The Marshall Star for October 30, 2024

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23 Min Read The Marshall Star for October 30, 2024 Editor’s Note: Starting Nov. 4, the Office of Communications at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center will no longer publish the Marshall Star on nasa.gov. The last public issue will be Oct. 30. To continue reading Marshall news, visit nasa.gov/marshall. Marshall Team Members View Progress Toward Future Artemis Flights Blake Stewart, lead of the Thrust Vector Control Test Laboratory inside Building 4205 at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, explains how his team tests the mechanisms that steer engine and booster nozzles of NASA’s…

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NASA to Launch Innovative Solar Coronagraph to Space Station

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5 min read NASA to Launch Innovative Solar Coronagraph to Space Station NASA’s Coronal Diagnostic Experiment (CODEX) is ready to launch to the International Space Station to reveal new details about the solar wind including its origin and its evolution. Launching in November 2024 aboard SpaceX’s 31st commercial resupply services mission, CODEX will be robotically installed on the exterior of the space station. As a solar coronagraph, CODEX will block out the bright light from the Sun’s surface to better see details in the Sun’s outer atmosphere, or corona. In…

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NASA, SpaceX 31st Commercial Resupply Mission Overview

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NASA and SpaceX are targeting no earlier than 9:29 p.m. EST on Monday, Nov. 4, for the next launch to deliver scientific investigations, supplies, and equipment to the International Space Station. Filled with more than 6,000 pounds of supplies, the SpaceX Dragon cargo spacecraft, on the company’s Falcon 9 rocket, will launch from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. This launch is the 31st SpaceX commercial resupply services mission to the orbital laboratory for the agency, and the 11th SpaceX launch under the Commercial Resupply Services-2…

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NASA Sets Coverage for SpaceX 31st Station Resupply Launch, Arrival

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The SpaceX Dragon spacecraft, pictured on March 13, 2023, carried on the company’s Falcon 9 rocket, will launch from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida for the agency’s SpaceX 31st commercial resupply services mission to the International Space Station. Credit: SpaceX NASA and SpaceX are targeting 9:29 p.m. EST, Monday, Nov. 4, for the next launch to deliver science investigations, supplies, and equipment to the International Space Station. This is the 31st SpaceX commercial resupply services mission to the orbital laboratory for the agency. Filled with…

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1st image of our Milky Way’s black hole may be inaccurate, scientists say

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What does the supermassive black hole lurking at the center of our galaxy look like?It’s a deceptively simple question.  Although our local cosmic abyss, named Sgr A* (short for Sagittarius A*), resides just 26,000 light-years from Earth, it has proven to be a very difficult object to image. This is thanks in part to material whipping around it at near light-speeds. However, after years of trying, scientists with the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) project succeeded in 2022.The black hole’s silhouette emerged from the shadows, appearing like a fuzzy orange doughnut.…

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NASA’s Perseverance rover gets stunning view of big Mars crater from slippery slope (video, photos)

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NASA’s Perseverance rover took a break from its Mars mountaineering expedition recently to survey its old stomping grounds. The car-sized Perseverance landed on the floor of the 28-mile-wide (45-kilometer-wide) Jezero Crater in February 2021 to hunt for signs of past Mars life and collect dozens of samples for future return to Earth. Perseverance has finished its work in Jezero’s flats and is now scaling the crater’s western rim, on its way to explore new and disparate Mars landscapes. Late last month, however, the rover paused to take in the grand…

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China launches 3 astronauts to Tiangong space station on Shenzhou 19 mission (video)

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China’s next human spaceflight mission is on its way into orbit. A Long March 2F rocket topped with the Shenzhou 19 crew spacecraft lifted off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center today (Oct. 19) at 4:27 p.m. EDT (2027 GMT; 4:27 a.m. Oct. 30 Beijing time), rising into a night sky above the spaceport. Aboard are commander Cai Xuzhe, 48, who was a member of the Shenzhou 14 mission, and rookie astronauts Song Lingdong, 34, a former air force pilot, and Wang Haoze, also 34, a spaceflight engineer. Shenzhou 19…

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Ken Iliff: Engineering 40 Years of Success

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10 min read Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) Editor’s note: This article was published May 23, 2003, in NASA Armstrong’s X-Press newsletter. NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center in Edwards, California, was redesignated Armstrong Flight Research Center on March 1, 2014. Ken Iliff was inducted into the National Hall of Fame for Persons with Disabilities in 1987. He died Jan. 4, 2016. Alphonso Stewart, from left, Ken Iliff, and Dale Reed study lifting body aircraft models at NASA’s Armstrong (then Dryden) Flight Research Center in Edwards, California. NASA…

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A Particular Lenticular Cloud

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New Zealand’s stunning scenery has famously provided the backdrop for fictional worlds in fantasy films. A unique cloud that forms over the Otago region of the country’s South Island also evokes the otherworldly, while very much existing in reality. NASA/Lauren Dauphin; USGS Landsat 8’s Operational Land Imager acquired this image of an elongated lenticular cloud, locally nicknamed the “Taieri Pet,” above New Zealand’s South Island on Sept. 7, 2024. Lenticular clouds form when prevailing winds encounter a topographic barrier, such as a mountain range. Wind that is forced to flow…

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