under a two-year base contract with options valued at a potential $384.7 million. The base portion of the small business set aside agreement is effective Oct. 1.

NASA and United Launch Alliance are in the final stages of preparing for the Aug. 24 launch of the dual-spacecraft Radiation Belt Storm Probe mission.

The rover will move its own length forward (about three meters), turn right and then move backward the same distance

Lander will probe beneath the surface of Mars to understand more about the formation of the Solar System ’s rocky planets

The scheduled 6.5-hr. excursion will be followed by a U.S. excursion on Aug. 30

NEXT MISSION: As NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory rover prepares for its first moves, the agency is looking ahead to its next mission on the surface of the red planet. To launch in 2016, InSight will place instruments on the Martian surface to investigate whether the planet has a solid or liquid core, and why the planet’s crust is not divided into tectonic plates, like that of the Earth. The French and German space agencies are contributing instruments to InSight, which will land in September 2016 to begin a two-year mission.