NASA

The VIPER team is hard at work building the flight vehicle that will be going to the surface of the Moon this time next year! In fact, we’re about halfway through the build, and you can interactively watch the process and hear from experts on the team, in various livestreams throughout the process. All the science instrument teams have delivered their payloads to the VIPER Systems Integration & Test team, which will install them into the actual flight rover; in fact, all but one is already installed! This was a huge milestone over the past summer, and a frequent sticking point for many flight projects. I’m happy to have all the birds in the nest! We also have taken delivery of most of the key pieces of hardware we acquired from our various external vendors. This is a very important milestone as well, since a large number of vendors of critical components have been quite behind schedule in their deliveries to the project, due to pandemic-era supply chain issues that continue to reverberate throughout the industry in some unexpected ways. It is good to have VIPER past this point in development, where we can now focus on bringing everything together into a functioning rover. So now that we are building the flight article, we are able to see precisely how well our design plans are working in reality. There have been some reveals in the first half of the rover build, which we’ve had to navigate, including connector issues from vendors, where we’ve discovered and corrected some design and Foreign Object Debris issues, which prevented connectors from reliably working. We’ve also found some unexpected performance characteristics revealed by some vendor hardware, which we have had to then fold into our plans for how we operate VIPER…These issues and solutions are all part of the challenging process of building a flight article, and ensuring it can survive the very harsh environment of launch, landing, and operations on the lunar surface. Once the team completes the flight rover assembly, the next step will be to test that rover in the kinds of environments it will see on the mission. This activity will be our primary focus in 2024, and our final step prior to delivering VIPER for launch integration. Go VIPER! – Dan Andrews, VIPER Project Manager View the full article

2 min read Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) Langley’s Navigation Doppler Lidar is a critical landing system on the Astrobotic Peregrine Mission 1, scheduled to launch to the Moon Jan. 8 from Cape Canaveral in Florida.Image credit: NASA Hampton, Virginia — Media is invited to learn about two technologies developed at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, that will launch to the Moon in the coming weeks aboard two flights under NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative. During an event at Langley 9:30 a.m. Thursday, Jan. 4, researchers will discuss the following groundbreaking technologies developed at the center: • Navigation Doppler Lidar (NDL), a laser-based sensor capable of providing precision vector velocity and altitude of space vehicles. NDL data is used to precisely navigate the vehicle and execute a gentle touchdown on the surface of the Moon, Mars, or other destinations in the solar system. • Stereo Cameras for Lunar Plume-Surface Studies (SCALPSS), an array of small cameras placed around a lunar lander to take images of the interaction between the lander’s engine plume and the Moon’s surface. This will help researchers more accurately predict the effects from landing larger, heavier payloads in proximity to one other on the Moon and eventually Mars. Media interested in attending should contact Joe Atkinson at joseph.s.atkinson@nasa.gov no later than noon, Wednesday, Jan. 3. NDL is currently scheduled to launch from Kennedy Space Center in Florida no earlier than Jan. 8 on Astrobotics’ Peregrine 1 lander aboard a United Launch Alliance Vulcan Centaur rocket. Though this launch is part of NASA’s CLPS program, NDL is a critical system provided to Astrobotic by NASA and is not considered a CLPS payload. Peregrine 1 is expected to land on the Moon in late February. NDL and SCALPSS 1.0 are currently scheduled to launch from Kennedy Space Center in Florida in February on Intuitive Machines’ Nova-C lander aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. Both NDL and SCALPSS 1.0 are NASA CLPS payloads on this flight. Transit time to the Moon will take 4 to 5 days. These CLPS flights will mark the United States’ first return to the Moon’s surface since the Apollo era. Commercial deliveries to the lunar surface with several providers continue to be part of NASA’s exploration efforts. Future CLPS deliveries could include more science experiments and technology demonstrations that further support the agency’s Artemis program. Learn more about CLPS at: https://www.nasa.gov/CLPS Joe Atkinson Langley Research Center, Hampton, Virginia 757-755-5375 joseph.s.atkinson@nasa.gov View the full article

Cientos de experimentos viajaron a bordo de la Estación Espacial Internacional en 2023, cubriendo una amplia gama de temas científicos, incluyendo biología, investigación humana y ciencias de la Tierra. Echa un vistazo a las investigaciones en la estación con esta galería de imágenes. Biología y biotecnología Desarrollo de cristalización de proteínas a temperatura moderada (MTPCG) NASA (9 de enero de 2023) — El astronauta Koichi Wakata, de la JAXA (Agencia Japonesa de Exploración Aeroespacial), extrae muestras del experimento Desarrollo de Cristalización de Proteínas a Temperatura Moderada (MTPCG, por sus siglas en inglés) de la JAXA para enviarlas a la Tierra. El personal de la estación ha desarrollado estos cristales durante más de 20 años para más de 500 experimentos relacionados. La microgravedad produce resultados de mejor calidad para investigaciones médicas. StemCellEX-H Pathfinder NASA (17 de agosto de 2023) — Los astronautas de la Expedición 69 trabajan en diversas tareas dentro del módulo del laboratorio Kibo de la estación espacial. El astronauta de la NASA Frank Rubio trabaja en el experimento StemCellEX-H Pathfinder, el cual lleva a cabo pruebas con métodos para producir células madre humanas en el espacio. La producción de estas células en microgravedad podría proporcionar mayores rendimientos que serían más adecuados para fines médicos. BioNutrientes 2 NASA (3 de enero de 2023) — La astronauta de la NASA Nicole Mann manipula bolsas de producción para el experimento BioNutrientes 2. Este experimento utiliza microbios modificados genéticamente para producir nutrientes clave a partir de productos lácteos fermentados como el yogur y el kéfir. La producción de vitaminas y otros nutrientes durante el vuelo podría ayudar a mantener la salud de los miembros de la tripulación en misiones de larga duración. Hábitat de Plantas 03 en el APH NASA (8 de agosto de 2023) — Plantas de la especie Arabidopsis thaliana germinan dentro del Hábitat Avanzado de Plantas (APH, por sus siglas en inglés). El Hábitat de Plantas 03, uno de los primeros experimentos de cultivos multigeneracionales a bordo de la estación espacial, estudia si las adaptaciones genéticas en microgravedad se transfieren a la siguiente generación. Esta investigación podría ofrecer información sobre cómo proporcionar alimentos y otros servicios para futuras misiones espaciales mediante el cultivo de generaciones repetidas de plantas. Investigación humana Evaluación de la inmunidad NASA (18 de septiembre de 2023) — El astronauta Andreas Mogensen, de la ESA (Agencia Espacial Europea), procesa muestras de sangre para el Evaluación de la inmunidad. Esta investigación de la ESA hace seguimiento al impacto de los factores estresantes de los vuelos espaciales en la actividad inmunitaria de las células en la sangre con la ayuda de una prueba inmunitaria funcional. Este novedoso experimento podría ayudar a evaluar la actividad inmunitaria celular en el espacio y en la Tierra. GRIP NASA (14 de febrero de 2023) — El astronauta de la NASA Josh Cassada realiza varias series de movimientos para GRIP, un experimento centrado en la manera como los astronautas agarran y manipulan objetos en microgravedad. Los datos de los experimentos de GRIP podrían identificar peligros potenciales para los astronautas cuando se desplazan entre entornos con diferentes niveles de gravedad. CIPHER NASA (29 de septiembre de 2023) — La astronauta de la NASA Loral O’Hara establece el ciclo de ejercicios de la máquina CEVIS en la estación con el fin de recopilar datos para el Complemento de Protocolos Integrados para la Investigación de Exploración Humana en Misiones de Diferente Duración (CIPHER, por sus siglas en inglés). Esta investigación reúne datos obtenidos de diferentes astronautas para estudiar los cambios fisiológicos y psicológicos que experimentan los miembros de la tripulación en misiones de diferente duración. Los resultados podrían proporcionar información para la creación de programas que promuevan la salud y el bienestar de los astronautas en futuras misiones. Instalación de Biomanufactura (BFF) NASA (24 de noviembre de 2023) — La astronauta de la NASA Jasmin Moghbeli intercambia componentes dentro de la Instalación de Biomanufactura (BFF, por sus siglas en inglés), la cual está diseñada para imprimir en microgravedad tejidos en 3D similares a órganos humanos. Este trabajo es un trampolín hacia la fabricación de órganos completos para trasplantes. Ciencias físicas SoFIE-GEL NASA (13 de enero de 2023) — El experimento Ignición y Extinción de Combustible Sólido: Límites de Crecimiento y Extinción (SoFIE-GEL, por sus siglas en inglés) estudia la combustión en microgravedad. Comprender cómo se desarrollan y se extinguen las llamas ayuda a mejorar la seguridad contra incendios en las naves espaciales. Los hallazgos podrían ayudar a los investigadores a identificar materiales más seguros para las naves espaciales y a desarrollar técnicas más efectivas para la extinción de incendios. FLUIDICS NASA (19 de junio de 2023) — El astronauta Sultan Alneyadi, de los Emiratos Árabes Unidos, trabaja en el experimento Dinámica de Fluidos en el Espacio (FLUIDICS, por sus siglas en inglés). El experimento analiza cómo los líquidos chapotean dentro de un recipiente en microgravedad. Esta investigación podría ayudar a optimizar el diseño de sistemas de combustible para satélites. Desarrollo de semiconductores de compuestos ternarios (GTCS) NASA (4 de septiembre de 2023) — El astronauta de la JAXA (Agencia Japonesa de Exploración Aeroespacial) Satoshi Furukawa intercambia muestras de cristales para el experimento Desarrollo de semiconductores de compuestos ternarios (GTCS, por sus siglas en inglés), el cual compara la calidad de los cristales desarrollados en microgravedad y en la Tierra. Los cristales tienen diversas aplicaciones ópticas, como los láseres infrarrojos. Tecnología Astrobee NASA (23 de junio de 2023) — El astronauta de los Emiratos Árabes Unidos Sultan Alneyadi flota junto a un sistema robótico Astrobee a bordo de la estación espacial. Estos robots de vuelo libre asisten a la tripulación en las tareas rutinarias, ayudando a conservar uno de los recursos más importantes de un astronauta: el tiempo. Sistema visible CapiSorb NASA (21 de abril de 2023) — El astronauta de la NASA Woody Hoburg lleva a cabo una prueba para el experimento Sistema Visible CapiSorb, el cual demuestra el control de material absorbente líquido en el espacio utilizando la fuerza capilar o de absorción. Los materiales absorbentes líquidos son un medio que podría eliminar de manera más eficaz el dióxido de carbono en las futuras naves espaciales. ILLUMA-T NASA (14 de noviembre de 2023) — Los brazos robóticos de la estación espacial instalan un nuevo dispositivo de comunicaciones láser: la Terminal Integrada de Amplificador y Módem de Usuario en la Órbita Terrestre Baja de la Demostración del Retransmisor de Comunicaciones Láser (ILLUMA-T, por sus siglas en inglés). Esta tecnología podría proporcionar una descarga más rápida de datos desde el espacio a la Tierra en una variedad de regímenes espaciales, incluyendo futuras misiones a la Luna y Marte. Ciencias de la Tierra y del espacio ECOSTRESS NASA/JPL-Caltech (13 de junio de 2023) — El Experimento Radiómetro Térmico Espacial ECOSystem en la Estación Espacial (ECOSTRESS, por sus siglas en inglés) registra las temperaturas del suelo y de la vegetación. Esta imagen de Houston, Texas, muestra que las superficies urbanas —como calles, carreteras y autopistas— son más cálidas, como se ve en rojo, en comparación con las afueras de la ciudad. La principal misión de ECOSTRESS es identificar el estrés hídrico en las plantas; este experimento también puede documentar otros fenómenos relacionados con el calor. NICER NASA (13 de junio de 2023) — La investigación Explorador de la Composición Interior de las Estrellas de Neutrones (NICER, por sus siglas en inglés) estudia la naturaleza y el comportamiento de las estrellas de neutrones o púlsares, los agujeros negros y otros objetivos de importancia científica. La medición de las radiaciones de rayos X recopiladas por NICER revelaron similitudes en dos estallidos separados de un púlsar en 2006 y 2020. Un mayor seguimiento y análisis de estas emisiones podría proporcionar una mejor comprensión de la naturaleza y evolución de esta estrella. Observaciones de la Tierra de la Tripulación NASA (13 de noviembre de 2023) — Las ventanas de la cúpula de la estación espacial brindan a la tripulación una vista única del planeta. Para las Observaciones de la Tierra de la Tripulación, los astronautas toman fotografías que muestran cómo los paisajes, el agua y la atmósfera de la Tierra cambian a lo largo del tiempo por causas humanas y naturales. Esta investigación es uno de los registros fotográficos más antiguos que se han hecho de la Tierra y sustenta el bienestar de la tripulación. Actividades educativas y culturales Programa de radioaficionados ARISS NASA (18 de julio de 2023) — El astronauta de la NASA Stephen Bowen realiza una sesión de radioaficionados con estudiantes de Canadá. El programa de Radioaficionados de la Estación Espacial Internacional (ARISS, por sus siglas en inglés) fue la primera iniciativa educativa a bordo de la estación espacial. El impacto de este contacto por radio puede ser revolucionario, alentando a los estudiantes a estudiar ciencias, tecnología, ingeniería y matemáticas. Genes en el Espacio 10 NASA (13 de julio de 2023) — El astronauta de la NASA Frank Rubio lleva a cabo el experimento Genes en el Espacio 10, el cual realiza pruebas con un método para medir la longitud de los telómeros, que son las estructuras en forma de punta en los extremos del ADN. Esta investigación podría proporcionar un método para integrar las mediciones del ADN y los diagnósticos médicos basados en la genética, apoyando las investigaciones biológicas en el espacio. Otros Aproximación de la nave Dragon NASA (11 de noviembre de 2023) — Con más de 2.950 kilogramos (6.500 libras) de carga, la 29.a misión comercial de reabastecimiento de SpaceX llega a la estación espacial el 11 de noviembre de 2023. Un tercio de ese peso consiste en experimentos científicos, incluyendo estudios de comunicaciones ópticas mejoradas y un dispositivo para medir las ondas atmosféricas. Canadarm2 y Dextre NASA (26 de octubre de 2023) — El brazo robótico Canadarm2, con su mano robótica Dextre acoplada a él, es fotografiado mientras la Estación Espacial Internacional orbita a 418 kilómetros (260 millas) de altura sobre las luces de las ciudades de la península arábiga. Canadarm2 es utilizado para instalar experimentos fuera de la estación espacial de forma remota. Utilizando el punto de vista del espacio, estos experimentos pueden captar información sobre nuestro planeta y nuestro papel en el sistema solar. Cygnus e iROSA NASA (1 de septiembre de 2023) — La 19.a misión comercial de reabastecimiento de Northrop Grumman llevó 3.720 kilogramos (8.200 libras) de investigaciones científicas y carga a la estación espacial, incluyendo obras de arte digital creadas por estudiantes y un estudio sobre terapia génica específica para las neuronas. El módulo Columbus NASA (29 de agosto de 2023) — El astronauta Andreas Mogensen, de la ESA (Agencia Espacial Europea), flota en el laboratorio Columbus. Este laboratorio es el principal centro de investigaciones para experimentos de la ESA en la estación espacial. Columbus es un laboratorio presurizado multifuncional que permite una amplia variedad de investigaciones en microgravedad. Descarga de las imagenes: https://www.nasa.gov/gallery/best-of-space-station-science-images-2023/ Keep Exploring Descubre más temas de la NASA Ciencia en la estación Aeronáutica en español Station Benefits for Humanity Space Station Research and Technology View the full article

