Relief is on the way for three astronauts who currently depend on a leaky spacecraft docked with the International Space Station. A replacement Russian Soyuz spacecraft, called MS-23, is bound for the International Space Station (ISS) to be the new ride home for cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitry Petelin and NASA astronaut Frank Rubio. Launch occurred flawlessly Thursday (Feb. 23) from the Russia-run Baikonur Cosmodrome at 7:24 p.m. EST (0024 GMT or 3:34 a.m. local time Friday, Feb. 24). “A nominal ascent into orbit for Soyuz MS-23,” NASA spokesperson Rob…
Read MoreMonth: February 2023
SpaceX rolls out rocket for NASA’s Crew-6 astronaut launch (photos)
SpaceX’s rocket ride for its next NASA astronaut launch from Florida is on the pad and ready for flight. Topped with a Crew Dragon capsule, the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket rolled out of its hangar at Launch Pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral late last Wednesday and was hoisted into launch position Thursday morning (Feb. 23), SpaceX said. Liftoff is set for Feb. 27 at 1:45 a.m. EST (0645 GMT). “Falcon 9 and Dragon are vertical at Launch Complex 39A; targeting Monday, February 27 for launch…
Read MoreNASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter confirms that China’s Zhurong rover has been stationary for months
This cutout is from three images acquired in 2022 and 2023. The rover is the dark and relatively bluish feature visible in the upper middle of the first (left) image and lower middle of the other two images. This time series shows that the rover has not changed its position between Sept. 8, 2022 and Feb. 7, 2023. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UArizona) On Feb. 10, China’s Tianwen 1 mission — the country’s first interplanetary mission — celebrated its second anniversary in Mars orbit. But one major piece of the mission, the Zhurong rover,…
Read MoreJohn Glenn Goes Into Orbit
Astronaut John Glenn enters the Mercury spacecraft, Friendship 7, prior to the launch of Mercury-Atlas 6 (MA-6) on Feb. 20, 1962.
Read MoreNASA Awards Consolidated Operations, Management, Engineering Contract
NASA has selected Jacobs Technology Inc., of Tullahoma, Tennessee, to manage launch infrastructure, and to operate and maintain ground systems required for flight spacecraft processing at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Read MoreInspiring Women in Leadership: Meet Three Female Space Station Engineers
At the forefront of human space exploration, the women of the International Space Station Program are creating opportunities for the future. Driven to inspire the generation of young women who will soon follow in their footsteps, the numerous space station teams are rich with female engineers
Read More‘Runaway’ black hole the size of 20 million suns found speeding through space with a trail of newborn stars behind it
Astronomers have spotted a runaway supermassive black hole, seemingly ejected from its home galaxy and racing through space with a chain of stars trailing in its wake. According to the team’s research, which was published on the pre-print server arXiv.org (opens in new tab) and has been accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, the discovery offers the first observational evidence that supermassive black holes can be ejected from their home galaxies to roam interstellar space. The researchers discovered the runaway black hole as a bright streak of light…
Read MoreNASA rover snaps photos of ancient ‘waves’ carved into Mars mountainside
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover has photographed rocks imprinted with tiny ripples from an ancient lake. And these tiny ripples are making waves on Earth, as they are the clearest evidence yet that water once existed on Mars. The ripple marks were discovered frozen in Martian rock on the slopes of Mount Sharp. Though Curiosity has traversed many rock deposits laid down in ancient lakes, scientists had not seen such vivid marks in the rocks before. “This is the best evidence of water and waves that we’ve seen in the entire…
Read MoreSpaceX will attempt 1st Starship orbital flight in March: report
SpaceX says it’s ready for its first-ever Starship orbital launch attempt in March. SpaceX‘s Gary Henry, senior advisor for national security space solutions, said at a panel Feb. 21 that Starship is in “good shape” following a static fire of 31 of its 33 engines on Feb. 9, according to a SpaceNews report (opens in new tab). “We had a successful hot fire, and that was really the last box to check,” Henry said at the Space Mobility conference in Orlando held in coordination with the U.S. Space Force. “The…
Read MoreNASA Experts Go on Tour with The Color of Space Documentary
NASA and Blue Origin’s Club for the Future will co-host multiple free in-person viewing events of the agency’s documentary, The Color of Space, at historically Black colleges and universities, conferences, festivals, and more nationwide. The documentary is a conversation between seven current and former Black astronauts, each of whom were selected
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