6 min read Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) On Christmas Day in 1968, the three-man Apollo 8 crew of Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, and Bill Anders found a surprise in their food locker: a specially packed Christmas dinner wrapped in foil and decorated with red and green ribbons. Something as simple as a “home-cooked meal,” or as close as NASA could get for a spaceflight at the time, greatly improved the crew’s morale and appetite. More importantly, the meal marked a turning point in space food history.…
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Hubble Sights a Galaxy with ‘Forbidden’ Light
2 min read Hubble Sights a Galaxy with ‘Forbidden’ Light This NASA Hubble Space Telescope image features a bright spiral galaxy known as MCG-01-24-014, which is located about 275 million light-years from Earth. ESA/Hubble & NASA, C. Kilpatrick This whirling image features a bright spiral galaxy known as MCG-01-24-014, which is located about 275 million light-years from Earth. In addition to being a well-defined spiral galaxy, MCG-01-24-014 has an extremely energetic core known as an active galactic nucleus (AGN) and is categorized as a Type-2 Seyfert galaxy. Seyfert galaxies, along with quasars, host one of…
Read MoreWatch live as private Cygnus cargo craft leaves the ISS on Dec. 22
A robotic cargo ship will depart from the space station on Friday (Dec. 22), and you can watch the action for free. Northrop Grumman’s uncrewed Cygnus NG-19 spacecraft should undock from the International Space Station (ISS) at 8:05 a.m. EST (1305 GMT) on Friday. You can watch coverage here at Space.com, via NASA Television, starting at 7:45 a.m. EST (1245 GMT). Cygnus has spent 4.5 months at the orbiting complex, following an Aug. 4 arrival that brought up 8,200 pounds (3,800 kilograms) of hardware, supplies, science, commercial products and other…
Read MoreNASA Flies Drones Autonomously for Air Taxi Research
3 min read Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) An Alta-8 small Unmanned Aircraft System testbed vehicle flies above NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. Flying beyond visual line of sight from observers on the ground required special approval from the Federal Aviation Administration and NASA. NASA / Bowman Researchers at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia recently flew multiple drones beyond visual line of sight with no visual observer. The drones successfully flew around obstacles and each other during takeoff, along a planned route, and…
Read MoreDistant nebula looks like fleeing turkey in festive new Very Large Telescope photo
Pass the cranberry sauce! A distant star-forming nebula looks like a turkey fleeing a cosmic Christmas dinner in a new telescope image. The festive photo, taken by the European Southern Observatory’s (ESO) Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile, features the star-hatching clouds of gas and dust that comprise the nebula IC 2944, located around 6,500 light-years from Earth. IC 2944 has a distinctly fowl-like appearance, so astronomers have nicknamed it the “Running Chicken Nebula.” In the stunning new 1.5-billion-pixel VLT image, the wispy gas and dust tendrils of the nebula…
Read MoreAdam Sandler ventures deep into the cosmos in new teaser for ‘Spaceman’ (video)
Adam Sandler is a wildly versatile performer whose catalog of Hollywood projects has spanned everything from goofy sports comedies like “Happy Gilmore” and “The Waterboy,” to more dramatic fare like “Punch-Drunk Love” and “Uncut Gems.” His ongoing associations with Netflix have produced the recent animated family film, “Leo,” and the coming-of-age comedy “You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah,” which he stars in with his daughters. Now Sandler is venturing into uncharted outer space in Netflix’s upcoming sci-fi film, “Spaceman,” where he plays a wayward astronaut whose marriage…
Read MoreNASA Astronauts Test SpaceX Elevator Concept for Artemis Lunar Lander
SpaceX NASA astronauts Nicole Mann and Doug “Wheels” Wheelock participated in a recent test of a sub-scale mockup elevator for SpaceX’s Starship human landing system that will be used for NASA’s Artemis III and IV missions to the Moon. The Starship human landing system will carry two astronauts from the Orion spacecraft in lunar orbit to the surface, serve as a habitat for crew members’ approximately one week stay on the Moon, and transfer them from the surface back to Orion. The elevator will transport equipment and crew between Starship’s…
Read MoreArtemis II Crew Visits White House
NASA / Bill Ingalls Artemis II crew members (from left) CSA (Canadian Space Agency) astronaut Jeremy Hansen and NASA astronauts Christina Koch, Victor Glover, and Reid Wiseman pose for a group photograph after their meetings with U.S. President Joe Biden and U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris at the White House on Dec. 14, 2023. The crew will travel aboard NASA’s Orion spacecraft on a 10-day mission around the Moon, testing spacecraft systems for the first time with astronauts for long-term exploration and scientific discovery. Image Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls
Read MoreKennedy Space Center Looks Ahead to a Busy Year in 2024
The mobile launcher, carried by the crawler-transporter 2, rolls out from its park site location to Launch Pad 39B at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida in August 2023 for testing ahead of the agency’s Artemis II mission. NASA/Ben Smegelsky Another jam-packed year is in store for NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida as the momentum of a busy 2023 is carried forward into the new year. On the horizon are missions to the Moon, more crew and cargo flights to the International Space Station, and several upgrade projects across…
Read MoreVirgin Galactic to launch 6th commercial spaceflight on Jan. 26
Virgin Galactic’s sixth commercial spaceflight will lift off next month, if all goes according to plan. The mission, known as Galactic-06, is targeted for Jan. 26, Virgin Galactic announced in a statement issued on Tuesday (Dec. 19). The flight will include four private astronauts — one from Texas, one from California, one from Austria and one jointly from Ukraine and California, according to the statement. Names of the participants were not released. Virgin Galactic, which is part of billionaire Richard Branson‘s Virgin Group of companies, takes tourists and private astronauts…
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