Tag: Goddard Space Flight Center
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OSIRIS-REx asteroid mission receives gravitational boost from planet Earth
EDITOR’S NOTE: Updated at 4:30 p.m. EDT (2030 GMT) after flyby. Artist’s concept of the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft flying by Earth. Credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center/University of Arizona NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft, en route to asteroid Bennu to retrieve samples and return them to scientists, slingshot past Earth on Friday, using gravity to change its trajectory for a…
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Experiment devoted to neutron star research installed on space station
Artist’s concept of a pulsar (blue-white disk in center) pulling in matter from a nearby star (red disk at upper right). The stellar material forms a disk around the pulsar (multicolored ring) before falling on to the surface at the magnetic poles. The pulsar’s intense magnetic field is represented by faint blue outlines surrounding the…
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Budget proposal puts NASA satellite servicing mission in doubt
Artist’s concept of the Restore-L spacecraft (left) with the Landsat 7 satellite (right) for an in-orbit refueling demonstration. Credit: Space Systems/Loral NASA plans to shelve a robotic demonstration mission to refuel an aging Landsat Earth-imaging observatory and join forces with the private sector and a U.S. military research and development agency in a public-private partnership…
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James Webb Space Telescope shipped to Texas for its biggest test yet
The primary mirror of the James Webb Space Telescope pictured at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Credit: NASA/Chris Gunn The centerpiece of the James Webb Space Telescope has arrived at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston for a three-month test to ensure the observatory’s sensors and gold-coated mirrors work in the frigid…
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Pioneering Earth observation satellite retired by NASA
Artist’s concept of the EO-1 satellite in orbit. Credit: NASA/Goddard/SVS NASA has decommissioned a long-lived satellite launched in 2000 that demonstrated remote sensing and surveying instruments and techniques common in today’s orbiting Earth observatories. The Earth Observing-1 spacecraft’s orbit has shifted away from its optimal perch, and the satellite does not carry enough propellant to…
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NASA’s OSIRIS-REx probe moonlights as asteroid sleuth
The OSIRIS-REx spacecraft will undertake a search for Earth-Trojan asteroids while on its outbound journey to the asteroid Bennu. Earth Trojans are asteroids that share an orbit with Earth while remaining near a stable point 60 degrees in front of or behind the planet. Credit: University of Arizona/Heather Roper On course to collect specimens from…
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NASA resumes JWST vibration testing
A clean tent is lowered over the James Webb Space Telescope, with its wings folded back in launch configuration, before the start of vibration testing in November. Credit: NASA/Chris Gunn Vibration testing on the James Webb Space Telescope, the multibillion-dollar successor to Hubble, has resumed after engineers traced a problem that cropped up last month…
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Piers Sellers, shuttle astronaut and renowned climate researcher, dies at 61
Piers Sellers flew on three assembly missions to the International Space Station. He is seen here on the STS-132 mission in May 2010. Credit: NASA Former astronaut Piers Sellers, a British-born climate scientist who flew on three space shuttle missions to help construct the International Space Station, has died of pancreatic cancer at the age…
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Engineers examine unexpected readings from JWST shake test
The James Webb Space Telescope’s primary mirror, composed of 18 individual segments, is seen inside a clean room at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center earlier this year. Credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center NASA says engineers are diagnosing the source of “anomalous readings” during a recent vibration test of the sensitive optics and sensors at the…
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NASA selects builder for robotic satellite servicing craft
Artist’s concept of the Restore-L spacecraft (left) with the Landsat 7 satellite (right) for an in-orbit refueling demonstration. Credit: Space Systems/Loral NASA has a builder to construct a five-ton spacecraft to catch up with the aging Landsat 7 Earth observation satellite and refuel it in 2020, employing robotic tools mastered in years of rehearsals on…