NASA’s SpaceX Crew-9 mission with agency astronauts Nick Hague, Butch Wilmore, and Suni Williams, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov is preparing to return to Earth following their science mission aboard the International Space Station. Hague, Williams, and Wilmore completed more than 900 hours of research between over 150 unique scientific experiments and technology demonstrations during [...]
NASA/Michala Garrison, USGS The OLI (Operational Land Imager) on Landsat 8 captured an image of Kachemak Bay’s turbid, cloudy waters on September 20, 2024. This cloudiness comes from glacial flour: bits of pulverized rock ground down by glaciers that has the consistency of flour. Several meltwater streams rich with the particles, sometimes called suspended sediment, absorb and scatter sunlight in ways that [...]
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying the company’s Dragon spacecraft is launched on NASA’s SpaceX Crew-9 mission to the International Space Station with NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov onboard, Saturday, Sept. 28, 2024, from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. NASA/Keegan Barber NASA invites the public to take part in [...]
The official portrait of NASA’s SpaceX Crew-10 members with (from left) Mission Specialist Kirill Peskov of Roscosmos; Pilot Nicole Ayers and Commander Anne McClain, both NASA astronauts; and Mission Specialist Takuya Onishi from JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency).NASA/Bill Stafford/Helen Arase Vargas Four crew members are preparing to launch to the International Space Station as part [...]
Intuitive Machines’ confirmed its lunar lander, Athena, touched down on the Moon at approximately 11:30 a.m. CST on Thursday. The company’s IM-2 mission is part of NASA’s CLPS (Commercial Lunar Payload Services) initiative. A post-landing news conference will take place at 4 p.m. EST from NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. Watch live on NASA+. [...]
3 min read Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) As NASA continues to enable a sustainable, cost-effective commercial space economy, the agency is seeking partnership proposals for the operations, sustaining engineering, and utilization of Astrobee, a free-flying robotic system aboard the International Space Station. The Announcement for Partnership Proposal contains instructions and criteria [...]
At Redshift Wrangler, anyone with a smartphone or laptop can help clock the expansion of the universe using light from distant galaxies. Sadie Coffin A “classification” is when a volunteer or citizen scientist finishes marking up or sorting one image or other piece of data. Each classification done by volunteers for the Redshift Wrangler [...]
The IM-2 lander is beginning its vertical descent where the lander’s Guidance and Navigation Control system flies the lander to a point approximately 98 feet (30 meters) above the designated landing site. Then the lander goes into a vertical descent at about 10 feet-per-second (3-meters-per-second). After that, the lander brakes to a 3-feet-per-second (1-meter-per-second) descent rate [...]
The final burn of Intuitive Machines’ IM-2 lunar lander has begun. Powered descent initiation is a main engine firing that will take about 12 minutes. It’s designed to slow the lander’s speed in preparation for final descent moments before touchdown. During this phase, the lander must slow down by about 4,000 miles per hour [...]
7 min read Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) NASA / Maria Werries The ARMD 2024 Associate Administrator Awards were presented to NASA employees, contractors, and students or interns who distinguished themselves, either individually or as part of a group, through their overall approach to their work and through results they achieved during [...]
