Month: September 2024

NASA Astronaut Don Pettit, Crewmates Arrive at Space Station

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The Soyuz rocket launches to the International Space Station with Expedition 72 crew members: NASA astronaut Don Pettit, Roscosmos cosmonauts Alexey Ovchinin, and Ivan Vagner, onboard, Wednesday, Sept. 11, 2024, at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls NASA astronaut Don Pettit, accompanied by Roscosmos cosmonauts Alexey Ovchinin and Ivan Vagner, arrived at the International Space Station Wednesday, bringing its number of residents to 12 for the 13-day handover period. After a two-orbit, three-hour journey to the station, the Roscosmos Soyuz MS-26 spacecraft automatically docked to the orbiting laboratory’s…

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NASA’s Voyager 1 probe swaps thrusters in tricky fix as it flies through interstellar space

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The distant and cold Voyager 1 spacecraft did a clever thruster trick to help it phone home. Voyager 1, the most distant human object that is now flying through interstellar space, had thruster issues making it difficult for the spacecraft to stay pointed at Earth when calling home. Unless Voyager 1 could make a switch to a different thruster set, the 47-year-old spacecraft would sail on alone without help from Earth. Making matters worse, Voyager 1 is so old that sudden changes could damage the spacecraft. “All the decisions we…

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NASA’s Juno probe spots massive new volcano on Jupiter moon Io

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Researchers have spotted a huge new active volcano on Jupiter’s moon Io by comparing images taken by two NASA missions more than a quarter of a century apart. The images of the new volcano were taken by NASA’s Juno spacecraft and its JunoCam as it made a flyby of Io — the solar system’s most volcanic body — on Feb. 3 this year. The images were captured on the nightside of Io, illuminated only by reflected sunlight from Jupiter.  Comparison with Galileo spacecraft imagery of the same area, just south…

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NASA to Preview Europa Clipper Mission to Jupiter Moon

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This artist’s concept depicts NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft in orbit around Jupiter. The mission is targeting an Oct. 10, 2024, launch. NASA/JPL-Caltech NASA will host a news conference at 11 a.m. EDT Tuesday, Sept. 17, at the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California to discuss the upcoming Europa Clipper mission to Jupiter’s icy moon Europa. The briefing will be open to media and will air live on NASA+ and the agency’s website, plus Facebook, X, and YouTube. Learn how to stream NASA content through a variety of platforms, including…

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Chile Flowers Bloom in Space

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Chile pepper plants growing in the Advanced Plant Habitat aboard the International Space Station bore fruit in the late summer and fall of 2021. Overcoming the challenges of growing fruit in microgravity is important to NASA for long-duration missions during which crew members will need good sources of Vitamin C to supplement their diets.

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Polaris Dawn crew flies higher than 1966 Gemini 11 orbital record

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A commercial space crew has flown higher above Earth than anyone who has traveled since the last Apollo astronauts went to the moon. The four members of the Polaris Dawn mission, riding aboard SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft “Resilience,” climbed into an elliptical orbit with a high point, or apogee, of 870 miles (1,400.7 kilometers) on Tuesday (Sep. 10). They reached the record distance about 15 hours after lifting off at 5:23 a.m. EDT (0923 GMT) from Florida earlier in the day and circling the planet about eight times in an initial…

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Margin’ up the Crater Rim!

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Mars: Perseverance (Mars 2020) Perseverance Home Mission Overview Rover Components Mars Rock Samples Where is Perseverance? Ingenuity Mars Helicopter Mission Updates Science Overview Objectives Instruments Highlights Exploration Goals News and Features Multimedia Perseverance Raw Images Images Videos Audio More Resources Mars Missions Mars Sample Return Mars Perseverance Rover Mars Curiosity Rover MAVEN Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Mars Odyssey More Mars Missions The Solar System The Sun Mercury Venus Earth The Moon Mars Jupiter Saturn Uranus Neptune Pluto & Dwarf Planets Asteroids, Comets & Meteors The Kuiper Belt The Oort Cloud 2…

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Astronaut Frank Culbertson Letter from September 11, 2001

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ISS003-E-5388 (11 September 2001) — One of a series of pictures taken of metropolitan New York City (and other parts of New York as well as New Jersey) by one of the Expedition Three crew members onboard the International Space Station (ISS) at various times during the day of September 11, 2001. The image shows a smoke plume rising from the Manhattan area. The orbital outpost was flying at an altitude of approximately 250 miles. The image was recorded with a digital still camera. Please note: The date identifiers on…

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Watch 1st look clip from ‘Star Trek: Lower Decks’ Season 5 (video)

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Star Trek Day 2024 Exclusive Clip | Star Trek: Lower Decks – Season 5 | StarTrek.com – YouTube Watch On Come autumn, crimson and gold leaves won’t be the only thing we’ll be saying goodbye to as Paramount+’s  “Star Trek: Lower Decks” takes one final flight when it rolls out its fifth and last 10-chapter season on Oct. 24 with a double-episode debut. To crank up the anticipation on Star Trek Day this past Sunday, Paramount and CBS Studios took the wrapper off a vibrant new poster by ace artist…

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Space MacGyver: NASA astronaut and inventor Don Pettit eager to return to ISS on Sept. 11

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NASA astronaut Don Pettit is about to embark on his fourth space mission — one sure to be filled with chances to tinker with things in orbit. Pettit, along with Roscosmos cosmonauts Alexey Ovchinin and Ivan Vagner, will ride on a Russian Soyuz spacecraft, which is scheduled to launch atop a Soyuz rocket from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Wednesday (Sept. 11) at 12:23 p.m. EDT (1623 GMT; 9:23 p.m. local Baikonur time). The 69-year-old Pettit will spend six months in space on the coming mission, adding to his 370-day…

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