Tag: Kennedy Space Center

NASA, Boeing to Provide Commercial Crew, Space Station Update

NeRD

This picture of the International Space Station was photographed from the space shuttle Atlantis in 2011. NASA Leadership from NASA’s International Space Station and Commercial Crew Programs, as well as Boeing, will participate in a media teleconference at 2 p.m. EDT Friday, June 28. NASA and Boeing continue to evaluate Starliner’s propulsion system performance before returning from the International Space Station as part of the agency’s Crew Flight Test. The agency also will discuss recent station operations. Audio of the call will stream live on the agency’s website: https://www.nasa.gov/nasatv Participants…

Read More

The 1998 Florida Firestorm and NASA’s Kennedy Space Center

NeRD

5 min read Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) A lightning strike at Launch Complex 39B at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida in July 2014. Bolts like this are a regular occurrence in central Florida. Similar lightning strikes sparked the 1998 Florida Firestorm. NASA Lightning Crashes East central Florida’s natural environment and climate have shaped, and delayed, Kennedy Space Center launch operations since the 1960s. Torrential pop-up thunderstorms, Atlantic hurricanes, roasting heat, and other climatic phenomena, including lightning and fire, repeatedly hampered mission timelines and created dangerous…

Read More

NASA Invites Public to Share Excitement of NOAA GOES-U Launch

NeRD

Crews transport NOAA’s (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES-U) from the Astrotech Space Operations facility to the SpaceX hangar at Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida beginning on Friday, June 14, 2024, with the operation finishing early Saturday, June 15, 2024. NASA/Ben Smegelsky NASA invites the public to participate in virtual activities and events leading up to the launch of the NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) GOES-U (Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite-U) mission.  NASA is targeting a two-hour window opening at 5:16…

Read More

NASA Invites Media to See Artemis II Moon Rocket Elements at Kennedy

NeRD

NASA’s Pegasus barge delivers the SLS (Space Launch System) rocket’s core stage for the 2022 Artemis I mission to the turn basin at Kennedy Space Center in Florida in April 2021. Credits: NASA/Michael Downs Media are invited in late July to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida to see progress on the agency’s SLS (Space Launch System) Moon rocket as preparations continue for the Artemis II test flight around the Moon. Participants joining the multi-day events will see the arrival and unloading of the 212-foot-tall SLS core stage at the…

Read More

NASA Crew Flight Test Astronauts to Call White House, NASA Leaders

NeRD

NASA astronauts Suni Williams (pictured left) and Butch Wilmore (pictured right) launched at 10:52 a.m. EDT June 5 as the first crewed flight of Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft on the United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket from Space Launch Complex-41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. Credits: NASA Following their safe arrival at the International Space Station, NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams will participate in a pair of Earth to space calls Monday, June 10, regarding their historic mission aboard Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft: Known as NASA’s Boeing…

Read More

NASA’s Europa Clipper Unpacks in Florida

NeRD

Technicians inside the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida prepare to rotate the agency’s largest planetary mission spacecraft, Europa Clipper, to a vertical position on Tuesday, May 28, 2024, as part of prelaunch processing. Photo credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett Crews rotated to vertical then lifted NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft from its protective shipping container after it arrived at the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility (PHSF) at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on May 28. The spacecraft, which will collect data to help scientists determine if…

Read More

NASA, Sierra Space Deliver Dream Chaser to Florida for Launch Preparation

NeRD

Dream Chaser Tenacity, Sierra Space’s uncrewed cargo spaceplane, is processed inside the Space Systems Processing Facility (SSPF) at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Monday, May 20, 2024. The spaceplane arrived inside a climate-controlled transportation container from the agency’s Neil Armstrong Test Facility in Ohio. Final testing and prelaunch processing will be completed inside the high bay of the SSPF ahead of Dream Chaser’s inaugural launch atop a ULA (United Launch Alliance) Vulcan rocket from nearby Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.   Photo credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett As part of NASA’s efforts to…

Read More

NASA’s New Mobile Launcher Stacks Up for Future Artemis Missions 

NeRD

The foundation is set at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida for launching crewed missions aboard the agency’s larger and more powerful SLS (Space Launch System) Block 1B rocket in support of Artemis IV and future missions. On May 9, 2024, teams with NASA’s EGS (Exploration Ground Systems) Program and contractor Bechtel National Inc. transferred the primary base structure of the mobile launcher 2 to its permanent mount mechanisms using the spaceport’s beast-mode transporter – the crawler.   On Thursday, May 9, 2024, teams with NASA’s Exploration Ground Systems Program…

Read More