3 min read Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) These images of asteroid Apophis were recorded in March 2021 by radio antennas at the Deep Space Network’s Goldstone complex in California and the Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia. The asteroid was 10.6 million miles (17 million kilometers) away, and each pixel has a resolution of 127 feet (38.75 meters).Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech and NSF/AUI/GBO Save the Date Apophis 2029 Innovation (A29I) Listening Workshop February 7, 2024 Please refer to this web page for any updated information OVERVIEW: NASA’s Agency Chief Technologist (ACT) within the Office of Technology, Policy, and Strategy (OTPS) is hosting a listening workshop on February 7, 2024, on innovative approaches to conduct missions during the Earth flyby of the asteroid Apophis in 2029. This workshop is co-hosted with NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office (PDCO) in the Science Mission Directorate (SMD) as well as with NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD). The Apophis 2029 Innovation (A29I) Listening Workshop will engage the public to explore innovative approaches for a low-cost mission to the asteroid Apophis. Specifically, the workshop seeks information from the commercial space sector, academia, researchers, technology developers, transportation providers, other government agencies, international space agencies, and other interested parties on innovative programmatic, financial, and partnership approaches. Participation by other U.S. government agencies and international space agencies is highly encouraged. The agenda will feature an overview briefing by NASA officials followed by pre-scheduled one-on-one listening sessions between NASA and interested parties. PROGRAM The listening workshop will be held on Wednesday, February 7, 2024, in Washington, D.C. The workshop is divided into two parts. The first part is a widely attended morning overview briefing that will be held at the James E. Webb Auditorium at NASA Headquarters (West Lobby, 300 E St SW, Washington, DC 20024), starting at 9:00 AM Eastern Time. Doors will open at 8:15 AM Eastern Time. The second part will be one-on-one sessions between NASA representatives and external organizations. These one-on-one sessions will begin at 11:00 AM Eastern Time. NASA will determine the final schedule of one-on-one sessions and will contact organizations directly to confirm logistics, location, and assigned session time. The location will be within close proximity to NASA headquarters. Each organization requesting a one-on-one session is limited to up to three participants per organization. The one-on-one sessions will be no more than 30 minutes in length for each organization. For the one-on-one sessions, please do not prepare a slide deck or presentation material as audio/visual equipment will not be provided nor will be permitted. NASA also will not accept any written or electronic material. Please do not provide any confidential or proprietary information during the one-on-one sessions. The one-one-one sessions will not be recorded; however, notes may be taken by NASA civil servants or its support contractor(s). For those organizations and individuals interested in participating in the overview briefing and/or the one-on-one sessions please RSVP by January 19, 2024 by providing the following for all individuals attending from your organization: Name Title (if applicable) Affiliation Email Phone number Attending overview briefing: Y/N Attending one-on-one session: Y/N Please RSVP by sending an email to taelor.n.jones@nasa.gov using the subject line “Apophis 2029 Workshop.” There are no associated activities (e.g., procurement, cooperative agreement, Space Act agreement, etc.) planned at this time. REFERENCES: NASA Apophis Overview: https://science.nasa.gov/solar-system/asteroids/apophis/ Apophis T-6 Workshop, May 10-12, 2023 (Program with Abstracts): https://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/apophis2023/technical_program/ Small Bodies Assessment Group (SBAG) findings, July 11-13, 2023: https://www.lpi.usra.edu/sbag/findings/ NASA Planetary Defense Strategy and Action Plan: https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/smd/planetary-science-division/planetary-defense-coordination-office/nasa-releases-agency-strategy-for-planetary-defense-to-safeguard-earth/ National Preparedness Strategy and Action Plan for Near-Earth Object Hazards and Planetary Defense: https://www.whitehouse.gov/ostp/news-updates/2023/04/03/new-planetary-defense-strategy-outlines-key-us-government-goals/ National Academies’ Planetary Science and Astrobiology Decadal Survey: https://www.nationalacademies.org/our-work/planetary-science-and-astrobiology-decadal-survey-2023-2032 Share Details Last Updated Dec 28, 2023 Related TermsOffice of Technology, Policy and Strategy (OTPS)ApophisPlanetary DefensePlanetary Defense Coordination Office View the full article

2 min read Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) Earlier this year, NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility reaffirmed a 25-year relationship with the Virginia Space Flight Academy (VASFA) through the signing of a new Space Act Agreement. This formal partnership provides outreach opportunities for youth, including a residential space adventure camp each summer. “Wallops is proud to continue our 25-year partnership with VASFA,” said Wallops Director David Pierce. “The camp programs bring local and regional youth to the facility and our subject matter experts look forward to providing behind-the-scenes tours to support the development of the next generation of aerospace professionals.” VASFA campers attend behind the scenes tours of the facility, and learn from different subject matter experts in each location- including the Range Control CenterVirginia Space Flight Academy VASFA was launched in 1998 as one of six projects initiated by the Eastern Shore Regional Partnership. The goal was to offer quality summer camp experiences for local youth by leveraging the high-tech activities being conducted at Wallops, the Virginia Spaceport Authority (then known as the Virginia Commercial Space Flight Authority), NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), and the United States Navy. Based on the success of the pilot camps, the nonprofit organization was officially established in 2000 and has continued to lead the program. Two summer camp participants work together during a robotics challengeVirginia Space Flight Academy Since then, over 6,000 youth have attended summer camp, with many campers returning to camp as staff. Camp staff members have had the opportunity to leverage their camp experiences to secure internships and employment with NASA and other aerospace partners. An additional 1,000 students have been served by a new series of year-round STEM Academy programming that was launched in 2021. Virginia Space Flight Academy campers and staff celebrate being honored with a Spirit of Virginia award at the end of a camp graduation ceremony.NASA/ Jamie Adkins During the 2023 summer camp season, campers had the opportunity to participate in a few unique experiences. At the July 28 Advanced Aerospace Camp graduation ceremony, the campers and their families were joined by Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin and First Lady Suzanne S. Youngkin as they presented VASFA with the Spirit of Virginia award. This award recognizes unique qualities and standout achievements across the Commonwealth and salutes Virginians for their uncommon contributions in private industries, education, culture, the arts, and philanthropy. The following week, Advanced Coding and Robotics campers were treated to a rocket launch viewing event during the Northrop Grumman’s 19th cargo resupply launch to the International Space Station aboard the Antares rocket from Wallops Island, Virginia. VASFA campers and staff watch as an Antares rocket launches from Wallops IslandVirginia Space Flight Academy Share Details Last Updated Dec 22, 2023 EditorAmy BarraContactAmy Barraamy.l.barra@nasa.govLocationWallops Flight Facility Related TermsWallops Flight Facility Explore More 4 min read NASA Scientific Balloons Ready for Flights Over Antarctica Article 1 month ago 1 min read NASA Wallops Supports Hypersonic Rocket Launches Article 1 month ago 1 min read NASA Wallops to Support Sounding Rocket Launches Article 1 month ago View the full article

NASA / Ben Smegelsky A Great Blue Heron skims its wings on a waterway at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Jan. 11, 2021, making an artistic reflection on the water’s surface. Kennedy shares a border with the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge. Merritt Island’s strategic location along the Atlantic Flyway provides a resting and feeding place for thousands of wading birds, shorebirds, and songbirds. Great Blue Herons are just one of the more than 330 native and migratory bird species that call Kennedy and the wildlife refuge home. Image Credit: NASA/Ben Smegelsky View the full article

4 min read Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) While stationary for two weeks during Mars solar conjunction in November 2023, NASA’s Curiosity rover used its front and rear black-and-white Hazcams to capture 12 hours of a Martian day. The rover’s shadow is visible on the surface in these images taken by the front Hazcam. Videos from the rover show its shadow moving across the Martian surface during a 12-hour sequence while Curiosity remained parked. When NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover isn’t on the move, it works pretty well as a sundial, as seen in two black-and-white videos recorded on Nov. 8, the 4,002nd Martian day, or sol, of the mission. The rover captured its own shadow shifting across the surface of Mars using its black-and-white Hazard-Avoidance Cameras, or Hazcams. Instructions to record the videos were part of the last set of commands beamed up to Curiosity just before the start of Mars solar conjunction, a period when the Sun is between Earth and Mars. Because plasma from the Sun can interfere with radio communications, missions hold off on sending commands to Mars spacecraft for several weeks during this time. (The missions weren’t totally out of contact: They still radioed back regular health check-ins throughout conjunction.) Rover drivers normally rely on Curiosity’s Hazcams to spot rocks, slopes, and other hazards that may be risky to traverse. But because the rover’s other activities were intentionally scaled back just prior to conjunction, the team decided to use the Hazcams to record 12 hours of snapshots for the first time, hoping to capture clouds or dust devils that could reveal more about the Red Planet’s weather. When the images came down to Earth after conjunction, scientists didn’t see any weather of note, but the pair of 25-frame videos they put together do capture the passage of time. Extending from 5:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. local time, the videos show Curiosity’s silhouette shifting as the day moves from morning to afternoon to evening. The first video, featuring images from the front Hazcam, looks southeast along Gediz Vallis, a valley found on Mount Sharp. Curiosity has been ascending the base of the 3-mile-tall (5-kilometer-tall) mountain, which sits in Gale Crater, since 2014. As the sky brightens during sunrise, the shadow of the rover’s 7-foot (2-meter) robotic arm moves to the left, and Curiosity’s front wheels emerge from the darkness on either side of the frame. Also becoming visible at left is a circular calibration target mounted on the shoulder of the robotic arm. Engineers use the target to test the accuracy of the Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer, an instrument that detects chemical elements on the Martian surface. In the middle of the day, the front Hazcam’s autoexposure algorithm settles on exposure times of around one-third of a second. By nightfall, that exposure time grows to more than a minute, causing the typical sensor noise known as “hot pixels” that appears as white snow across the final image. Curiosity’s rear Hazcam captured the shadow of the back of the rover in this 12-hour view looking toward the floor of Gale Crater. A variety of factors caused several image artifacts, including a black speck, the distorted appearance of the Sun, and the rows of white pixels that streak out from the Sun.NASA/JPL-Caltech The second video shows the view of the rear Hazcam as it looks northwest down the slopes of Mount Sharp to the floor of Gale Crater. The rover’s right rear wheel is visible, along with the shadow of Curiosity’s power system. A small black artifact that appears at the left midway through the video, during the 17th frame, resulted from a cosmic ray hitting the camera sensor. Likewise, the bright flashing and other noise at the end of the video are the result of heat from the spacecraft’s power system affecting the Hazcam’s image sensor. These images have been re-projected to correct the wide-angle lenses of the Hazcams. The speckled appearance of the images, especially prominent in the rear-camera video, is due to 11 years of Martian dust settling on the lenses. More About the Mission Curiosity was built by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which is managed by Caltech in Pasadena, California. JPL leads the mission on behalf of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. For more about Curiosity, visit: http://mars.nasa.gov/msl News Media Contacts Andrew Good Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. 818-393-2433 andrew.c.good@jpl.nasa.gov Karen Fox / Alana Johnson NASA Headquarters, Washington 301-286-6284 / 202-358-1501 karen.c.fox@nasa.gov / alana.r.johnson@nasa.gov 2023-189 Share Details Last Updated Dec 28, 2023 Related TermsCuriosity (Rover)MarsPlanetsThe Solar System Explore More 5 min read NASA’s Juno to Get Close Look at Jupiter’s Volcanic Moon Io on Dec. 30 Article 1 day ago 5 min read NASA Asteroid Sampling Mission Renamed OSIRIS-APEX for New Journey The former OSIRIS-REx spacecraft sets off on a journey to study asteroid Apophis and take… Article 6 days ago 4 min read NASA’s Hubble Watches ‘Spoke Season’ on Saturn This photo of Saturn was taken by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope on October 22, 2023,… Article 1 week ago Keep Exploring Discover Related Topics Missions Humans in Space Climate Change Solar System View the full article

