NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration

NASA's Mars rover Curiosity has ingested its first solid sample into an analytical instrument inside the rover, a capability at the core of the two-year mission.

The rover's Chemistry and Mineralogy (CheMin) instrument is analyzing this sample to determine what minerals it contains.

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Expedition 33/34 NASA Flight Engineer Kevin Ford, Soyuz Commander Oleg Novitskiy and Flight Engineer Evgeny Tarelkin are scheduled to launch in their Soyuz TMA-06M spacecraft at 6:51 a.m. EDT on Tuesday, Oct. 23, from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

NASA TV launch coverage will begin at 5:30 a.m., and include video of activities leading to the crew boarding its spacecraft.

Taking the guess work out of long-duration exploration is one of the benefits of the International Space Station. This orbiting laboratory serves as a test bed for technology and helps researchers understand how to prepare for extended trips in space.

Other benefits of this on-orbit testing include greater efficiency, design improvements to reduce equipment mass, and accelerated technology developments thanks to longer trial periods in microgravity.

NASA's commercial partner Blue Origin has successfully fired the thrust chamber assembly for its new 100,000 pound thrust BE-3 liquid oxygen, liquid hydrogen rocket engine.

The test was part of the Commercial Crew Development Round 2, developing a U.S. commercial crew space transportation capability that ultimately could become available for the government and other customers.

Scientists and flight crew members with Operation IceBridge, NASA's airborne mission to study Earth's changing polar ice, are beginning another campaign over Antarctica.

Now in its fourth year, IceBridge's return to the Antarctic comes almost a year after the discovery of a large rift in the continent's Pine Island Glacier.

 › Blog: 'Operation IceBridge Arrives in Chile'