Tag: Missions

NASA must ‘consider alternatives’ to put Artemis astronauts on the moon, experts tell US Congress

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The U.S. is in a race with China to get to the moon, amid potential changes to the Artemis program and turmoil at NASA, according to a House hearing on Wednesday. As Intuitive Machines’ IM-2 lunar lander sat on the pad awaiting its nighttime launch, a meeting of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology’s space and aeronautics subcommittee took place on Feb. 26 to discuss the next steps of the Artemis program and how it plays into efforts to get to Mars. In the hearing, titled “Step by…

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NASA leadership shakeup continues as agency settles into Trump’s 2nd term

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NASA continues to reshape its leadership tier. The agency announced a number of personnel moves on Monday (Feb. 24), including the selection of Vanessa Wyche as acting associate administrator. “Vanessa will bring exceptional leadership to NASA’s senior ranks, helping guide our workforce toward the opportunities that lie ahead,” NASA Acting Administrator Janet Petro said in a statement on Monday. The associate administrator serves as NASA’s chief operating officer, overseeing its 18,000 employees and nearly $25 billion budget, agency officials wrote in the statement. Wyche succeeds Jim Free, who retired a…

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NASA’s EZIE Launching to Study Magnetic Fingerprints of Earth’s Aurora

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5 Min Read NASA’s EZIE Launching to Study Magnetic Fingerprints of Earth’s Aurora High above Earth’s poles, intense electrical currents called electrojets flow through the upper atmosphere when auroras glow in the sky. These auroral electrojets push about a million amps of electrical charge around the poles every second. They can create some of the largest magnetic disturbances on the ground, and rapid changes in the currents can lead to effects such as power outages. In March, NASA plans to launch its EZIE (Electrojet Zeeman Imaging Explorer) mission to learn…

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Five Facts About NASA’s Moon Bound Technology

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4 Min Read Five Facts About NASA’s Moon Bound Technology A view of the Moon from Earth, zooming up to IM-2's landing site at Mons Mouton, which is visible in amateur telescopes. Credits: NASA/Scientific Visualization Studio NASA is sending revolutionary technologies to the Moon aboard Intuitive Machines’ second lunar delivery as part of the agency’s CLPS (Commercial Lunar Payload Services) initiative and Artemis campaign to establish a long-term presence on the lunar surface.  As part of this CLPS flight to the Moon, NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate will test novel technologies…

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Station Science Top News: Feb. 21, 2025

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Improving space-based pharmaceutical research View of the Ice Cubes experiment #6 (Kirara) floating in the Columbus European Laboratory module aboard the International Space Station. UAE (United Arab Emirates)/Sultan Alneyadi Researchers found differences in the stability and degradation of the anti-Covid drug Remdesivir in space and on Earth on its first research flight, but not on a second. This highlights the need for more standardized procedures for pharmaceutical research in space. Long-term stability of drugs is critical for future space missions. Because multiple characteristics of spaceflight could influence chemical stability, the…

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NASA Sets Coverage for Intuitive Machines’ Next Commercial Moon Launch

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Caption: The Intuitive Machines lunar lander that will deliver NASA science and technology to the Moon as part of the agency’s CLPS (Commercial Lunar Payload Services) initiative and Artemis campaign is encapsulated in the fairing of the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. Credit: SpaceX Carrying NASA science and technology to the Moon as part of the agency’s CLPS (Commercial Lunar Payload Services) initiative and Artemis campaign, the Intuitive Machines IM-2 mission is targeted to launch no earlier than Wednesday, Feb. 26. The mission will lift off on a SpaceX Falcon 9…

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Guiding Orion: Jorge Chong’s Mission to Advance Deep Space Exploration 

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Jorge Chong is helping shape the future of human spaceflight, one calculation at a time. As a project manager for TRON (Tracking and Ranging via Optical Navigation) and a guidance, navigation, and control (GNC) test engineer in the Aeroscience and Flight Mechanics Division, he is leading efforts to ensure the Orion spacecraft can navigate deep space autonomously.  Jorge Chong in front of the Mission Control Center at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston when he helped with optical navigation operations during Artemis I. Image courtesy of Jorge Chong “GNC is…

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The ISS should be deorbited ‘as soon as possible,’ Elon Musk says: ‘Let’s go to Mars’

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Elon Musk thinks we should start moving on from the International Space Station (ISS). “It is time to begin preparations for deorbiting the @Space_Station. It has served its purpose. There is very little incremental utility. Let’s go to Mars,” the SpaceX chief and close Trump adviser said via X today (Feb. 20). In another X post, he laid out his preferred timeline: “The decision is up to the President, but my recommendation is as soon as possible. I recommend 2 years from now.” NASA and its partners on the ISS…

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Leaving Pluto in the dust: New Horizons probe gearing up for epic crossing of ‘termination shock’

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NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft conducted the first and only flyby of the Pluto system, culminating at the closest approach of that distant world in July 2015. Sailing onward, the probe carried out a Jan. 1, 2019 flyby of Arrokoth, a Kuiper Belt Object, or KBO, located in a region of space beyond Neptune called the Kuiper Belt. There are scads of other icy worlds residing in the Kuiper Belt, celestial leftovers from the formation of our solar system. For New Horizons, the gathering of more exploration science is, pun intended,…

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Boeing plans to lay off hundreds of employees working on NASA’s SLS moon rocket: reports

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Boeing is preparing to issue layoff notices to roughly 200 employees working on the Space Launch System (SLS) — the massive rocket central to NASA’s flagship Artemis program — as it braces for the possibility that its contracts with the space agency may not be renewed after they end in March. Of the approximately 400 positions Boeing initially considered cutting by April “to align with revisions to the Artemis program and cost expectations,” the company managed to preserve half of the jobs after daily talks with NASA, Boeing’s Vice President…

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