Tag: NASA
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NASA calls off modified Artemis 1 Wet Dress Rehearsal for hydrogen leak
NASA tried again at a third attempt on April 14 to complete the Wet Dress Rehearsal (WDR) test on its Artemis 1 vehicle. The integrated Orion spacecraft and Space Launch System (SLS) rocket for Artemis 1 will be launched by the agency’s Exploration Ground Systems (EGS) program from the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida…
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Axiom-1 launches first ever private crewed mission to ISS
SpaceX and Axiom Space launched the AX-1 mission to the International Space Station (ISS) on Friday, April 8, 2022, at 11:17:11 am EDST / 15:17:11 UTC from LC-39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The first private crewed mission to the station is using the Crew Dragon Endeavour, flying its third mission, and will…
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Two Seattle-area students are finalists in NASA design contest for lunar dirt-digging robots
Project Stardust by Ke “Max” Jiang, left, and Terebro, by Mason Lysaght. (Lunabotics Images) Dig this — two Seattle-area students were semifinalists in a national contest run by NASA in which kids in grades K-12 were tasked with designing a robot that could scoop up and transport lunar soil. The Lunabotics Junior Contest winners were named…
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NASA working through wet dress rehearsal, final major pre-flight test for moon rocket
With the arrival of SLS and Orion at Pad-B on March 18, engineers and technicians were busy making final preparations for Sunday’s critical last design verification test: the Wet Dress Rehearsal, or WDR. The test was scrubbed on April 3 before fueling due to an inability to provide positive pressure to the enclosed areas within…
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Soyuz MS-19 lands in Kazakhstan amid tense U.S.-Russian relations
At 07:21 UTC on March 30, Soyuz MS-19 undocked from the International Space Station (ISS) and subsequently landed on the Kazakh Steppe at 11:29 UTC. This concludes a five-month mission for the spacecraft and the second-ever one-year mission by an American astronaut. The landing crew of Soyuz MS-19 consists of Russian cosmonauts Anton Shkaplerov –…
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Solar Orbiter successfully completes historic close pass of the Sun
On March 26, 2022, the joint European Space Agency (ESA) and NASA Solar Orbiter spacecraft successfully completed its first close pass through the Sun’s corona, bringing the spacecraft’s specially-designed collection of instruments closer to the Sun than ever before. During the close pass, called perihelion, all ten of Solar Orbiter’s instruments operated simultaneously, working together…
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Roman Space Telescope to search for other Earths by surveying space dust
With the James Webb Space Telescope continuing its commissioning phase, NASA is already looking ahead to its next major space observatory, the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. Currently scheduled to launch in 2027, Roman will observe the universe to answer crucial questions needed for the complete understanding of our universe, especially in the areas of…
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EGS, Jacobs preparing Artemis 1 vehicle at pad for final pre-launch countdown test
The launch team, made up of people from NASA’s Exploration Ground Systems (EGS) program and prime launch processing contractor Jacobs, is preparing to conduct the final test prior to the launch of the Artemis 1 mission to the Moon. Following the rollout of the first integrated Orion spacecraft and Space Launch System (SLS) rocket to…
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A year after Blue Origin’s big setback, NASA gets set to support a second commercial moon lander
An astronaut looks at the lunar surface through the hatch of a moon lander. (NASA Illustration) NASA has laid out its plan for choosing a second commercial venture to build a landing system capable of carrying astronauts to and from the lunar surface. The venture would provide a competitive alternative to SpaceX’s lunar landing system,…
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James Webb teams successfully align mirror, commissioning continues
Following a historic launch in December 2021 and an incredible arrival at Lagrange Point 2 (L2) in January, James Webb Space Telescope teams have been hard at work preparing the telescope for its first observations this summer. On March 16, NASA announced that one of the most critical steps in the commissioning process had been…