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By NASA
The four crew members of NASA’s SpaceX Crew-11 mission to the International Space Station train inside a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft in Hawthorne, California. From left to right: Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Platonov, NASA astronauts Mike Fincke and Zena Cardman, and JAXA astronaut Kimiya Yui.Credit: SpaceX Media accreditation is open for the launch of NASA’s 11th rotational mission of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft carrying astronauts to the International Space Station for a science expedition. NASA’s SpaceX Crew-11 mission is targeted to launch in the late July/early August timeframe from Launch Complex 39A at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
The mission includes NASA astronauts Zena Cardman, serving as commander; Mike Fincke, pilot; JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Kimiya Yui, mission specialist; and Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Platonov, mission specialist. This is the first spaceflight for Cardman and Platonov, the fourth trip for Fincke, and the second for Yui, to the orbiting laboratory.
Media accreditation deadlines for the Crew-11 launch as part of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program are as follows:
International media without U.S. citizenship must apply by 11:59 p.m. EDT on Sunday, July 6. U.S. media and U.S. citizens representing international media organizations must apply by 11:59 p.m. on Monday, July 14. All accreditation requests must be submitted online at:
https://media.ksc.nasa.gov
NASA’s media accreditation policy is online. For questions about accreditation or special logistical requests, email: ksc-media-accreditat@mail.nasa.gov. Requests for space for satellite trucks, tents, or electrical connections are due by Monday, July 14.
For other questions, please contact NASA Kennedy’s newsroom at: 321-867-2468.
Para obtener información sobre cobertura en español en el Centro Espacial Kennedy o si desea solicitar entrevistas en español, comuníquese con Antonia Jaramillo: 321-501-8425, o Messod Bendayan: 256-930-1371.
For launch coverage and more information about the mission, visit:
https://www.nasa.gov/commercialcrew
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Joshua Finch / Claire O’Shea
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1100
joshua.a.finch@nasa.gov / claire.a.o’shea@nasa.gov
Steve Siceloff / Stephanie Plucinsky
Kennedy Space Center, Florida
321-867-2468
steven.p.siceloff@nasa.gov / stephanie.n.plucinsky@nasa.gov
Joseph Zakrzewski
Johnson Space Center, Houston
281-483-5111
joseph.a.zakrzewski@nasa.gov
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Last Updated Jul 01, 2025 EditorJessica TaveauLocationNASA Headquarters Related Terms
Commercial Crew Commercial Space Humans in Space International Space Station (ISS) ISS Research Space Operations Mission Directorate View the full article
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By European Space Agency
The second of the Meteosat Third Generation (MTG) satellites and the first instrument for the Copernicus Sentinel-4 mission are ready for liftoff at Cape Canaveral in Florida, US. Live coverage of this launch will be shown on ESA WebTV, not earlier than Tuesday, 1 July.
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By NASA
Curiosity Navigation Curiosity Home Mission Overview Where is Curiosity? Mission Updates Science Overview Instruments Highlights Exploration Goals News and Features Multimedia Curiosity Raw Images Images Videos Audio Mosaics More Resources Mars Missions Mars Sample Return Mars Perseverance Rover Mars Curiosity Rover MAVEN Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Mars Odyssey More Mars Missions Mars Home 4 min read
Curiosity Blog, Sols 4577-4579: Watch the Skies
NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity acquired this image inside a trough in the boxwork terrain on Mars, using its Right Navigation Camera. Curiosity captured the image on June 20, 2025 — Sol 4575, or Martian day 4,575 of the Mars Science Laboratory mission — at 00:30:12 UTC. NASA/JPL-Caltech Written by Deborah Padgett, OPGS Task Lead at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Earth planning date: Friday, June 20, 2025
During the plan covering Sols 4575-4576, Curiosity continued our investigation of mysterious boxwork structures on the shoulders of Mount Sharp. After a successful 56-meter drive (about 184 feet), Curiosity is now parked in a trough cutting through a highly fractured region covered by linear features thought to be evidence of groundwater flow in the distant past of Mars. With all six wheels firmly planted on solid ground, our rover is ready for contact science! Unfortunately, a repeat of the frost-detection experiment expected for the weekend plan is postponed for a few days due to a well-understood ChemCam issue. In the meantime, our atmospheric investigations have a chance to shine, as they received additional time to observe the Martian sky.
