Author: NeRD

Station Nation: Meet Chris Wade, Visiting Vehicle Integration Manager for SpaceX Vehicles 

NeRD

Chris Wade is a visiting vehicle integration manager for SpaceX vehicles in the International Space Station Transportation Integration Office. He plays a key role in ensuring that all vehicle requirements are on track to support SpaceX missions to the space station. Chris also manages a team of real-time mission support personnel who follow launch, docking, undocking, and splashdown operations. Read on to learn about his career with NASA and more!  Where are you from?  I am from Clarksdale, Mississippi.  Tell us about your role at NASA.   I manage horizontal integration…

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‘Stuck’ NASA astronauts on ISS grilled on Earthly politics as long 9-month mission nears end. ‘From my standpoint, politics is not playing into this at all.’

NeRD

Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams are getting ready to wrap up their surprisingly long — and unexpectedly controversial — orbital stay. The two NASA astronauts arrived at the International Space Station (ISS) in June on the first-ever crewed mission of Boeing’s Starliner capsule. They were supposed to stay at the station for just a week or so, but Starliner experienced thruster problems on the way up, and NASA extended the mission multiple times to investigate. Finally, in late August, the agency announced that Starliner would come back to Earth uncrewed,…

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Blue Ghost Lands on Moon

NeRD

Carrying a suite of NASA science and technology, Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost Mission 1 successfully landed at 3:34 a.m. EST on Sunday, March 2, 2025, near a volcanic feature called Mons Latreille within Mare Crisium, a more than 300-mile-wide basin located in the northeast quadrant of the Moon’s near side.

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See Earth shine like a Blue Marble in this stunning photo by Japan’s private Resilience moon lander

NeRD

The private Resilience moon lander now has a target touchdown date. The Tokyo-based company ispace, which built and operates Resilience, announced Monday (March 3) that it’s eyeing June 5 for the spacecraft’s lunar touchdown attempt. The current plan calls for Resilience to land that day at 3:24 p.m. EST (2024 GMT) near the center of Mare Frigoris (“Sea of Cold”), a basaltic plain in the moon‘s northern reaches. But that’s not set in stone. An image of Earth taken by the private Resilience lunar lander on Feb. 18, 2025. (Image…

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NASA delays launch of SPHEREx and PUNCH missions to March 6

NeRD

NASA’s SPHEREx and PUNCH missions will need to wait a little longer before heading to space. After delaying the launch of these missions three times — they were originally slated to take to the skies on Feb. 27 — the space agency has postponed liftoff once again for SPHEREx and PUNCH. Both payloads will still be launching aboard the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket selected for the task, which had most recently targeted Tuesday (March 4) for launch. Now, the pair will remain Earth-bound until Thursday (March 6). They’ll liftoff from…

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SpaceX calls off Starship Flight 8 launch test due to rocket issues (video)

NeRD

The next Starship megarocket to fly is stuck on Earth for a little while longer. SpaceX aimed to launch the eighth test flight of Starship — the biggest and most powerful rocket ever built — from its Starbase site in South Texas on Monday evening (March 3). That didn’t happen, however. The company encountered issues with both of the vehicle’s elements — its Super Heavy booster and Ship upper stage — and called the launch off after holding the countdown clock at T-40 seconds. SpaceX’s Flight 8 Starship rocket stands…

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Sunrise on the moon! Private Blue Ghost lander captures amazing shot after historic lunar touchdown (photo)

NeRD

Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost lander has captured a gorgeous shot of sunrise on the moon as it begins its workday on the lunar surface. Blue Ghost aced its lunar landing attempt on Sunday (March 2), setting down close to Mons Latreille, a solitary lunar peak in the vast basin Mare Crisium (“Sea of Crises”) in the northeastern region of the moon’s near side. And the spacecraft is already getting to work, starting up its science payloads and capturing amazing images of its surroundings and the distant Earth from the lunar…

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NACA Test Pilot Poses with Plane

NeRD

NASA In this 1957 photo, George Cooper, a test pilot for the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, or NACA, stands next to a North American F-100, a supersonic fighter tested by the NACA. Cooper served as a pilot in World War II before being hired at the NACA’s Ames Aeronautical Laboratory in 1945. Between 1945 and his retirement in 1973, Cooper tested over 135 aircraft, routinely pushing them to their limits. On March 3, 1915, the NACA was established by Congress to “supervise and direct the scientific study of the…

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NASA Astronauts to Answer Questions from Students in Ohio, Texas

NeRD

NASA’s Space X Crew-9 members pose together for a portrait. Credit: NASA Students from Ohio and Texas will have the chance to hear NASA astronauts aboard the International Space Station answer their prerecorded questions this week. At 12:55 p.m. EST, Wednesday, March 5, NASA astronauts Suni Williams, Nick Hague, Butch Wilmore, and Don Pettit will respond to questions submitted by students from Puede Network, in partnership with The Achievery in Dallas. At 10:30 a.m., Thursday, March 6, a separate call with NASA astronauts Williams, Hague, and Wilmore, will answer questions…

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