Month: February 2024

Artemis II Crew, Recovery Teams Train for Final Phase of Moon Mission

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Credit: NASA/Kenny Allen NASA astronaut and Artemis II pilot Victor Glover is assisted by U.S. Navy personnel as he exits a mockup of the Orion spacecraft in the Pacific Ocean during training Feb. 25, while his crewmates look on. The Artemis II crew and a team from NASA and the Department of Defense are spending several days at sea to test the procedures and tools that will be used to help the crew to safety when they splash down in the ocean at the end of their 10-day, 685,000-mile journey…

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Ingenuity Mars helicopter snapped rotor blade during hard landing last month (video, photo)

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There’s no way Ingenuity could fly through this. Ingenuity, the 4-pound (1.8 kilograms) helicopter that journeyed to Mars with NASA’s Perseverance rover, was grounded for good after suffering a hard landing during a Jan. 18 flight. New observations by Perseverance show just how rough that touchdown was and make it easy to understand why Ingenuity is now a frozen feature of the Martian landscape. Related: NASA to ‘wiggle’ broken Ingenuity Mars helicopter’s blades to analyze damage Zoomed-in view of NASA’s Mars Ingenuity helicopter, captured by the SuperCam remote imager aboard…

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NASA’s SpaceX 30th Resupply Mission to Launch Experiments to Station

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NASA and the agency’s international partners are sending scientific investigations to the International Space Station on the 30th SpaceX commercial resupply services mission, including tests of technologies to monitor sea ice, automate 3D mapping, and create nanoparticle solar cells. The company’s Dragon cargo spacecraft is scheduled to launch from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida in early March. Read more about some of the research making the journey to the orbiting laboratory: Plants off the Planet Plants can be used in regenerative life support systems, to provide food, and…

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NASA Invites You to Share Excitement of Agency’s SpaceX Crew-8 Launch

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A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying the company’s Dragon spacecraft is launched on NASA’s SpaceX Crew-7 mission to the International Space Station Saturday, Aug. 26, 2023, at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. NASA/Joel Kowsky NASA is inviting the public to take part in virtual activities for the launch of the agency’s SpaceX Crew-8 mission to the International Space Station. NASA astronauts Matthew Dominick, commander; Michael Barratt, pilot; and Jeanette Epps, mission specialist; along with Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexander Grebenkin, mission specialist, will fly to the space station aboard SpaceX’s Dragon…

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NASA Names New Station Manager, Space Operations Deputy

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NASA has selected Dana Weigel as the International Space Station Program manager, based at the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. Weigel succeeds Joel Montalbano, who has accepted a position as deputy associate administrator for the agency’s Space Operations Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. Credits: NASA NASA has selected Dana Weigel as the International Space Station Program manager, based at the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. Weigel succeeds Joel Montalbano, who has accepted a position as deputy associate administrator for the agency’s Space Operations Mission Directorate at…

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NASA, Partners Test Artemis II Recovery Procedures

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Members of NASA’s Exploration Ground System’s Landing and Recovery team and partners from the Department of Defense aboard the USS San Diego practice recovery procedures during Underway Recovery Test 11 (URT-11) off the coast of San Diego on Thursday, Feb. 22, 2024. The team works to secure the Crew Module Test Article and align it on its stand inside the ship’s well deck. URT-11 is the eleventh in a series of Artemis recovery tests, and the first time NASA and its partners put their Artemis II recovery procedures to the…

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ISS astronauts witness ‘spectacular’ auroras from space (photos)

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Fresh aurora pictures from a NASA astronaut is making us green with envy. Earlier this month, International Space Station astronaut Jasmin Moghbeli captured absolutely stunning pictures of a flag-like green aurora stretching from the southern regions of the Earth far up into space. “The auroras from up here are spectacular,” NASA‘s Moghbeli told Space.com during a Wednesday (Feb. 21) ISS press conference about science. Of the green auroras Moghbeli saw on Feb. 15, she said it was one of her space mission highlights witnessing “some green, some red that just…

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James Webb telescope finds ancient galaxy larger than our Milky Way, and it’s threatening to upend cosmology

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The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has found a galaxy in the early universe that’s so massive, it shouldn’t exist, posing a “significant challenge” to the standard model of cosmology, according to the study authors. The galaxy, called ZF-UDS-7329, contains more stars than the Milky Way, despite having formed only 800 million years into the universe’s 13.8 billion-year life span. This means they were somehow born without dark matter seeding their formation, contrary to what the standard model of galaxy formation suggests. How this could have happened is unclear, but…

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‘A wonderful spectacle’: Photographer snaps rare solar eruption as ‘magnetic noose’ strangles the sun’s south pole

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A gigantic plume of plasma recently exploded from the sun’s south pole, where solar eruptions almost never occur. The explosion, which a photographer captured in stunning detail, is another telltale sign that the sun is about to enter its most active phase — the solar maximum.  The rare phenomenon occurred on Feb. 17, when a solar flare exploded from a sunspot near the sun’s south pole, releasing a gigantic column of ionized gas, or plasma, that towered around 124,300 miles (200,000 kilometers) above the solar surface — around 15 times…

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SpaceX to launch 24 Starlink satellites from Florida today

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SpaceX plans to launch 24 of its Starlink internet satellites from Florida today (Feb. 24), on the company’s 18th mission of 2024 already. A Falcon 9 rocket carrying 24 Starlink spacecraft is scheduled to lift off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida today during a four-hour window that opens at 4:59 p.m. EST (2159 GMT). You can watch the action live via SpaceX’s X account. Coverage will begin about five minutes before the window opens. Related: Starlink satellite train: How to see and track it in the night…

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