Month: May 2024

NASA’s Hubble Temporarily Pauses Science

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1 min read NASA’s Hubble Temporarily Pauses Science This image of NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope was taken on May 19, 2009 after deployment during Servicing Mission 4. NASA NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope entered safe mode May 24 due to an ongoing gyroscope (gyro) issue, suspending science operations. Hubble’s instruments are stable, and the telescope is in good health. The telescope automatically entered safe mode when one of its three gyroscopes gave faulty telemetry readings. Hubble’s gyros measure the telescope’s slew rates and are part of the system that determines and…

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NASA Awards Advance Technologies for Future Habitable Worlds Mission

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This artist’s concept features one of multiple initial possible design options for NASA’s Habitable Worlds Observatory. Credits: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center Conceptual Image Lab NASA announced Friday it selected three industry proposals to help develop technologies for future large space telescopes and plan for the agency’s Habitable Worlds Observatory mission concept, which could be the first space telescope designed to search for life outside our solar system. The mission would directly image Earth-like planets around stars like our Sun and study their atmospheres for the chemical signatures of life,…

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Peru and Slovakia sign the Artemis Accords for peaceful moon exploration

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This week, two more nations signed the Artemis Accords. NASA held a ceremony at its headquarters in Washington, D.C. on Thursday (May 30) to host representatives from both Slovakia and Peru. During the event, both countries signed the agency’s Artemis Accords, a set of principles that aims to lay out a framework for peaceful cooperation in space and on the moon.  The addition of these two nations brings the total of signing countries to 42. The Artemis Accords were first launched and signed in October 2020 by eight nations, including…

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Is ‘Star Wars: The Acolyte’ already canceled? Breaking down the rumors

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The Star Wars fandom is a fidgety one to say the least. Following the divisive reception (despite stellar box office performances) to the sequel trilogy of movies and some ups and downs in the quality of the Disney Plus shows, the conversation surrounding any new live-action Star Wars release is a bit tense, and The Acolyte is now on everyone’s mind. Lucasfilm and Disney have yet to comment on the series’ future (creator and writer-director Leslye Headland has season 2 ideas), something that probably won’t happen until the first season,…

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General Law

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As part of the legal functional management team, the General Law Practice Group provides leadership in the areas of ethics, fiscal law, environmental law, personnel and labor law, civil rights and equal employment law, information disclosure law, safety and security law, alien residence issues, memoranda of understanding and other agreements, and other administrative law matters in furtherance of NASA’s strategic goals. The Practice Group provides staff to the Administrator by providing legal advice, representing the Administrator in litigation and administrative hearings, and performing special projects. Finally, the Practice Group provides…

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SpaceX to launch 23 Starlink satellites from Florida tonight

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Another day, another Starlink launch. SpaceX launched yet another batch of its Starlink satellites to orbit late Friday (May 31). A Falcon 9 rocket carrying 23 of the broadband craft lifted off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 10:37 p.m. EDT (0237 GMT on June 1) after a slight 26-minute delay due to weather. The Falcon 9’s first stage returned to Earth as planned about 8 minutes after launch, landing on the droneship called “A Shortfall of Gravitas” in the Atlantic Ocean. It was the 14th launch and landing…

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Lego wants you to vote on a new color for its astronaut minifigures

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Lego has been producing adorable spacemen since back in 1978, and since then we’ve seen the roster slowly expand across the color spectrum.  Now, Lego has announced that it’s holding a fan vote to determine which new minifigures will be included in the upcoming Lego Ideas Minifigure Prize Machine, which means we get to select a new color of the iconic little astronaut. There are five color options to vote for: Bright Bluish Green, Bright Yellowish Green, Reddish Violet, Warm Gold, and Dark Azure. This new figure will join the…

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Summary of the 2023 Ocean Surface Topography Science Team Meeting

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Earth Observer Earth and Climate Earth Observer Home Editor’s Corner Feature Articles News In Memoriams Science in the News More Meeting Summaries Archives 16 min read Summary of the 2023 Ocean Surface Topography Science Team Meeting Severine Fournier, NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory, severine.fournier@jpl.nasa.govJoshua Willis, NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory, joshua.k.willis@jpl.nasa.gov Introduction The annual Ocean Surface Topography (OST) Science Team Meeting (STM) provides a forum for the international altimetry community to foster collaboration, address specific issues, and highlight scientific results and applications every year. The meeting location alternates between Europe and the U.S. The 2023…

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Every Day is Earth Day for OSI’s Environmental Program

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To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video In OSI’s Environmental Management Division, we believe every day is Earth Day as we enable environmentally sound mission success through leadership of NASA efforts to comply with environmental laws and advance stewardship and sustainability. See more about what we do for the environment in the Office of Strategic Infrastructure’s (OSI) Earth Day video and nasa.gov/emd where we showcase our programs. Thank you for all you do for protecting our environment.

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Moon-mapping could level up for NASA’s upcoming Artemis missions. Here’s how

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No matter how long humans have looked up and stared at the moon — and despite the number of  satellites we’ve sent up to observe it — our maps of its terrain still hit a resolution limit. Yet, scientists want to continually push that limit — and it appears they’ve made some headway. Related: Safety comes 1st for Artemis moon missions despite ‘space race’ with China, NASA chief says A new study has enlisted the help of algorithms to automate parts of a method used to reconstruct terrain data from…

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