Ahead of launch as part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative, Astrobotic’s Peregrine lunar lander is encapsulated in the payload fairing, or nose cone, of United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan rocket on Nov. 21, 2023, at Astrotech Space Operations Facility near the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Launch of Astrobotic’s Peregrine Mission One will carry NASA and commercial payloads to the Moon in early 2024 to study the lunar exosphere, thermal properties, and hydrogen abundance of the lunar regolith, magnetic fields, and the radiation environment of the lunar surface.NASA As part of NASA’s CLPS (Commercial Lunar Payload Services) initiative and Artemis program, United Launch Alliance (ULA) and Astrobotic are targeting 2:18 a.m. EST Monday, Jan. 8, for the first commercial robotic launch to the Moon’s surface. Carrying NASA science, liftoff of ULA’s Vulcan rocket and Astrobotic’s Peregrine lunar lander will happen from Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. Live launch coverage will air on NASA+, NASA Television, the NASA app, and the agency’s website, with prelaunch events starting Thursday, Jan. 4. Learn how to stream NASA TV through a variety of platforms including social media. Follow events online at: https://www.nasa.gov/nasatv. Peregrine will land on the Moon on Friday, Feb. 23. The NASA payloads aboard the lander aim to help the agency develop capabilities needed to explore the Moon under Artemis and in advance of human missions on the lunar surface. Full coverage of this mission is as follows (all times Eastern): Thursday, Jan. 4 11 a.m. – Science media briefing via WebEx with the following participants: Paul Niles, CLPS project scientist, NASA Headquarters Chris Culbert, CLPS program manager, NASA’s Johnson Space Center Nic Stoffle, science and operations lead for Linear Energy Transfer Spectrometer, NASA Johnson Anthony Colaprete, principal investigator, Near-Infrared Volatile Spectrometer System, NASA’s Ames Research Center Richard Elphic, principal investigator, Neutron Spectrometer System, NASA’s Ames Research Center Barbara Cohen, principal investigator, Peregrine Ion-Trap Mass Spectrometer, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center Daniel Cremons, deputy principal investigator for Laser Retroreflector, NASA Goddard Niki Werkheiser, director, Technology Maturation, Space Technology Mission Directorate, NASA Headquarters Video of the teleconference will stream live on the agency’s website: https://www.nasa.gov/nasatv. Media may ask questions via WebEx. For the dial-in information, please contact the Kennedy newsroom no later than 10 a.m. on Jan. 4, at: ksc-newsroom@mail.nasa.gov. Friday, Jan. 5 3 p.m. – Lunar delivery readiness media teleconference with the following participants: Joel Kearns, deputy associate administrator for Exploration, Science Mission Directorate, NASA Headquarters Ryan Watkins, program scientist, Exploration Science Strategy and Integration Office, NASA Headquarters John Thornton, CEO, Astrobotic Gary Wentz, vice president, Government and Commercial Programs, ULA Arlena Moses, launch weather officer, Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s 45th Weather Squadron Audio of the teleconference will stream live on the agency’s website: https://www.nasa.gov/nasatv. Media may ask questions via phone. For the dial-in number and passcode, please contact the Kennedy newsroom no later than 1 p.m. on Jan. 5, at: ksc-newsroom@mail.nasa.gov. Monday, Jan. 8 1:30 a.m. – NASA TV launch coverage begins 2:18 a.m. – Launch NASA launch coverage Audio only of the news conferences and launch coverage will be carried on the NASA “V” circuits, which may be accessed by dialing 321-867-1220, -1240, or -7135. On launch day, the full mission broadcast can be heard on -1220 and -1240, while the countdown net only can be heard on -7135 beginning approximately at 1:30 a.m. when the mission broadcast begins. On launch day, a “tech feed” showing a static shot of the launch pad without NASA TV commentary will be carried on the NASA TV media channel. NASA website launch coverage Launch day coverage of the mission will be available on the NASA website. Coverage will include live streaming and blog updates beginning no earlier than 1:30 a.m. on Jan. 8, as the countdown milestones occur. On-demand streaming video and photos of the launch will be available shortly after liftoff. For questions about countdown coverage on the Artemis blog for updates. Attend launch virtually Members of the public can register to attend this launch virtually. As a virtual guest, you have access to curated resources, schedule changes, and mission-specific information delivered straight to your inbox. Following each activity, virtual guests will receive a commemorative stamp for their virtual guest passport. Watch, engage on social media Let people know you’re following the mission on X, Facebook, and Instagram by using the hashtags #Artermis. You can also stay connected by following and tagging these accounts: In May 2019, NASA awarded a task order for the scientific payload delivery to Astrobotic, which is on track to be one of the first of at least eight CLPS deliveries already planned. Through Artemis, NASA is working with multiple CLPS vendors to send a regular cadence of deliveries to the Moon to perform science investigations, test technologies, and demonstrate capabilities to help NASA explore the Moon before NASA sends the first astronauts to land near the lunar South Pole. The deadline has passed for media accreditation for in-person coverage of this launch. The agency’s media accreditation policy is available online. More information about media accreditation is available by emailing: ksc-media-accreditat@mail.nasa.gov. For media inquiries relating to the launch provider, please contact ULA’s communications department by emailing: media@ulalaunch.com. For media inquiries relating to the CLPS provider, Astrobotic, please contact Astrobotic’s communication department by emailing: contact@astrobotic.com. X: @NASA, @NASAKennedy, @NASAArtemis, @NASAMoon Facebook: NASA, NASAKennedy, NASAArtemis Instagram: @NASA, @NASAKennedy, @NASAArtemis Learn more about NASA’s CLPS initiative at: https://www.nasa.gov/clps Para obtener información sobre cobertura en español en el Centro Espacial Kennedy o si desea solicitar entrevistas en español, comuníquese con Antonia Jaramillo o Messod Bendayan a: antonia.jaramillobotero@nasa.gov o messod.c.bendayan@nasa.gov. -end- Karen Fox / Alise Fisher Headquarters, Washington 202-358-1600 / 202-358-2546 karen.fox@nasa.gov / alise.m.fisher@nasa.gov Nilufar Ramji Johnson Space Center, Houston 281-483-5111 nilufar.ramji@nasa.gov Antonia Jaramillo Kennedy Space Center, Florida 321-501-8425 antonia.jaramillobotero@nasa.gov Share Details Last Updated Dec 28, 2023 LocationNASA Headquarters Related TermsCommercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS)ArtemisMissions View the full article

This image revealing the north polar region of the Jovian moon Io was taken on October 15 by NASA’s Juno. Three of the mountain peaks visible in the upper part of image, near the day-night dividing line, were observed here for the first time by the spacecraft’s JunoCam.Image data: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS, Image processing by Ted Stryk The orbiter has performed 56 flybys of Jupiter and documented close encounters with three of the gas giant’s four largest moons. NASA’s Juno spacecraft will on Tuesday, Dec. 30, make the closest flyby of Jupiter’s moon Io that any spacecraft has made in over 20 years. Coming within roughly 930 miles (1,500 kilometers) from the surface of the most volcanic world in our solar system, the pass is expected to allow Juno instruments to generate a firehose of data. “By combining data from this flyby with our previous observations, the Juno science team is studying how Io’s volcanoes vary,” said Juno’s principal investigator, Scott Bolton of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas. “We are looking for how often they erupt, how bright and hot they are, how the shape of the lava flow changes, and how Io’s activity is connected to the flow of charged particles in Jupiter’s magnetosphere.” A second ultra-close flyby of Io is scheduled for Feb. 3, 2024, in which Juno will again come within about 930 miles (1,500 kilometers) of the surface. The spacecraft has been monitoring Io’s volcanic activity from distances ranging from about 6,830 miles (11,000 kilometers) to over 62,100 miles (100,000 kilometers), and has provided the first views of the moon’s north and south poles. The spacecraft has also performed close flybys of Jupiter’s icy moons Ganymede and Europa. This JunoCam image of Jupiter’s moon Io captures a plume of material ejected from the (unseen) volcano Prometheus. Indicated by the red arrow, the plume is just visible in the darkness below the terminator (the line dividing day and night). The image was taken by NASA’s Juno spacecraft on October 15.NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS “With our pair of close flybys in December and February, Juno will investigate the source of Io’s massive volcanic activity, whether a magma ocean exists underneath its crust, and the importance of tidal forces from Jupiter, which are relentlessly squeezing this tortured moon,” said Bolton. Now in the third year of its extended mission to investigate the origin of Jupiter, the solar-powered spacecraft will also explore the ring system where some of the gas giant’s inner moons reside. Picture This All three cameras aboard Juno will be active during the Io flyby. The Jovian Infrared Auroral Mapper (JIRAM), which takes images in infrared, will be collecting the heat signatures emitted by volcanoes and calderas covering the moon’s surface. The mission’s Stellar Reference Unit (a navigational star camera that has also provided valuable science) will obtain the highest-resolution image of the surface to date. And the JunoCam imager will take visible-light color images. JunoCam was included on the spacecraft for the public’s engagement and was designed to operate for up to eight flybys of Jupiter. The upcoming flyby of Io will be Juno’s 57th orbit around Jupiter, where the spacecraft and cameras have endured one of the solar system’s most punishing radiation environments. “The cumulative effects of all that radiation has begun to show on JunoCam over the last few orbits,” said Ed Hirst, project manager of Juno at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “Pictures from the last flyby show a reduction in the imager’s dynamic range and the appearance of ‘striping’ noise. Our engineering team has been working on solutions to alleviate the radiation damage and to keep the imager going.” More Io, Please After several months of study and assessment, the Juno team adjusted the spacecraft’s planned future trajectory to add seven new distant Io flybys (for a total of 18) to the extended mission plan. After the close Io pass on Feb. 3, the spacecraft will fly by Io every other orbit, with each orbit growing progressively more distant: The first will be at an altitude of about 10,250 miles (16,500 kilometers) above Io, and the last will be at about 71,450 miles (115,000 kilometers). The gravitational pull of Io on Juno during the Dec. 30 flyby will reduce the spacecraft’s orbit around Jupiter from 38 days to 35 days. Juno’s orbit will drop to 33 days after the Feb. 3 flyby. After that, Juno’s new trajectory will result in Jupiter blocking the Sun from the spacecraft for about five minutes at the time when the orbiter is at its closest to the planet, a period called perijove. Although this will be the first time the solar-powered spacecraft has encountered darkness since its flyby of Earth in October 2013, the duration will be too short to affect its overall operation. With the exception of the Feb. 3 perijove, the spacecraft will encounter solar eclipses like this during every close flyby of Jupiter from now on through the remainder of its extended mission, which ends in late 2025. Starting in April 2024, the spacecraft will carry out a series of occultation experiments that use Juno’s Gravity Science experiment to probe Jupiter’s upper atmospheric makeup, which provides key information on the planet’s shape and interior structure. More About the Mission JPL, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, California, manages the Juno mission for the principal investigator, Scott J. Bolton, of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. Juno is part of NASA’s New Frontiers Program, which is managed at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, for the agency’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Lockheed Martin Space in Denver built and operates the spacecraft. More information about Juno is available at: https://www.nasa.gov/juno News Media Contacts DC Agle Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. 818-393-9011 agle@jpl.nasa.gov Karen Fox / Alana Johnson NASA Headquarters, Washington 301-286-6284 / 202-358-1501 karen.c.fox@nasa.gov / alana.r.johnson@nasa.gov Deb Schmid Southwest Research Institute, San Antonio 210-522-2254 dschmid@swri.org 2023-188 Share Details Last Updated Dec 27, 2023 Related TermsJunoEuropaJet Propulsion LaboratoryJupiterJupiter MoonsRings of JupiterThe Solar System Explore More 5 min read NASA’s Deep Space Network Turns 60 and Prepares for the Future Article 5 days ago 6 min read Meet the Infrared Telescopes That Paved the Way for NASA’s Webb Article 5 days ago 5 min read NASA Asteroid Sampling Mission Renamed OSIRIS-APEX for New Journey The former OSIRIS-REx spacecraft sets off on a journey to study asteroid Apophis and take… Article 5 days ago View the full article

