This is what it would look like to land on Pluto

Based on NASA's best photos, anyway After a 10-year journey, NASA's New Horizons spacecraft sped past Pluto for just a few short hours in July 2015. It was going far too fast to enter an orbit around the dwarf planet—let alone land on it—but along the way it grabbed some pretty amazing photos of ...

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To get a man on the moon, China's program takes cues from the Apollo lunar lander

The country is looking to launch in 2032. Though China's goal of landing a man on the moon is still more than a decade away, the country is already testing key equipment for the 2032 mission. Most recently, the program has been testing the landing gear for the lunar module. The lunar module is th...

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A private Chinese space company just scored a foreign contract for the first time

The agreement was signed with a Danish nanosatellite maker. A Chinese space launch company, Landspace, has won the first Chinese private space launch contract from a foreign company. Founded by Tsinghua University, a prestigious Chinese university, Landspace is one of China's first private space ...

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[video] Exploring Drone Aerodynamics With Computers

https://youtu.be/hywBEaGiO4k

Youtube video Description:

For decades, NASA has used computer models to simulate the flow of air around aircraft in order to test designs and improve the performance of next-generation vehicles.

At NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley, researchers recently used this technique to explore the aerodynamics of a popular example of a small, battery-powered drone, a modified DJI Phantom 3 quadcopter.

This simulation reveals the complex motions of air due to interactions between the vehicle’s rotors and X-shaped frame during flight. In the video, airflow interactions are shown as undulating lines. Pressure changes are shown using color. Areas of high pressure are red; low are blue.
Learn more: http://go.nasa.gov/2jkklik
Video credit: NASA Ames Research Center/NASA Advanced Supercomputing Division/Tim Sandstrom
NASA Ames Research Center is located in the heart of California's Silicon Valley. Follow us on social media to hear about the latest developments in space, science and technology.
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