A new weather satellite blasted into orbit from Cape Canaveral over the weekend where it must now pass six months of testing before it officially begins service.  

The Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES), which will be named GOES 14 after it enters its scheduled orbit, will float in orbit around 22,000 miles above the Earth's surface providing hurricane and tornado tracking among other general weather functions.  Specifically, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) owns and uses the GOES 14 satellite, which is part of a $499 million mission.

Despite operating well beyond their scheduled mission, the NASA Spirit and Opportunity Mars rovers continue to carry out missions commanded by NASA.  Spirit is currently stuck on a rock or piece of Martian debris, which could finally bring the rover to an end.  Opportunity, however, continues to move freely around the planet's surface, though faces other mechanical issues.

Rover operators from the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory are unsure if they'll be able to help the rovers survive another Martian winter, but will obviously attempt to do so.  Despite the looming threat of either rover permanently breaking down at any moment, mission managers have a laundry list of possible missions and locations each rover can explore if functioning normally.

NASA legend Buzz Aldrin, the second person to ever walk on the moon, believes the U.S. space agency should focus more on heading to Mars, rather than going back to the moon.  Aldrin said the current race to get back to the moon -- spearheaded by NASA, China, Russia, and JAXA -- is nothing but a "glorified rehash of what we did 40 years ago."

Instead of returning to the moon in 2020 and setting up a possible lunar research post, Aldrin suggest it should be used simply as a staging area for a mission to the Martian moon Phobos.  Even though he's one of the most recognized astronauts ever, NASA has little reason to listen to his suggestions -- it's unknown if the U.S. space agency will even acknowledge his comments, especially since he doesn't respect the agency's current ambitions to return to the moon.

The full letter/editorial Aldrin wrote can be found on the Popular Mechanics web site.