NASA 2024: Onward and Upward

1 min read Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) OTPS shares an annual letter from the Agency Chief Technologist (ACT), updates on various studies in the technology domain within OTPS, overviews of the center chief technologists, and vignettes of various technology projects across the agency. Read the full report, A Year in Review 2023 from NASA’s Agency Chief Technologist. Share Details Last Updated Dec 27, 2023 EditorBill Keeter Related TermsOffice of Technology, Policy and Strategy (OTPS) View the full article

1 min read Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) NASA’s Office of Technology, Policy, and Strategy, shares highlights from the office in 2023, including key accomplishments and collaborations that support the NASA mission. Read the full report, NASA’s OTPS: A Year in Review 2023 Share Details Last Updated Dec 27, 2023 EditorBill Keeter Related TermsOffice of Technology, Policy and Strategy (OTPS) View the full article

Research on the International Space Station is helping scientists to understand how fire spreads and behaves in different environments and learn how to prevent and extinguish fires in space. Combustion investigations contribute to the safety of crew members, equipment, and spacecraft by guiding selection of spacecraft cabin materials, improving understanding of fire growth, and identifying optimal fire suppression techniques. This research also contributes to fire safety on Earth and some studies improve our understanding of combustion for uses such as producing electricity and powering vehicles on the ground. Microgravity dramatically influences flames and provides a unique environment for studying combustion. For example, on Earth, hot gases from a flame rise and gravity pulls cooler, denser air to the bottom of a flame, creating the classic shape and flickering effect. In microgravity, this flow doesn’t occur and on the space station, low-momentum flames tend to be rounded or even spherical. By removing the effects of buoyancy, microgravity provides researchers a better understanding of specific flame behaviors. NASA astronaut Kate Rubins works on the space station’s Combustion Integrated Rack.NASA The Combustion Integrated Rack (CIR), developed and operated by NASA’s Glenn Research Center, provides a secure and safe environment for a wide range of combustion experiments. Different chamber inserts that enable a variety of investigations include the Multi-user Droplet Combustion Apparatus, which supported FLame Extinguishment Experiments (FLEX), the Advanced Combustion via Microgravity Experiments (ACME) insert, and the Solid Fuel Ignition and Extinction – Growth and Extinction Limit (SoFIE) chamber. FLEX, which analyzed the effectiveness of fire suppressants, led to the discovery of a type of cool flame, where the fuel continued “burning” under certain conditions after extinction of the visible flame. Typical flames produce carbon dioxide and water, but cool flames produce carbon monoxide and formaldehyde. Learning more about the behavior of these chemically different flames could lead to the development of more-efficient, less-polluting vehicles. Cool flames produced on Earth quickly flicker out. Since they burn longer in microgravity, scientists have the opportunity to study them. FLEX-2 looked at how quickly fuel droplets burn, the conditions required for soot to form, and how mixtures of liquid fuels evaporate before burning. Results could help make future spacecraft safer and increase fuel efficiency for engines using liquid fuel on Earth. ACME is a set of six independent studies using the CIR to examine fuel efficiency and pollutant production in combustion on Earth. The series also looked at improving spacecraft fire prevention through a better understanding of materials flammability. One ACME investigation, Flame Design, studied the quantity of soot produced under different flame conditions. Soot, the carbon residue left when carbon-containing material does not fully burn, causes environmental and health issues but is desirable for some purposes. Results could enable the design of flames with more or less soot, depending on the specific need, and may help create more efficient and less polluting designs for burning fuel. ACME’s Burning Rate Emulator (BRE) simulated the flammability of solid and liquid materials by burning gaseous fuels under specific conditions. Analysis of 59 BRE burn tests provided data on heat flow, flame size, effects of fuel mixture flow, and other important parameters.1 Results could improve the fundamental understanding of materials flammability and assess whether existing methods for testing flammability are effective in microgravity. Image of a flame burning one of the BASS tests on extinguishing burning fuels.NASA Burning and Suppression of Solids (BASS) was one of the first investigations to examine how to extinguish fuels burning in microgravity. Putting out fires in space must consider flame geometry, characteristics of the materials, and methods used to extinguish it, because methods used on the ground could be ineffective or even make the flame worse. BASS-II examined the characteristics of a variety of fuel samples to see whether materials burn as well in microgravity as in normal gravity, given the right conditions. Several papers have reported results from BASS-II, with findings including the differences between flame spread and fuel regression and comparison of flame spread rates.2,3 ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti works on the SoFIE-GEL investigation of materials flammability.NASA SoFIE-GEL analyzes how the temperature of a fuel affects material flammability. Researchers report that experiment observations agree with trends predicted by the models. This investigation, the first in a series, tested various fuels including flat sheets, thick slabs, cylinders, and spheres. Saffire is a series of experiments conducted aboard uncrewed Cygnus cargo spacecraft after they depart the station, which makes it possible to test larger fires without putting crew members at risk. Results on flame spread in microgravity can be used to establish the rate of heat release in a spacecraft4 and show that reducing pressure slows down that spread.5 A sample of fabric burns inside an uncrewed Cygnus cargo spacecraft for the Saffire-IV experiment. NASA Confined Combustion, sponsored by the ISS National Lab, examines flame spread in confined spaces of different shapes. Confinement affects fire characteristics and hazards. Researchers report specifics on interactions between a flame and its surrounding walls and the fate of the flame, such as growth or extinction.6 These results provide guidance for the design of structures, fire safety codes, and response in space and on Earth. Other results suggest that confinement can increase or decrease solid fuel flammability depending on conditions.7 FLARE, an investigation sponsored by JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency), also tests the flammability of materials in microgravity. Results could significantly improve fire safety on future missions. JAXA astronaut Satoshi Furukawa sets up hardware for the FLARE investigation. NASA Flame studies help keep crews in space safe. This research also could lead to more efficient combustion that reduces pollutants and produces more efficient flames for uses on Earth such as heating and transportation. Search this database of scientific experiments to learn more about those mentioned above. Citations Dehghani, P., Sunderland, P.B., Quintiere, J.G., deRis. J.L. Burning in microgravity: Experimental results and analysis. Combustion and Flame. Vol 228, June 2021, pp 315-330 Huang X, Link S, Rodriguez A, Thomsen M, Olson SL, Ferkul PV, Fernandez-Pello AC. Transition from opposed flame spread to fuel regression and blow off: Effect of flow, atmosphere, and microgravity. Proceedings of the Combustion Institute. 2019 37(3): 4117-4126. DOI: 10.1016/j.proci.2018.06.022. Bhattacharjee S, Laue M, Carmignani L, Ferkul PV, Olson SL. Opposed-flow flame spread: A comparison of microgravity and normal gravity experiments to establish the thermal regime. Fire Safety Journal. 2016 January; pp 79111-118. DOI: 10.1016/j.firesaf.2015.11.011 Urban DL, Ferkul PV, Olson SL, Ruff GA, Easton JW, Tien JS, Liao YT, Li C, Fernandez-Pello AC, Torero JL, Legros G, Eigenbrod C, Smirnov N, Fujita O, Rouvreau S, Toth B, Jomaas G. Flame spread: Effects of microgravity and scale. Combustion and Flame. Vol 199 January 2019; pp 199168-182. DOI: 10.1016/j.combustflame.2018.10.012. Thomsen M, Fernandez-Pello AC, Urban DL, Ruff GA, Olson SL. Upward flame spread over a thin composite fabric: The effect of pressure and microgravity. 48th International Conference on Environmental Systems, Albuquerque, New Mexico. 2018 July 8; p ICES-2018-23111 Li Y, Liao YT, Ferkul PV, Johnston MC, Bunnell CT. Experimental study of concurrent-flow flame spread over thin solids in confined space in microgravity. Combustion and Flame. Vol 227, May 2021; pp 22739-51. DOI: 10.1016/j.combustflame.2020.12.042 Li Y, Liao YT, Ferkul PV, Johnston MC, Bunnell CT. Confined combustion of polymeric solid materials in microgravity. Combustion and Flame. Vik 234 Dec 2021; pp 234111637. DOI: 10.1016/j.combustflame.2021.111637. Keep Exploring Discover More Topics Latest News from Space Station Research Station Benefits for Humanity ISS National Laboratory International Space Station Overview View the full article

Rollout of the X-59 Quesst Supersonic Plane (Official NASA Broadcast)

NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI The ice giant Uranus and its rings steal the show in this Dec. 18, 2023, image from the James Webb Space Telescope. The telescope captured new images of Uranus, revealing detailed features of the planet’s rings and seasonal north polar cap, as well as bright storms near and below the southern border of the cap. This Webb image also shows 14 of the planet’s 27 moons: Oberon, Titania, Umbriel, Juliet, Perdita, Rosalind, Puck, Belinda, Desdemona, Cressida, Ariel, Miranda, Bianca, and Portia. Webb’s extreme sensitivity also picks up a smattering of background galaxies—most appear as orange smudges, and there are two larger, fuzzy white galaxies to the right of the planet in this field of view. Image Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI View the full article

Ultra-High-Definition Video Beamed From Deep Space on This Week @NASA – December 22, 2023

