NASA's next Mars rover will feature state-of-the-art science and technology instruments, including a device to cache rock and soil samples for possible return to Earth and another to extract oxygen from the martian atmosphere, testing technology that could help future astronauts "live off the land" to some extent, officials said Thursday.
The asteroid zoomed by Earth at a perfectly safe distance of around 1.8 million miles (2.9 kilometers).
Engineers expect to lose contact with the private US moon lander Odysseus on Tuesday, cutting short the mission after its sideways touchdown last week.
NASA announced Tuesday that a $32.7 million Capstone spacecraft intended to try out a skewed lunar orbit had lost contact, but agency engineers are confident
