December 25, 2019

NASA Contractor Convicted of Substituting Chinese Steel for SLS/Orion at Kennedy Space Center (Source: Orlando Sentinel)
A 32-year-old man was found guilty after he reportedly purchased Chinese parts for a NASA space launch project and tried to cover it up. Seongchan “Steven” Yun, was charged with providing a false document to a federal agency and now faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in federal prison, according to the United States Department of Justice. Yun worked for the CBOL Corporation which provides parts and materials to the aerospace industry, including NASA.

Yun was responsible for a contract that would provide stainless steel tubing to carry rocket fuel in support of NASA’s Space Launch System/Orion project at Kennedy Space Center. The contract specifically required the steel be provided by the United States. Instead Yun procured the materials from China and tried to cover up the foreign exchange. (12/24)

First Active Fault Zone Found on Mars (Source: National Geographic)
Millions of miles away, a robot geologist stands alone on the dusty surface of Mars, listening for faint seismic echoes in the ground below. It’s finger on the red planet’s pulse is sensitive enough to pick up the whoosh of wind, the drone of dust devils, the creak of tectonic cracks, and many other rumbles ricocheting though the planet’s insides. While most of these signals have been indistinct murmurs, two have stood out loud and clear, allowing scientists to trace them back to their source: the first active fault zone yet found on the red planet.

Known as marsquakes, the events clocked in between magnitude 3 and 4, according to data from NASA’s InSight lander presented at a recent American Geophysical Union conference. While the two quakes are small by Earth standards, they’re among the largest yet detected on Mars. Scientists were able to trace both quakes to an area known as Cerberus Fossae, a series of deep gashes that lingers some 994 miles to the east of InSight’s landing zone. (12/24)