The radio antennas of the NASA’s Canberra Deep Space Communications Complex are located near the Australian capital. It’s one of three Deep Space Network complexes around the world that keep the agency in contact with over 40 space missions. The DSN marks its 60th anniversary in December 2023.NASA/JPL-Caltech A single radio antenna dish stands alone at the Deep Space Network’s Canberra complex in this photo from 1969, six years after the DSN was founded. Canberra now consists of three 34-meter (112-foot) antennas and one 70-meter (230-foot) antenna.NASA/JPL-Caltech The agency’s DSN provides critical communications and navigation services to dozens of space missions, and it’s being modernized to support dozens more. NASA’s Deep Space Network marks its 60th year on Dec. 24. In continuous operations since 1963, the DSN is what makes it possible for NASA to communicate with spacecraft at or beyond the Moon. The dazzling galactic images captured by the James Webb Space Telescope, the cutting-edge science data being sent back from Mars by the Perseverance rover, and the historic images sent from the far side of the Moon by Artemis I – they all reached Earth via the network’s giant radio dish antennas. During 2024, these and other historic contributions from the past 60 years will be celebrated by NASA’s Space Communications and Navigation (SCaN) program, which manages and directs the ground-based facilities and services that the DSN provides. More than 40 missions depend on the network, which is expected to support twice that number in the coming years. That’s why NASA is looking to the future by expanding and modernizing this critical global infrastructure with new dishes, new technologies, and new approaches. “The DSN is the heart of NASA – it has the vital job of keeping the data flowing between Earth and space,” said Philip Baldwin, acting director of the network services division for SCaN at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “But to support our growing portfolio of robotic missions, and now the human Artemis missions to the Moon, we need to push forward with the next phase of DSN modernization.” Meeting Added Demands Managed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California for SCaN, the DSN allows missions to track, send commands to, and receive scientific data from faraway spacecraft. To ensure those spacecraft can always connect with Earth, the DSN’s 14 antennas are divided between three complexes spaced equally around the world – in Goldstone, California; Canberra, Australia; and Madrid, Spain. The Deep Space Network is much more than a deep space messaging service. Learn more about how the DSN carries out radio and gravity science experiments throughout the solar system. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech To make sure the network can maximize coverage between so many missions, schedulers work with DSN team members to secure network support for critical operations. For more efficiency, NASA has also changed how the network is operated: With a protocol called “Follow the Sun,” each complex takes turns running the entire network during their day shift and then hands off control to the next complex at the end of the day in that region – essentially, a global relay race that takes place every 24 hours. The cost savings, in turn, help fund DSN enhancements. At the same time, NASA has been busy making improvements to increase capacity, from upgrading and adding dishes to developing new technologies that will help support more spacecraft and dramatically increase the amount of data that can be delivered. One such technology is laser, or optical, communications, which could enable more data to be packed into transmissions. “Laser communications could transform how NASA communicates with faraway space missions,” said Amy Smith, deputy project manager for the DSN at JPL. After successfully testing the technique in Earth orbit and out to the Moon, NASA is currently using the DSOC (Deep Space Optical Communications) technology demonstration to test laser communications from ever-greater distances. Riding aboard the agency’s Psyche mission, DSOC has already sent video via laser to Earth from 19 million miles (31 million kilometers) away and aims to prove that high-bandwidth data can be sent from as far away as Mars. “NASA is proving that laser communication is viable, so now we are looking at ways to build optical terminals inside the existing radio antennas,” said Smith. “These hybrid antennas will be able to still transmit and receive radio frequencies but will also support optical frequencies.” See the missions the DSN is communicating with now Technological Heritage New technology is something that NASA and the DSN have embraced from their inception. The network’s roots extend to 1958, when JPL was contracted by the U.S. Army to deploy portable radio tracking stations to receive telemetry of the first successful U.S. satellite, Explorer 1, which JPL built. A few days after Explorer 1’s launch, but before the creation of NASA later that year, JPL was tasked with figuring out what would be needed to create an unprecedented telecommunications network to support future deep space missions, beginning with the early Pioneer missions. After NASA formed in 1958, JPL’s ground stations were named Deep Space Information Facilities, and they operated largely independently from one another until 1963. That’s when the DSN was officially founded and the ground stations were connected to JPL’s new network control center, which was nearing completion. Called the Space Flight Operations Facility, that building remains the “Center of the Universe” through which data from the DSN’s three global complexes flows. “We have six decades driving technological innovation, supporting hundreds of missions that have made countless discoveries about our planet and the universe it inhabits,” said Bradford Arnold, deputy director for the Interplanetary Network at JPL. “Our amazing workforce that continues to drive that innovation today forms a steadfast foundation upon which we can build the next 60 years of space exploration and scientific advancement.” For more information about the DSN, visit: https://www.nasa.gov/communicating-with-missions/dsn/ News Media Contact Ian J. O’Neill Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. 818-354-2649 ian.j.oneill@jpl.nasa.gov 2023-187 Share Details Last Updated Dec 22, 2023 Related TermsDeep Space NetworkJet Propulsion LaboratoryNASA HistorySpace Communications & Navigation Program Explore More 6 min read Meet the Infrared Telescopes That Paved the Way for NASA’s Webb Article 3 hours ago 13 min read Celebrating the Holiday Season in Space Article 3 hours ago 6 min read An Apollo 8 Christmas Dinner Surprise: Turkey and Gravy Make Space History Article 6 hours ago View the full article

NASA In this image from Dec. 8, 2017, four reindeer walk past the Balloon Array for Radiation-belt Relativistic Electron Losses, or BARREL, payload on the launch pad at Esrange Space Center near Kiruna, Sweden. BARREL primarily measured X-rays in Earth’s atmosphere near the North and South Poles. These X-rays are caused by electrons that rain down, or precipitate, into the atmosphere from the giant swaths of radiation that surround Earth, called the Van Allen Belts. Understanding this radiation and its interaction with Earth’s atmosphere helps us to learn about planetary radiation belts, and to better protect satellites that orbit Earth. The primary BARREL mission ended when scientists sent their last balloon over Sweden on Aug. 30, 2016. Recovered BARREL payloads were launched as targets of opportunities on three additional flights. In addition to X-ray instruments, several of the BARREL balloons also carried instruments built by undergraduate students to measure the total electron content of Earth’s ionosphere, as well as the low-frequency electromagnetic waves that help to scatter electrons into Earth’s atmosphere. See more photos from the BARREL mission. Image Credit: NASA View the full article

NASA Logo.NASA As space missions and technologies grow increasingly interconnected, NASA has released the first iteration of its Space Security Best Practices Guide to bolster mission cybersecurity efforts for both public sector and private sector space activities. The guide represents a significant milestone in NASA’s commitment to ensuring the longevity and resilience of its space missions and will serve as a resource for enhancing their security and reliability. Additionally, the Space Security Best Practices Guide was designed to benefit users beyond NASA – international partners, industry, and others working in the expanding fields of space exploration and development. The guide is designed to provide security guidance for missions, programs, or projects of any size. “At NASA, we recognize the importance of protecting our space missions from potential threats and vulnerabilities” said Misty Finical, deputy principal advisor for Enterprise Protection at NASA. “This guide represents a collective effort to establish a set of principles that will enable us to identify and mitigate risks and ensure continued success of our missions, both in Earth’s orbit and beyond.” In terms of both information systems and operational technologies, space systems are becoming more integrated and interconnected. These developments carry benefits – NASA and other organizations have unprecedented new possibilities for working, communicating, and gathering data in space. But new, complex systems can also have vulnerabilities. Through its new guide, NASA aims to provide best practices for adapting to these new challenges and implementing safety and security measures. The guide reflects NASAs continued commitment to helping develop clear cybersecurity principles for its space systems, encapsulated in its Space System Protection Standard. The agency developed the handbook to further support the goals of Space Policy Directive 5, Cybersecurity Principles for Space Systems. NASA will collect feedback from the space community to integrate into future versions of the guide. View the full article

Scientists have been studying the universe with infrared space telescopes for 40 years, including these NASA missions, from left: the Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS), launched in 1983; the Spitzer Space Telescope, launched in 2003; and the James Webb Space Telescope, launched in 2021.NASA/JPL-Caltech The Webb telescope has opened a new window onto the universe, but it builds on missions going back 40 years, including Spitzer and the Infrared Astronomical Satellite. On Dec. 25, NASA will celebrate the two-year launch anniversary of the James Webb Space Telescope – the largest and most powerful space observatory in history. The clarity of its images has inspired the world, and scientists are just beginning to explore the scientific bounty it is returning. Webb’s success builds on four decades of space telescopes that also detect infrared light (which is invisible to the naked eye) – in particular the work of two retired NASA telescopes with big anniversaries this past year: January marked the 40th year since the launch of the Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS), while August marked the 20th launch anniversary of the Spitzer Space Telescope. NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope builds on four decades of work by space telescopes that also detect infrared light, in particular two other retired NASA telescopes: the Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS) and the Spitzer Space Telescope. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech This heritage shines through in NASA’s images of Rho Ophiuchi, one of the closest star-forming regions to Earth. IRAS was the first infrared telescope ever launched into Earth orbit, above the atmosphere that blocks most infrared wavelengths. Rho Ophiuchi’s thick clouds of gas and dust block visible light, but IRAS’ infrared vision made it the first observatory to be able to pierce those layers to reveal newborn stars nestled deep inside. Twenty years later, Spitzer’s multiple infrared detectors helped astronomers assign more specific ages to many of the stars in the region, providing insights about how young stars throughout the universe evolve. Webb’s even more detailed infrared view shows jets bursting from young stars, as well as disks of material around them – the makings of future planetary systems. Clouds of gas and dust in space – like Rho Ophiuchi, shown here – mostly radiate infrared light, which human eyes can’t detect. IRAS, the first infrared telescope in Earth orbit, imaged the region in 1983 and revealed previously hidden features, including newly forming stars nestled deep inside the dust.NASA/JPL-Caltech Rho Ophiuchi was also imaged by NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope. Spitzer had a wider field of view and better resolution than its predecessors, providing this more detailed image of the region as well as more information about star formation.NASA/JPL-Caltech/Harvard-Smithsonian CfA NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has revealed Rho Ophiuchi like never before, showing new features of the star-forming region to astronomers in this stunning 2023 image. Webb builds on the legacy of infrared telescopes like IRAS and Spitzer.NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Klaus Pontoppidan (STScI) Another example is Fomalhaut, a star surrounded by a disk of debris similar to our asteroid belt. Forty years ago, the disk was one of IRAS’ major discoveries because it also strongly suggested the presence of at least one planet, at a time when no planets had yet been found outside the solar system. Subsequent observations by Spitzer showed the disk had two sections – a cold, outer region and a warm, inner region – and revealed more evidence of the presence of planets. Many other telescopes, including NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, have since studied Fomalhaut, and earlier this year, images from Webb gave scientists their clearest view of the disk structure yet. It revealed two previously unseen rings of rock and gas in the inner disk. Combining the work of generations of telescopes is bringing the story of Fomalhaut into sharp relief. Visionary Infrared Astronomy Survey When IRAS launched in 1983, scientists weren’t sure what the mission would reveal. They couldn’t predict that infrared would eventually be used in almost every area of astronomy, including studies of the evolution of galaxies, the life cycle of stars, the source of pervasive cosmic dust, the atmospheres of exoplanets, the movements of asteroids and other near-Earth objects, and even the nature of one of the biggest cosmological mysteries in history, dark energy. IRAS set the stage for the European-led Infrared Space Observatory (ISO) and the Herschel Space Observatory; the Japanese-led AKARI satellite; NASA’s Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE), and the agency’s airborne SOFIA (Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy), as well as many balloon-lofted observatories. “Infrared light is essential for understanding where we came from and how we got here, on both the biggest and smallest astrophysical scales,” said Michael Werner, an astrophysicist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. Werner, who specializes in infrared observations, served as project scientist for Spitzer. “We use infrared to look back in space and time, to help us understand how the modern universe came to be. And infrared enables us to study the formation and evolution of stars and planets, which tells us about the history of our own solar system.” On to Spitzer If IRAS was a pathfinding mission, Spitzer was designed to dive deep into the infrared universe. Many of Webb’s planetary targets in its first year had already been studied with Spitzer, which pursued a broad range of science goals, thanks to its wide field of view and relatively high resolution. During its 16-year mission, Spitzer uncovered new wonders from the edge of the universe (including some of the most distant galaxies ever observed at the time) to our own solar system (such as a new ring around Saturn). Researchers were also surprised to find that the telescope was a perfect tool for studying exoplanets (planets beyond our solar system), something they hadn’t expected when building it. “With any telescope, you’re not just taking data for the sake of it; you’re asking a particular question or a series of questions,” said Sean Carey, a former manager for the Spitzer Science Center at IPAC, a data and science processing center at Caltech. “The questions we’re able to ask with Webb are much more complex and varied because of the knowledge we acquired with telescopes like Spitzer and IRAS.” For example, Carey said, “We studied exoplanets with Spitzer and Hubble, and we figured out what you can do with an infrared telescope in that field, what types of planets are most interesting, and what you can learn about them. So when Webb launched, we jumped into exoplanet studies right from the get-go.” Webb, too, is paving the way for future infrared missions. NASA’s upcoming SPHEREx (Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer) mission as well as the agency’s next flagship observatory, the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, will continue to explore the universe in infrared. More About the Missions IRAS was a joint project of NASA, the Netherlands Agency for Aerospace Programmes, and the United Kingdom’s Science and Engineering Research Council. The mission was managed for NASA by JPL. Caltech in Pasadena manages JPL for NASA. For more information about IRAS, visit: https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/infrared-astronomical-satellite-iras JPL managed the Spitzer Space Telescope mission for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington until the mission was retired in January 2020. Science operations were conducted at the Spitzer Science Center at Caltech. Spacecraft operations were based at Lockheed Martin Space in Littleton, Colorado. Data are archived at the Infrared Science Archive operated by IPAC at Caltech. For more information about Spitzer, visit: https://www.nasa.gov/spitzer The James Webb Space Telescope is the world’s premier space science observatory. Webb is solving mysteries in our solar system, looking beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probing the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it. Webb is an international program led by NASA with its partners, ESA (European Space Agency) and CSA (Canadian Space Agency). For more information about Webb, visit: https://www.nasa.gov/webb News Media Contact Calla Cofield Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. 626-808-2469 calla.e.cofield@jpl.nasa.gov 2023-186 Share Details Last Updated Dec 22, 2023 Related TermsThe UniverseAstrophysicsAstrophysics DivisionElectromagnetic SpectrumExoplanet ScienceGalaxiesHerschel Space ObservatoryInfrared Space Observatory (ISO)James Webb Space Telescope (JWST)Jet Propulsion LaboratoryNancy Grace Roman Space TelescopeNebulaeSOFIA (Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy) / 747-SPSPHEREx (Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe and Ices Explorer)Spitzer Space TelescopeStarsWISE (Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer) Explore More 6 min read A Look Through Time with NASA’s Lead Photographer for the James Webb Space Telescope Nearly two years ago in the early morning hours of Dec. 25, NASA’s James Webb… Article 2 hours ago 5 min read As the Arctic Warms, Its Waters Are Emitting Carbon Article 23 hours ago 5 min read NASA’s Fermi Mission Creates 14-Year Time-Lapse of the Gamma-Ray Sky The cosmos comes alive in an all-sky time-lapse movie made from 14 years of data… Article 2 days ago View the full article

