NASA Engages in Artemis Accords Workshop to Advance Exploration

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Representatives from 24 of the Artemis Accords signatories met May 21-23, 2024, for a workshop hosted at the John H. Chapman Space Centre (CSA Headquarters) in Longueuil, Quebec. CSA (Canadian Space Agency) NASA participated in the second international face-to-face workshop this week among Artemis Accords signatories, which featured space officials from two dozen nations focused on advancing the principles for the safe, peaceful, and responsible exploration of the Moon, Mars and beyond. This year’s workshop was hosted by CSA (Canadian Space Agency) at their headquarters in Montreal May 21-23. Since…

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Jennifer Scott Williams: Leading the Next Giant Leap in Space Exploration and Championing STEM Advocacy

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Jennifer Scott Williams embodies leadership, innovation, and excitement for life. Her career has been a testament to her unwavering passion and versatility, navigating through various roles and significantly contributing to the agency’s milestones and evolution. In her 23 years at NASA, she has combined engineering, business, science communications, and leadership all into one.     Currently in the Center Director’s Office, Williams serves as NASA Johnson Space Center Director Vanessa Wyche’s assistant for technical integration, supporting meetings such as readiness reviews for the International Space Station and Commercial Crew Programs.…

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Clare Luckey: Shaping the Future of Mars Missions and Inspiring the Artemis Generation 

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As a member of the Mars Architecture Team, Clare Luckey is one of the people at the forefront of designing the first crewed mission to the Red Planet. Her current work involves helping to develop the vision for the initial segment of Mars exploration missions. She also has been named one of Forbes’ 30 under 30 Class of 2024 in the Science category. Her commitment extends beyond the cosmos as she is deeply involved in community outreach, inspiring students to aim for the stars in space careers and encouraging diversity…

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Helen Ling, Changemaker

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Helen Ling was a supervisor for the computing group at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in the 1960s. She was influential in the inclusion of women in STEM positions at JPL. Ling encouraged women within the computing group to attend night school in order to obtain degrees that would allow them more professional opportunities within JPL. A pioneer for women’s rights in the workplace, Helen Ling was so admired in the computing group that those who worked under her lovingly referred to themselves as “Helen’s girls.” Many of them went on…

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Facility Systems Safety Engineer and Fall Protection Program Administrator Thu Nguyen

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“I went back to school in 2016. So I had two kids that were three and five, and I was working full time, and I was doing the master’s program, taking two classes online. It took two years to get it done, and it was like a balancing act, and my kids had to watch the sacrifice in a sense. There were times when I had to take tests, and I was like, ‘OK, you’ve got to sit in the living room with your dad, or you’ve got to go…

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Deputy Program Manager Vir Thanvi

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“I had the privilege of being the very first project manager for [the] Near Space Network (NSN), and in my current role as deputy program manager for [the] Exploration and Space Communications Division, it is still in my portfolio. NSN is one of the [agency’s two] communication and navigation networks.  “When we see the volume and the variety of NASA, other agency, and commercial missions supported by the network, and the science being achieved, and the exploration being enabled — when you leave for the day, you feel accomplished that…

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NASA Marshall Team Supports Safe Travels for Space Station Science

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3 min read Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) NASA Marshall Space Flight Center’s payload technician Chris Honea, left, and quality assurance specialist Keith Brandon, right, on Feb. 29 carefully inspect the temperature sensors that help gather data and monitor progress during a crystals experiment. The zinc selenide-based crystals were grown on the International Space Station as part of an experiment to see how gravity affects their structure or growth, then de-integrated and inspected in Marshall’s Space Systems Integration & Test Facility (SSITF). By Jessica Barnett  During the…

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How can we protect satellites in Earth-moon space? This new software could help

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As the space around Earth becomes increasingly cluttered with human-made junk, scientists are ramping up their efforts to safeguard satellites in real time. The latest in that effort are new algorithms being developed at the University of Central Florida (UCF) to automatically monitor and protect spacecraft from bumping into satellites and asteroids in cislunar space — the realm between Earth and the moon, which is under the gravitational influence of both celestial bodies.  Because cislunar space is so vast, tracking and predicting the orbits of satellites, spent rocket stages and…

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Hubble Captures a Bright Spiral in the Queen’s Hair

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2 min read Hubble Captures a Bright Spiral in the Queen’s Hair This Hubble Space Telescope image showcases the bright spiral galaxy NGC 4689. ESA/Hubble & NASA, D. Thilker, J. Lee, and the PHANGS-HST Team This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image shows the jewel-bright spiral galaxy NGC 4689, which lies 54 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Coma Berenices. This constellation has the distinction of being the only one of the 88 constellations officially recognized by the International Astronomical Union (IAU) as one named after the historical figure, Queen…

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‘The first time I read the script … I sobbed.’ ‘Atlas’ stars Jennifer Lopez and Sterling K. Brown on AI paranoia and their film’s emotional core’ (exclusive)

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Strap in for a heavy metal romp of interstellar proportions as Netflix’s big budget sci-fi spectacle, “Atlas,” stomps onto the streaming service starting today (May 24).  “Atlas” is directed by Brad Peyton (“San Andreas,” “Rampage”) and stars Jennifer Lopez, Sterling K. Brown, Simu Liu and Mark Strong. Centered around the hunt for a rogue android terrorist named Harlan (Liu) who flees Earth after a devastating attack on humanity, this $100 million action flick features an AI specialist named Atlas Shepherd (Lopez) who insists on joining the seek-and-destroy mission alongside gung-ho…

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