prepares | Common News Update

Jan282021 by adminNo Comments

NASA prepares most sophisticated Mars rover for ‘dangerous’ landing

Science

ORLANDO, Fla., Jan. 27 (UPI) -- NASA will spend the next three weeks preparing its biggest and most sophisticated Mars rover, Perseverance, to make a dangerous seven-minute landing Feb. 18 on the Red Planet. At stake is a multinational effort to find evidence of life on Mars and the planned return of rock samples the rover will drill out of the Martian surface. Advertisement The rover and its landing system have an updated system called terrain relative navigation. The last NASA rover mission to Mars, Curiosity in 2012, had a similar system, but Perseverance's is better -- using its computer brain, maps and cameras to pick a safe landing site, said Allen Chen, a lead engineer on the mission. The landing process "is replete with danger," Chen said in a briefing for the media Wednesday. "Th...

Jan62021 by adminNo Comments

NASA prepares Orion simulator for lunar mission training

Science

ORLANDO, Fla., Jan. 6 (UPI) -- NASA is setting up a high-tech simulator, made by Lockheed Martin, to teach astronauts how to operate the Orion capsule during planned moon missions. Weak funding from Congress has cast doubt over the schedule for such lunar missions, but NASA is moving forward with preparations, officials have said. Advertisement Lockheed delivered the Orion simulator to Johnson Space Center in mid-December, ahead of the first potential crewed flight to the moon in 2023. Astronauts will practice every step of their planned flights to the moon, from launch to lunar landing, NASA astronaut Randy Bresnik told UPI. "The training teams will be able to have the highest-fidelity, most realistic flight simulations that are possible," said Bresnik, who trained in simulators for his...

Dec62020 by adminNo Comments

China prepares large-scale rollout of coronavirus vaccines

Health

TAIPEI, Taiwan -- Provincial governments across China are placing orders for experimental, domestically made coronavirus vaccines, though health officials have yet to say how well they work or how they may reach the country's 1.4 billion people.Developers are speeding up final testing, the Chinese foreign minister said during a U.N. meeting last week, as Britain approved emergency use of Pfizer Inc.'s vaccine candidate and providers scrambled to set up distribution.Even without final approval, more than 1 million health care workers and others in China who are deemed at high risk of infection have received experimental vaccines under emergency use permission. There has been no word on possible side effects.China's fledgling pharmaceutical industry has at least five vaccines from four produ...

Nov252020 by adminNo Comments

Delay tax rises plea as the chancellor prepares to reveal dire economic forecasts

Business

Rishi Sunak must not try to raise taxes in this parliament, the leader of the group of northern Tory MPs has told Sky News.When the chancellor delivers his spending review later, he will also unveil a set of dire forecasts. These are likely to show the lowest growth for 300 years, with a long-term permanent gap of around £40-50bn between cash raised in taxes and money spent. Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player What is the spending review? MPs believe Mr Sunak will say the gap needs to be closed, preparing the ground...

Sep252020 by adminNo Comments

Borrowing records smashed as Sunak prepares to splash more cash

Business

The Treasury borrowed the third-highest sum for any month on record in August, according to official figures - as the chancellor prepares to unleash his latest support for the coronavirus-hit economy.The Office for National Statistics (ONS) reported that public sector net borrowing, excluding the effects of bank bailouts, was estimated to have hit £35.9bn last month - the highest sum ever recorded for an August. That was £30.5bn more than in the same month last year and explained by the government's efforts to fund its COVID-19 medicine for jobs and efforts to tackle the disease.Live updates on coronavirus from UK and around world ...