The Christmas, Hanukkah, and New Year holidays are joyful events typically spent with family and friends. Astronauts and cosmonauts who find themselves in space during the holidays have found their own unique way to celebrate the occasions. In the early years of the space program, holidays spent in space occurred infrequently, most notably the flight of Apollo 8 around the Moon during Christmas 1968, making them more memorable. As missions became longer and more frequent, holidays in space became more common occasions. For the past 23 years, holidays spent aboard the International Space Station have become annual, if not entirely routine, events. Left: The famous Earthrise photograph, taken by the Apollo 8 crew in lunar orbit. Right: Video of the Apollo 8 crew of Frank Borman, James A. Lovell, and William A. Anders reading from The Book of Genesis. As the first crew to spend Christmas in space, Apollo 8 astronauts Frank Borman, James A. Lovell, and William A. Anders, celebrated the holiday while circling the Moon in December 1968, the first humans to leave Earth orbit. They immortalized the event on Christmas Eve by taking turns reading the opening verses from the Bible’s Book of Genesis as they broadcast scenes of the Moon gliding by below. An estimated one billion people in 64 countries tuned in to their Christmas Eve broadcast. As they left lunar orbit, Lovell radioed back to Earth, where Christmas Eve had already turned to Christmas Day, “Please be informed there is a Santa Claus!” Left: Skylab 4 astronauts Gerald P. Carr, left, Edward G. Gibson, and William R. Pogue trim their homemade Christmas tree in December 1973. Right: Carr, Gibson, and Pogue hung their stockings aboard Skylab. During their 84-day record-setting mission aboard the Skylab space station in 1973 and 1974, Skylab 4 astronauts Gerald P. Carr, William R. Pogue, and Edward G. Gibson celebrated Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s in space – the first crew to spend Thanksgiving and New Year’s in orbit. They built a homemade Christmas tree from leftover food containers, used colored decals as decorations, and topped it with a cardboard cutout in the shape of a comet. Carr and Pogue spent seven hours on a Christmas Day spacewalk to change out film canisters and observe the passing Comet Kohoutek. Once back inside the station, they enjoyed a Christmas dinner complete with fruitcake, talked to their families, and opened presents. They even had orbital visitors of sorts, as Soviet cosmonauts Pyotr I. Klimuk and Valentin V. Lebedev orbited the planet aboard Soyuz 13 between Dec. 18 and 26, marking the first time that astronauts and cosmonauts were in space at the same time. Different orbits precluded any direct contact between the two crews. Aboard Salyut-6, Georgi M. Grechko, left, and Yuri V. Romanenko, toast to celebrate the new year in space, the first Russian cosmonauts to do so. Image credits: Courtesy of Roscosmos. In the more secular Soviet era, the New Year’s holiday had more significance than the Jan. 7 observance of Orthodox Christmas. The first cosmonauts to ring in a new year in orbit were Yuri V. Romanenko and Georgi M. Grechko, during their record-setting 96-day mission in 1977 and 1978, aboard the Salyut-6 space station. They toasted the new year during a TV broadcast with the ground. The exact nature of the beverage consumed for the occasion has not been passed down to posterity. Left: STS-61 mission specialist Jeffrey A. Hoffman with a dreidel during Hanukkah in December 1993. Right: Video of Hoffman describing how he celebrated Hanukkah aboard space shuttle Endeavour. The eight-day Jewish holiday of Hanukkah, also known as the Festival of Lights, celebrates the recapture of Jerusalem and rededication of the Second Temple in 164 B.C.E. It occurs in the month of Kislev in the Hebrew lunar calendar, which can fall between late November to late December in the Gregorian calendar. NASA astronaut Jeffrey A. Hoffman celebrated the first Hanukkah in space during the STS-61 Hubble Space Telescope first servicing mission in 1993. Hanukkah that year began on the evening of Dec. 9, after Hoffman completed his third spacewalk of the mission. He celebrated with a traveling menorah, unlit of course, and by spinning a dreidel. The STS-103 crew show off their Santa hats on the flight deck of space shuttle Discovery in 1999. The crew of another Hubble Space Telescope repair mission, STS-103, celebrated the first space shuttle Christmas in 1999 aboard Discovery. For Christmas dinner, Curtis L. Brown, Scott J. Kelly, Steven L. Smith, Jean-François A. Clervoy of the European Space Agency (ESA), John M. Grunsfeld, C. Michael Foale, and Claude Nicollier of ESA enjoyed duck foie gras on Mexican tortillas, cassoulet, and salted pork with lentils. Smith and Grunsfeld completed repairs on the telescope during a Christmas Eve spacewalk. Left: Roscosmos cosmonaut and Mir Expedition 17 flight engineer Elena V. Kondakova with a bottle of champagne to celebrate New Year’s Eve 1994. Right: Video of Kondakova demonstrating the behavior of champagne in weightlessness aboard Mir. Image credits: Courtesy of Roscosmos. Between 1987 and 1998, 12 Mir expedition crews spent their holidays aboard the ever-expanding orbital outpost. Two of the crews included NASA astronauts, John E. Blaha and David A. Wolf, aboard the Russian space station as part of the Shuttle-Mir Program. Left: Video of Mir Expedition 22 flight engineer and NASA astronaut John E. Blaha’s 1996 Christmas message from Mir. Right: Mir Expedition 24 flight engineer and NASA astronaut David A. Wolf with his menorah and dreidel to celebrate Hanukkah in 1997. The last two New Year’s Eve messages from Mir. Left: Mir 24 crew of Pavel V. Vinogradov, left, NASA astronaut David A. Wolf, and Anatoli Y. Solovyev in 1997. Right: Mir 26 crew of Sergei V. Avdeyev, left, and Gennadi I. Padalka in 1998. It was the third time Avdeyev rang in the new year in space. Image credits: Courtesy of Roscosmos. The arrival of Expedition 1 crew members William M. Shepherd of NASA and Yuri P. Gidzenko and Sergei K. Krikalev of Roscosmos aboard the International Space Station on Nov. 2, 2000, marked the beginning of a permanent human presence in space. The first to celebrate Christmas and ring in the new year aboard the fledgling orbiting laboratory, they began a tradition of reading a goodwill message to people back on Earth. Shepherd honored a naval tradition of writing a poem as the first entry of the new year in the ship’s log. Left: Video of Expedition 1 crew members Yuri P. Gidzenko of Roscosmos, left, NASA astronaut William M. Shepherd, and Sergei K. Krikalev of Roscosmos reading their Christmas message in December 2000 – this marked Krikalev’s third holiday season spent in orbit, the first two spent aboard Mir in 1988 and 1991. Right: The space station as it appeared in December 2000. Expedition 1 commander NASA astronaut William M. Shepherd’s poem, written for the New Year’s Day 2001 entry in the space station’s log, in keeping with naval tradition. Left: A brief video selection of how some expedition crews celebrated Christmas aboard the space station. Right: From 2019, the Christmas message from the Expedition 61 crew members. Enjoy the following selection of photographs and videos of international crews as they celebrated Hanukkah and Christmas, and rang in the new year over the past 22 years aboard the space station. Left: The Expedition 4 crew of Daniel W. Bursch of NASA, left, Yuri I. Onufriyenko of Roscosmos, and Carl E. Walz of NASA poses for its Christmas photo in 2001. Middle: NASA astronaut C. Michael Foale, left, and Aleksandr Y. Kaleri of Roscosmos of Expedition 8 celebrate Christmas in 2003. Right: The Expedition 10 crew of Salizhan S. Sharipov of Roscosmos, left, and NASA astronaut Leroy Chiao festooned for New Year’s Eve 2004. Left: Valeri I. Tokarev of Roscosmos, left, and NASA astronaut William S. McArthur of Expedition 12 pose with Christmas stockings in 2005. Middle: The Expedition 14 crew of Mikhail V. Tyurin of Roscosmos, left, and NASA astronauts Michael E. Lopez-Alegria and Sunita L. Williams pose wearing Santa hats for Christmas 2006. Right: The Expedition 16 crew of Yuri I. Malenchenko of Roscosmos, left, and NASA astronauts Peggy A. Whitson and Daniel M. Tani, with Christmas stockings and presents in 2007. Left: The Expedition 18 crew of E. Michael Fincke, left, and Sandra H. Magnus of NASA, and Yuri V. Lonchakov of Roscosmos enjoys its Christmas dinner in 2008. Middle: The five-member Expedition 22 crew of Soichi Noguchi of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, left, Maksim V. Surayev and Oleg V. Kotov of Roscosmos, and Timothy J. Creamer and Jeffrey N. Williams of NASA around the Christmas dinner table in 2009. Right: The Expedition 26 crew of Oleg I. Skripochka of Roscosmos, left, Paolo A. Nespoli of the European Space Agency, Dmitri Y. Kondratyev of Roscosmos, Catherine G. “Cady” Coleman of NASA, Aleksandr Y. Kaleri of Roscosmos, and NASA’s Scott J. Kelly celebrates New Year’s Eve 2010. This marked Kaleri’s third holiday season spent in space. Left: The Expedition 30 crew of NASA astronaut Donald R. Pettit, left, Anatoli A. Ivanishin and Oleg D. Kononenko of Roscosmos, André Kuipers of the European Space Agency, NASA’s Daniel C. Burbank, and Anton N. Shkaplerov of Roscosmos pose for their Christmas photo in 2011. Middle: Christmas 2012 photograph of Expedition 34 crew members of NASA astronaut Thomas H. Marshburn, left, Roman Y. Romanenko, Oleg V. Novitski, and Yevgeni I. Tarelkin of Roscosmos, Kevin A. Ford of NASA, and Chris A. Hadfield of the Canadian Space Agency. Right: For Christmas in 2013, the Expedition 42 crew left milk and cookies for Santa and hung their stockings using the Joint Airlock as a makeshift chimney. Left: Expedition 50 crew members Sergei N. Ryzhikov of Roscosmos, left, R. Shane Kimbrough of NASA, Andrei I. Borisenko and Oleg V. Novitski of Roscosmos, Peggy A. Whitson of NASA, and Thomas G. Pesquet of the European Space Agency celebrate New Year’s Eve in style in 2016. Middle: Expedition 54 crew member Mark T. Vande Hei of NASA strikes a pose as an Elf on the Shelf for Christmas 2017. Right: The Expedition 58 crew of David Saint-Jacques of the Canadian Space Agency, left, Anne C. McClain of NASA, and Oleg D. Kononenko of Roscosmos inspect their Christmas stockings for presents in 2018. Three scenes from the 2019 holiday season aboard the space station. Left: Expedition 61 flight engineer Jessica U. Meir of NASA shows off her Hanukkah-themed socks in the Cupola. Middle: Expedition 61 crew members Andrew R. Morgan, left, and Christina H. Koch of NASA, Luca S. Parmitano of the European Space Agency, and Meir share their Christmas messages. Right: Expedition 61 crew members Koch, left, Morgan, Oleg I. Skripochka of Roscosmos, Meir, Aleksandr A. Skvortsov of Roscosmos, and Parmitano ring in the new year with harmonicas. Three scenes from the 2020 holiday season aboard the space station. Left: Expedition 64 NASA astronauts Shannon Walker, left, Michael S. Hopkins, Kathleen H. Rubins, and Victor J. Glover and Soichi Noguchi of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) record Christmas greetings. Middle: Walker, left, Hopkins, Rubins, Glover, and Noguchi use an inflatable Earth globe as a substitute for the Times Square New Year’s Eve ball “drop” aboard the space station. Right: Expedition 64 crew members Sergei V. Kud-Sverchkov of Roscosmos, left, Hopkins, Walker, Sergei N. Ryzhikov of Roscosmos, Glover, Rubins, and Noguchi welcome in 2021 aboard the space station. Left: During Expedition 66 in 2021, NASA astronauts Mark T. Vande Hei, left, Raja J. Chari, Kayla S. Barron, and Thomas H. Marshburn, and Matthias J. Maurer of the European Space Agency in a still from a video in which they share their thoughts about the holiday season. Right: Barron showing off the presents she wrapped for her six crewmates. “It is a privilege to have the perspective of seeing so many countries,” said Expedition 66 Commander NASA astronaut Thomas H. Marshburn in a video sharing his thoughts about spending the New Year in space. “We can go from one side [of Earth] to another in just a few minutes and it truly gives us a feeling of unification for all human beings around the world.” “We get to see the sunrise many times a day, so thinking about the fact that people are waking up to a New Year each time we see that sunrise is pretty cool,” added NASA astronaut Raja J. Chari. In a social media post, ESA astronaut Matthias J. Maurer wrote about their New Year’s Eve dinner, and included a time lapse video of the festive meal. Left: Expedition 68 crew members Koichi Wakata of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, left, and NASA astronauts Francisco C. “Frank” Rubio, Josh A. Cassada, and Nicole A. Mann record a holiday greeting from the space station. Right: Expedition 68 crew members wear holiday garb. In 2022, Expedition 68 crew members NASA astronauts Nicole A. Mann, Josh A. Cassada, and Francisco C. “Frank” Rubio, and JAXA astronaut Koichi Wakata recorded a holiday message for everyone on the ground. They shared some of their personal traditions for the holidays and provided a glimpse of how they spend the holidays aboard the space station. Expedition 70 NASA astronaut Jasmin Moghbeli’s felt menorah and dreidel that she used to celebrate Hanukkah. Expedition 70 flight engineer NASA astronaut Jasmin Moghbeli’s husband and two little girls made a felt menorah for her to celebrate Hanukkah during her mission. Since astronauts can’t light real candles aboard the space station, Moghbeli pinned felt “lights” for each night of the eight-day holiday. A dreidel spun in weightlessness will continue spinning until it comes in contact with another object, but can’t land on any of its four faces. Left: To celebrate New Year’s Day 2022, Shenzhou 13 astronauts Ye Guangfu, left, Zhai Zhigang, and Wang Yaping aboard the China Space Station Tiangong hold a live video call. Right: Wang, left, Zhai, and Ye celebrate the Chinese New Year of the Tiger aboard Tiangong. On Jan. 1, 2022, for the first time Chinese astronauts celebrated a New Year in space. The Shenzhou 13 crew of Zhai Zhigang, Wang Yaping, and Ye Guangfu arrived aboard the China Space Station Tiangong on Oct. 15, 2021, for a six-month mission. On New Year’s Day 2022, they hosted a live video call and interacted with college students at venues in Beijing, Hong Kong, and Macao. For the Feb. 1 start of the Chinese New Year of the Tiger, they decorated the space station and sent best wishes to people on the ground for a happy and prosperous new year. In January 2023, Shenzhou 15 astronauts Fei Junlong, left, Deng Qingming, and Zhang Lu send New Year’s greetings to Earth from the Tiangong China Space Station. We hope you enjoyed these stories, photographs, and videos from holiday celebrations in space. This year, a record-tying 10 people from five nations will celebrate the holidays and ring in the new year while serving aboard two space stations – the International Space Station and the Tiangong China Space Station. We wish them all and everyone here on Earth the very best during the holiday season and hope that 2024 will indeed be a Happy New Year! View the full article

