Mars

Investigating Earth’s earliest life

Graduate student Kelsey Moore uses genetic and fossil evidence to study the first stages of evolution on our planet.

August 18, 2018

Alexa Aguilar is co-president of MIT’s Graduate Women in Aerospace Engineering (GWAE) group. “It's important to me that women have this kind of support and encouragement because I wouldn’t be here without the support of women,” she says.

Networks in aerospace

Graduate student Alexa Aguilar helps tiny satellites communicate and builds connections in her academic community.

June 22, 2018

NASA’s Curiosity Mars Rover snaps a self-portrait on Vera Rubin Ridge.

3 Questions: Roger Summons on finding organic matter on Mars

Discovery adds to evidence suggesting that Mars was at one time habitable.

June 7, 2018

An MIT team won first place for urban design with the Redwood Forest, a series of woodsy habitats enclosed in open, public domes that would reside on the Martian surface.

Mars city living: Designing for the Red Planet

A multidisciplinary team of MIT students and postdocs wins an international competition focused on building sustainably on Mars.

October 31, 2017

At this weekend’s New Space Age Conference, private space industry entrepreneurs and innovators descended on MIT’s campus to showcase their novel commercial ideas and innovations that could help humanity explore space and benefit people here on Earth.

Commercial space: Can we privatize our way to the stars?

Annual conference explores the rise and distant future of the private space industry.

March 14, 2017

MIT alumna Shana Diez is putting her two aerospace engineering degrees to work at SpaceX in California. “LA is the most exciting place in the world for aerospace innovation,” she says.

Rocket woman

An LA-area alumna is on board for the new space race.

February 6, 2017

“One thing you realize working in this lab is that we are really far away from the robot apocalypse,” says MIT senior Sarah Hensley, who is working with a team of researchers to prepare Valkyrie, a humanoid robot, for future space missions.

Prepping a robot for its journey to Mars

Senior Sarah Hensley aims to improve Earth's most advanced humanoid robot, in advance of its trip to the Red Planet.

October 18, 2016

Mars’ Valles Marineris canyon, pictured, spans as much as 600 kilometers across and delves as much as 8 kilometers deep. The image was created from over 100 images of Mars taken by Viking Orbiters in the 1970s.

New technique may help detect Martian life

A novel interpretation of Raman spectra will help the 2020 Mars rover select rocks to study for signs of life.

August 15, 2016

Researchers are developing a new boot with built-in sensors and tiny “haptic” motors, whose vibrations can guide the wearer around or over obstacles. Vibrations will jump from low to high intensity when the wearer is at risk of colliding with an obstacle.

Avoiding stumbles, from spacewalks to sidewalks

Vibrating footwear could help astronauts and visually impaired earthlings skirt obstacles.

July 22, 2016

MIT grad student Sydney Do peers from the front window of NASA’s drivable Mars rover prototype at the Johnson Space Center in Houston.

Getting real — on Mars

Sydney Do, a PhD student in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, is adding authenticity to a virtual Mars experience.

January 26, 2016

Mars habitat designed by MIT faculty and students

Interplanetary architecture

Faculty and students grapple with 3-D printing a habitable structure on Mars.

October 15, 2015

Cartoon illustration showing two paths to Mars, one with a stop at the moon and another direct to Mars

To save on weight, a detour to the moon is the best route to Mars

For a piloted mission to Mars, fueling up on the moon could streamline cargo by 68 percent.

October 14, 2015

Alumna takes up space on Saturday mornings

MIT alumna Emily Calandrell is the host of Xploration Outer Space, a weekend TV show about all things space.

October 14, 2014

Mars One (and done?)

MIT team independently assesses the technical feasibility of the proposed Mars One mission.

October 14, 2014

Going to the Red Planet

An MIT oxygen-creating instrument has been selected to fly on the upcoming Mars 2020 mission.

July 31, 2014

MIT News | Massachusetts Institute of Technology

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