Firefly Aerospace’s Alpha rocket leaves a glowing trail above the skies of Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on July 3, 2024. Firefly Aerospace/Trevor Mahlmann As part of NASA’s CubeSat Launch Initiative, Firefly Aerospace launched eight small satellites on July 3 aboard the company’s Alpha rocket. Named “Noise of Summer,” the rocket successfully lifted off [...]
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30 Min Read The Marshall Star for July 3, 2024 11 Marshall Team Members, 5 Teams Awarded in Space Flight Awareness Ceremony By Jessica Barnett Sixteen individuals and groups from across NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center were recognized June 27 for going above and beyond in their support of the human space program. Marshall [...]
July 3, 2024 RELEASE: J24-011 Former Chief Astronaut Patrick Forrester NASA NASA astronaut Patrick G. Forrester retired June 29, after a career spanning 31 years of service and three spaceflights. He went on to become chief of NASA’s Astronaut Office, and most recently served as an advisor to the associate administrator for the Space Operations [...]
NASA/Radislav Sinyak Technicians lift NASA’s Orion spacecraft out of the Final Assembly and System Testing cell on June 28, 2024. The integrated spacecraft, which will be used for the Artemis II mission to orbit the Moon, has been undergoing final rounds of testing and assembly, including end-to-end performance verification of its subsystems and checking for [...]
NASA astronaut Andre Douglas poses for a portrait at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.Credits: NASA/Josh Valcarcel NASA has selected astronaut Andre Douglas as its backup crew member for the agency’s Artemis II test flight, the first crewed mission under NASA’s Artemis campaign. Douglas will train alongside NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina [...]
The Goldstone Solar System Radar, part of NASA’s Deep Space Network, made these observations of the recently discovered 500-foot-wide (150-meter-wide) asteroid 2024 MK, which made its closest approach — within about 184,000 miles (295,000 kilometers) of Earth — on June 29.NASA/JPL-Caltech The Deep Space Network’s Goldstone planetary radar had a busy few days observing asteroids [...]
The first CHAPEA mission crew members who have been living and working inside NASA’s first simulated yearlong Mars habitat mission are set to exit their ground-based home on Saturday, July 6. The four volunteers who have been living and working inside NASA’s first simulated yearlong Mars habitat mission are set to exit their ground-based home [...]
Credits: NASA NASA has selected Space Exploration Technologies Corporation (SpaceX) of Hawthorne, California, to provide launch services for the COSI (Compton Spectrometer and Imager) mission. The firm-fixed-price contract has a value of approximately $69 million, which includes launch services and other mission related costs. The COSI mission currently is targeted to launch August 2027 on [...]
3 min read Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) NASA’s ECOSTRESS instrument on June 19 recorded scorching roads and sidewalks across Phoenix where contact with skin could cause serious burns in minutes to seconds, as indicated in the legend above. NASA/JPL-Caltech Roads and sidewalks in some areas get so hot that skin contact [...]