5 min read Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) At the end of a long-haul road trip, it might be time to kick up your feet and rest awhile – especially if it was a seven-year, 4 billion-mile journey to bring Earth a sample of asteroid Bennu. But OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification and Security – Regolith Explorer), the NASA mission that accomplished this feat in September, is already well on its way (with a new name) to explore a new destination. When OSIRIS-REx left Bennu in May 2021 with a sample aboard, its instruments were in great condition, and it still had a quarter of its fuel left. So instead of shutting down the spacecraft after it delivered the sample, the team proposed to dispatch it on a bonus mission to asteroid Apophis, with an expected arrival in April 2029. NASA agreed, and OSIRIS-APEX (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, and Security – Apophis Explorer) was born. A Rare Opportunity at Apophis After considering several destinations (including Venus and various comets), NASA chose to send the spacecraft to Apophis, an “S-type” asteroid made of silicate materials and nickel-iron – a fair bit different than the carbon-rich, “C-type” Bennu. The intrigue of Apophis is its exceptionally close approach of our planet on April 13, 2029. Although Apophis will not hit Earth during this encounter or in the foreseeable future, the pass in 2029 will bring the asteroid within 20,000 miles (32,000 kilometers) of the surface – closer than some satellites, and close enough that it could be visible to the naked eye in the Eastern Hemisphere. Scientists estimate that asteroids of Apophis’ size, about 367 yards across (about 340 meters), come this close to Earth only once every 7,500 years. These images of asteroid Apophis were recorded in March 2021 by radio antennas at the Deep Space Network’s Goldstone complex in California and the Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia. The asteroid was 10.6 million miles (17 million kilometers) away, and each pixel has a resolution of 127 feet (38.75 meters).Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech and NSF/AUI/GBO “OSIRIS-APEX will study Apophis immediately after such a pass, allowing us to see how its surface changes by interacting with Earth’s gravity,” said Amy Simon, the mission’s project scientist based at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Apophis’ close encounter with Earth will change the asteroid’s orbit and the length of its 30.6-hour day. The encounter also may cause quakes and landslides on the asteroid’s surface that could churn up material and uncover what lies beneath. “The close approach is a great natural experiment,” said Dani Mendoza DellaGiustina, principal investigator for OSIRIS-APEX at the University of Arizona in Tucson. “We know that tidal forces and the accumulation of rubble pile material are foundational processes that could play a role in planet formation. They could inform how we got from debris in the early solar system to full-blown planets.” Apophis represents more than just the opportunity to learn more about how solar systems and planets form: As it happens, most of the known potentially hazardous asteroids (those whose orbits come within 4.6 million miles of Earth) are also S-types. What the team learns about Apophis can inform planetary defense research, a top priority for NASA. OSIRIS-APEX: Travel Itinerary By April 2, 2029 – around two weeks before Apophis’ close encounter with Earth – OSIRIS-APEX’s cameras will begin taking images of the asteroid as the spacecraft catches up to it. Apophis will also be closely observed by Earth-based telescopes during this time. But in the hours after the close encounter, Apophis will appear too near the Sun in the sky to be observed by ground-based optical telescopes. This means any changes triggered by the close encounter will be best detected by the spacecraft. This animation depicts the orbital trajectory of asteroid 99942 Apophis as it zooms safely past Earth on April 13, 2029. Earth’s gravity will slightly deflect the trajectory as the 1,100-foot-wide (340-meter-wide) near-Earth object comes within 20,000 miles (32,000 kilometers) of our planet’s surface. The motion has been sped up 2,000 times. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech OSIRIS-APEX will arrive at the asteroid on April 13, 2029, and operate in its proximity for about the next 18 months. In addition to studying changes to Apophis caused by its Earth encounter, the spacecraft will conduct many of the same investigations OSIRIS-REx did at Bennu, including using its instrument suite of imagers, spectrometers, and a laser altimeter to closely map the surface and analyze its chemical makeup. As an encore, OSIRIS-APEX will reprise one of OSIRIS-REx’s most impressive acts (minus sample collection), dipping within 16 feet of the asteroid’s surface and firing its thrusters downward. This maneuver will stir up surface rocks and dust to give scientists a peek at the material that lies below. Although the rendezvous with Apophis is more than five years away, the next milestone on its journey is the first of six close Sun passes. Those near approaches, along with three gravity assists from Earth, will put OSIRIS-APEX on course to reach Apophis in April 2029. What OSIRIS-APEX will discover about Apophis remains to be seen, but if the mission’s previous incarnation is any indication, surprising science lies ahead. “We learned a lot at Bennu, but now we’re armed with even more questions for our next target,” Simon said. — NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center provides overall mission management, systems engineering, and the safety and mission assurance for OSIRIS-APEX. Dani Mendoza DellaGiustina of the University of Arizona, Tucson, is the principal investigator. The university leads the science team and the mission’s science observation planning and data processing. Lockheed Martin Space in Littleton, Colorado, built the spacecraft and provides flight operations. Goddard and KinetX Aerospace are responsible for navigating the OSIRIS-APEX spacecraft. International partnerships on this mission include the spacecraft’s laser altimeter instrument from CSA (the Canadian Space Agency) and science collaboration with JAXA’s (the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) Hayabusa2 mission. OSIRIS-APEX (previously named OSIRIS-REx) is the third mission in NASA’s New Frontiers Program, managed by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, for the agency’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. By Lonnie Shekhtman and Rob Garner NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. Facebook logo @NASASolarSystem@NASAGoddard @NASASolarSystem@NASAGoddard Instagram logo @NASASolarSystem@NASAGoddard Share Details Last Updated Dec 22, 2023 EditorRob GarnerContactRob Garnerrob.garner@nasa.govLocationGoddard Space Flight Center Related TermsOSIRIS-APEX (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, and Security – Apophis Explorer)AsteroidsGoddard Space Flight CenterThe Solar System View the full article

2 Min Read A Look Through Time with NASA’s Lead Photographer for the James Webb Space Telescope This self portrait of Chris Gunn, standing in front of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope from inside the Goddard Space Flight Center cleanroom, was captured November 10, 2016. Credits: NASA/Chris Gunn Nearly two years ago in the early morning hours of Dec. 25, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope successfully took flight from the jungle-encircled ELA-3 launch complex at Europe’s Spaceport near Kourou, French Guiana. Following a successful deployment in space, and the precise alignment of the telescope’s mirrors and instruments, Webb began science operations nearly six months after liftoff. As the two-year anniversary of the launch aboard ESA’s (European Space Agency) Ariane 5 rocket approaches, Webb’s lead photographer Chris Gunn has remastered a selection of his favorite images from his career, including one previously unreleased image. The opportunity to be the visual spokesperson for a mission of this magnitude was the experience of a lifetime Chris GUNN NASA/GSFC Lead Photographer for Webb Telescope Since the fall of 2009, Gunn has routinely worked through holidays and weekends, and has spent much of these years on the road, ensuring that the Webb telescope’s progress is visually chronicled and shared with the world. As the various parts and components of Webb began to be assembled and tested throughout the country, Gunn and his camera followed along, capturing the historic development of NASA’s premier space telescope. Though Gunn’s images display the complex nature of the telescope aesthetically, these images also serve as critical engineering bookmarks that the team routinely relied on to document that Webb’s construction was sound before launch.  Following the launch of Webb, Gunn is now chronicling NASA’s next flagship space telescope, the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. All images below, credit NASA/Chris Gunn. On Nov. 6, 2012, engineers and technicians inspected one of the first of Webb’s 18 hexagonal mirrors to arrive at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. NASA/Chris Gunn Inside a clean room at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, on the afternoon of April 25, 2016, the James Webb Space Telescope primary mirrors were uncovered in preparation for installation of its scientific instruments. NASA/Chris Gunn Traveling alongside Webb as it grew and evolved, and to be able to add my signature to each photograph captured, was of course an honor, but also an immense challenge. With each image, I wanted to express the awe that I felt seeing Webb integrated right before my eyes, knowing what it was destined to shed new light on the mysteries of the cosmos. CHRIS GUNN NASA/GSFC Lead Photographer for Webb Telescope NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope is shown with one of its two “wings” folded. Each wing holds three of its primary mirror segments. During this operation in the clean room at NASA Goddard, the telescope was also rotated in preparation for the folding back of the other wing. When Webb launched, both wings were stowed in this position, which enabled the mirror to fit into the launch vehicle. This image was captured July 17, 2016. NASA/Chris Gunn Dressed in a clean room suit, NASA photographer Desiree Stover shines a light on the Space Environment Simulator’s integration frame inside the thermal vacuum chamber at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. This image was captured Aug. 29, 2013. On May 19, 2016, inside a massive clean room at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Webb’s Integrated Science Instrument Module was lowered into the Optical Telescope Element. Taken on Nov. 16, 2016, inside NASA Goddard’s largest clean room Webb’s Optical Telescope Element and Integrated Science Instrument Module – together called “OTIS” – are shrouded with a “clean tent” as the team prepared for Webb’s first vibration testing, which took place just outside the clean room. To capture Webb in its true beauty, I employed the use of specialized lighting rigs, often setting up lights early before the start of work. Johnson Space Center’s Chamber A was an especially tough subject to shoot once Webb was inside. It required remote lights that had to be adjusted perfectly before I boarded a boom lift to make the photograph from seven stories up. It was all worth it, everyone’s hard work – just look at how well our starship is performing Chris Gunn NASA/GSFC Lead Photographer for Webb Telescope On June 20, 2017, Webb’s Optical Telescope Element and science instruments were loaded into the historic thermal vacuum testing facility known as “Chamber A” at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. On Sept. 16, 2021, Webb was ready to be shipped to the launch site in French Guiana. Before Webb could be lifted into its shipping container, engineers and technicians at Northrop Grumman in Redondo Beach, California, performed this first horizontal tilt of the fully assembled observatory. This never-before-seen image shows engineers and technicians disassembling ground hardware after completing one of the final lifts of the Webb observatory, before being placed atop ESA’s (European Space Agency) Ariane 5 rocket in French Guiana. This image was taken Nov. 11, 2021. “Liftoff – from a tropical rainforest to the edge of time itself, James Webb begins a voyage back to the birth of the universe.” Arianespace’s Ariane 5 rocket launched with NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope aboard, Dec. 25, 2021, from the ELA-3 Launch Zone of Europe’s Spaceport at the Guiana Space Centre in Kourou, French Guiana. The James Webb Space Telescope is the world’s premier space science observatory. Webb is solving mysteries in our solar system, looking beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probing the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it. Webb is an international program led by NASA with its partners, ESA (European Space Agency) and the Canadian Space Agency. Downloads Right click the images in this article to open a version in a new tab/window that can be zoomed or saved. Media Contacts Thaddeus Cesari Thaddeus.cesari@nasa.gov, Laura Betz – laura.e.betz@nasa.gov, Rob Gutro– rob.gutro@nasa.gov NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, , Greenbelt, Md. Related Information Webb Observatory More Webb News More Webb Images Webb Mission Page Keep Exploring Related Topics James Webb Space Telescope Webb is the premier observatory of the next decade, serving thousands of astronomers worldwide. It studies every phase in the… Stars Galaxies Exoplanets Share Details Last Updated Dec 22, 2023 Editor Stephen Sabia Related Terms Astrophysics Goddard Space Flight Center James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) Missions Science & Research View the full article

6 min read Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) On Christmas Day in 1968, the three-man Apollo 8 crew of Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, and Bill Anders found a surprise in their food locker: a specially packed Christmas dinner wrapped in foil and decorated with red and green ribbons. Something as simple as a “home-cooked meal,” or as close as NASA could get for a spaceflight at the time, greatly improved the crew’s morale and appetite. More importantly, the meal marked a turning point in space food history. The prime crew of the Apollo 8 lunar orbit mission pose for a portrait next to the Apollo Mission Simulator at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC). Left to right, they are James A. Lovell Jr., command module pilot; William A. Anders, lunar module pilot; and Frank Borman, commander.NASA On their way to the Moon, the Apollo 8 crew was not very hungry. Food scientist Malcolm Smith later documented just how little the crew ate. Borman ate the least of the three, eating only 881 calories on day two, which concerned flight surgeon Chuck Berry. Most of the food, Borman later explained, was “unappetizing.” The crew ate few of the compressed, bite-sized items, and when they rehydrated their meals, the food took on the flavor of their wrappings instead of the actual food in the container. “If that doesn’t sound like a rousing endorsement, it isn’t,” he told viewers watching the Apollo 8 crew in space ahead of their surprise meal. As Anders demonstrated to the television audience how the astronauts prepared a meal and ate in space, Borman announced his wish, that folks back on Earth would “have better Christmas dinners” than the one the flight crew would be consuming that day.1 If that doesn’t sound like a rousing endorsement, it isn’t. Frank Borman Apollo 8 Astronaut Over the 1960s, there were many complaints about the food from astronauts and others working at the Manned Spacecraft Center (now NASA’s Johnson Space Center). After evaluating the food that the Apollo 8 crew would be consuming onboard their upcoming flight, Apollo 9 astronaut Jim McDivitt penciled a note to the food lab about his in-flight preferences. Using the back of the Apollo 8 crew menu, he directed them to decrease the number of compressed bite-sized items “to a bare minimum” and to include more meat and potato items. “I get awfully hungry,” he wrote, “and I’m afraid I’m going to starve to death on that menu.”2 In 1969, Rita Rapp, a physiologist who led the Apollo Food System team, asked Donald Arabian, head of the Mission Evaluation Room, to evaluate a four-day food supply used for the Apollo missions. Arabian identified himself as someone who “would eat almost anything. … you might say [I am] somewhat of a human garbage can.” But even he found the food lacked the flavor, aroma, appearance, texture, and taste he was accustomed to. At the end of his four-day assessment he concluded that “the pleasures of eating were lost to the point where interest in eating was essentially curtailed.”3 Food used on the Gemini-Titan IV flight. Packages include beef sandwich cubes, strawberry cereal cubes, dehydrated peaches, and dehydrated beef and gravy. A water gun on the Gemini spacecraft is used to reconstitute the dehydrated food and scissors are used to open the packaging.NASA Apollo 8 commander Frank Borman concurred with Arabian’s assessment of the Apollo food. The one item Borman enjoyed? It was the contents of the Christmas meal wrapped in ribbons: turkey and gravy. The Christmas dinner was so delicious that the crew contacted Houston to inform them of their good fortune. “It appears that we did a great injustice to the food people,” Lovell told capsule communicator (CAPCOM) Mike Collins. “Just after our TV show, Santa Claus brought us a TV dinner each; it was delicious. Turkey and gravy, cranberry sauce, grape punch; [it was] outstanding.” In response, Collins expressed delight in hearing the good news but shared that the flight control team was not as lucky. Instead, they were “eating cold coffee and baloney sandwiches.”4 The Apollo 8 Christmas menu included dehydrated grape drink, cranberry-applesauce, and coffee, as well as a wetpack containing turkey and gravy.U.S. Natick Soldier Systems Center Photographic Collection The Apollo 8 meal was a “breakthrough.” Until that mission, the food choices for Apollo crews were limited to freeze dried foods that required water to be added before they could be consumed, and ready-to-eat compressed foods formed into cubes. Most space food was highly processed. On this mission NASA introduced the “wetpack”: a thermostabilized package of turkey and gravy that retained its normal water content and could be eaten with a spoon. Astronauts had consumed thermostabilized pureed food on the Project Mercury missions in the early 1960s, but never chunks of meat like turkey. For the Project Gemini and Apollo 7 spaceflights, astronauts used their fingers to pop bite-sized cubes of food into their mouths and zero-G feeder tubes to consume rehydrated food. The inclusion of the wetpack for the Apollo 8 crew was years in the making. The U.S. Army Natick Labs in Massachusetts developed the packaging, and the U.S. Air Force conducted numerous parabolic flights to test eating from the package with a spoon.5 Smith called the meal a real “morale booster.” He noted several reasons for its appeal: the new packaging allowed the astronauts to see and smell the turkey and gravy; the meat’s texture and flavor were not altered by adding water from the spacecraft or the rehydration process; and finally, the crew did not have to go through the process of adding water, kneading the package, and then waiting to consume their meal. Smith concluded that the Christmas dinner demonstrated “the importance of the methods of presentation and serving of food.” Eating from a spoon instead of the zero-G feeder improved the inflight feeding experience, mimicking the way people eat on Earth: using utensils, not squirting pureed food out of a pouch into their mouths. Using a spoon also simplified eating and meal preparation. NASA added more wetpacks onboard Apollo 9, and the crew experimented eating other foods, including a rehydrated meal item, with the spoon.6 Malcolm Smith demonstrates eating space food.NASA Food was one of the few creature comforts the crew had on the Apollo 8 flight, and this meal demonstrated the psychological importance of being able to smell, taste, and see the turkey prior to consuming their meal, something that was lacking in the first four days of the flight. Seeing appetizing food triggers hunger and encourages eating. In other words, if food looks and smells good, then it must taste good. Little things like this improvement to the Apollo Food System made a huge difference to the crews who simply wanted some of the same eating experiences in orbit and on the Moon that they enjoyed on Earth. Footnotes [1] Apollo 8 Mission Commentary, Dec. 25, 1968, p. 543, https://historycollection.jsc.nasa.gov/JSCHistoryPortal/history/mission_trans/AS08_PAO.PDF; Apollo 8 Technical Debriefing, Jan. 2, 1969, 078-15, Apollo Series, University of Houston-Clear Lake, Houston, Texas (hereafter UHCL); Malcolm C. Smith to Director of Medical Research and Operations, “Nutrient consumption on Apollo VII and VIII,” Jan. 13, 1969, Rita Rapp Papers, Box 1, UHCL. [2] Jim McDivitt food evaluation form, n.d., Box 17, Rapp Papers, UHCL. [3] Donald Arabian to Rapp, “Evaluation of four-day food supply,” May 8, 1969, Box 17, Rapp Papers, UHCL. [4] Apollo 8 Mission Commentary, Dec. 25, 1968, p. 545. [5] Malcolm Smith, “The Apollo Food Program,” in Aerospace Food Technology, NASA SP-202 (Washington, DC: 1970), pp. 5–8; Whirlpool Corporation, “Space Food Systems: Mercury through Apollo,” Dec. 1970, Box 9, Rapp Papers, UHCL. [6] Smith, “The Apollo Food Program,” pp. 7–8; Smith to the Record, “Christmas Dinner for Apollo VIII,” Jan. 10, 1969, Box 1, Rapp Papers, UHCL; Smith et al, “Apollo Food Technology,” in Biomedical Results of Apollo, NASA SP-368 (Washington, DC: NASA, 1975), p. 456. About the AuthorJennifer Ross-NazzalNASA Human Spaceflight HistorianJennifer Ross-Nazzal is the NASA Human Spaceflight Historian. She is the author of Winning the West for Women: The Life of Suffragist Emma Smith DeVoe and Making Space for Women: Stories from Trailblazing Women of NASA's Johnson Space Center. Share Details Last Updated Dec 21, 2023 EditorMichele Ostovar Related TermsNASA HistoryApollo 8Frank BormanHumans in Space Explore More 12 min read Space Station 20th: Food on ISS Article 3 years ago 4 min read Apollo 8: Christmas at the Moon Article 4 years ago 4 min read To the Moon and Back: Apollo 8 and the Future of Lunar Exploration Article 5 years ago Keep Exploring Discover More Topics From NASA NASA History Humans In Space The Apollo Program Johnson Space Center History View the full article

2 min read Hubble Sights a Galaxy with ‘Forbidden’ Light This NASA Hubble Space Telescope image features a bright spiral galaxy known as MCG-01-24-014, which is located about 275 million light-years from Earth.ESA/Hubble & NASA, C. Kilpatrick This whirling image features a bright spiral galaxy known as MCG-01-24-014, which is located about 275 million light-years from Earth. In addition to being a well-defined spiral galaxy, MCG-01-24-014 has an extremely energetic core known as an active galactic nucleus (AGN) and is categorized as a Type-2 Seyfert galaxy. Seyfert galaxies, along with quasars, host one of the most common subclasses of AGN. While the precise categorization of AGNs is nuanced, Seyfert galaxies tend to be relatively nearby and their central AGN does not outshine its host, while quasars are very distant AGNs with incredible luminosities that outshine their host galaxies. There are further subclasses of both Seyfert galaxies and quasars. In the case of Seyfert galaxies, the predominant subcategories are Type-1 and Type-2. Astronomers distinguish them by their spectra, the pattern that results when light is split into its constituent wavelengths. The spectral lines that Type-2 Seyfert galaxies emit are associated with specific ‘forbidden’ emission lines. To understand why emitted light from a galaxy could be forbidden, it helps to understand why spectra exist in the first place. Spectra look the way they do because certain atoms and molecules absorb and emit light at very specific wavelengths. The reason for this is quantum physics: electrons (the tiny particles that orbit the nuclei of atoms and molecules) can only exist at very specific energies, and therefore electrons can only lose or gain very specific amounts of energy. These very specific amounts of energy correspond to the wavelengths of light that are absorbed or emitted. Forbidden emission lines should not exist according to certain rules of quantum physics. But quantum physics is complex, and some of the rules used to predict it were formulated under laboratory conditions here on Earth. Under those rules, this emission is ‘forbidden’ – so improbable that it’s disregarded. But in space, in the midst of an incredibly energetic galactic core, those assumptions don’t hold anymore, and the ‘forbidden’ light gets a chance to shine out toward us. Text credit: European Space Agency Media Contact: Media Contact: Claire Andreoli NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD claire.andreoli@nasa.gov Share Details Last Updated Dec 22, 2023 Editor Andrea Gianopoulos Related Terms AstrophysicsAstrophysics DivisionGalaxiesGoddard Space Flight CenterHubble Space TelescopeMissionsScience Mission DirectorateThe Universe Keep Exploring Discover More Topics From NASA Hubble Space Telescope Since its 1990 launch, the Hubble Space Telescope has changed our fundamental understanding of the universe. Galaxies Stories Stars Stories James Webb Space Telescope Webb is the premier observatory of the next decade, serving thousands of astronomers worldwide. It studies every phase in the… View the full article