In the early afternoon of Sol 4577, Curiosity’s navigation cameras will take a movie of the upper reaches of Aeolis Mons (Mount Sharp), hoping to see moving cloud shadows. This observation enables the team to calculate the altitude of clouds drifting over the peak. Next, Navcam will point straight up, to image cloud motion at the zenith and determine wind direction at their altitude. Mastcam will then do a series of small mosaics to study the rover workspace and features of the trough that Curiosity has entered. First is a 6×4 stereo mosaic of the workspace and the contact science targets “Copacabana” and “Copiapo.” The first target is a representative sample of the trough bedrock, and its name celebrates a town in Bolivia located on the shores of Lake Titicaca. The second target is a section of lighter-toned material, which may be associated with stripes or “veins” filling the many crosscutting fractures in the local stones. These are the deposits potentially left by groundwater intrusion long ago. The name “Copiapo” honors a silver mining city in the extremely dry Atacama desert of northern Chile. A second 6×3 Mastcam stereo mosaic will look at active cracks in the trough. Two additional 5×1 Mastcam stereo mosaics target “Ardamarca,” a ridge parallel to the trough walls, and a cliff exposing layers of rock at the base of “Mishe Mokwa” butte. At our current location, all the Curiosity target names are taken from the Uyuni geologic quadrangle named after the otherworldly lake bed and ephemeral lake high on the Bolivian altiplano, but the Mishe Mokwa butte is back in the Altadena quad, named for a popular hiking trail in the Santa Monica Mountains. After this lengthy science block, Curiosity will deploy its arm, brush the dust from Copacabana with the DRT, then image both it and Copiapo with the MAHLI microscopic imager. Overnight, APXS will determine the composition of these two targets.
Early in the morning of Sol 4578, Mastcam will take large 27×5 and 18×3 stereo mosaics of different parts of the trough, using morning light to highlight the terrain shadows. Later in the day, Navcam will do a 360 sky survey, determining phase function across the entire sky. A 25-meter drive (about 82 feet) will follow, and the post-drive imaging includes both a 360-degree Navcam panorama of our new location and an image of the ground under the rover with MARDI in the evening twilight. The next sol is all atmospheric science, with an extensive set of afternoon suprahorizon movies and a dust-devil survey for Navcam, as well as a Mastcam dust opacity observation. The final set of observations in this plan happens on the morning of Sol 4580 with more Navcam suprahorizon and zenith movies to observe clouds, a Navcam dust opacity measurement across Gale Crater, and a last Mastcam tau. On Monday, we expect to plan another drive and hope to return to the frost-detection experiment soon as we explore the boxwork canyons of Mars.
For more Curiosity blog posts, visit MSL Mission Updates
Learn more about Curiosity’s science instruments
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Last Updated Jun 20, 2025 Related Terms
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By NASA
3 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
NASA employee Naomi Torres sits inside the air taxi passenger ride quality simulator at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California, as the simulator moves during a study on Oct. 23, 2024. Research continues to better understand how humans may interact with these new types of aircraft.NASA/Steve Freeman NASA’s Advanced Air Mobility vision involves the skies above the U.S. filled with new types of aircraft, including air taxis. But making that vision a reality involves ensuring that people will actually want to ride these aircraft – which is why NASA has been working to evaluate comfort, to see what passengers will and won’t tolerate.
NASA is conducting a series of studies to understand how air taxi motion, vibration, and other factors affect ride comfort. The agency will provide the data it gathers to industry and others to guide the design and operational practices for future air taxis.
“The results of this study can guide air taxi companies to design aircraft that take off, land, and respond to winds and gusts in a way that is comfortable for the passengers,” said Curt Hanson, senior flight controls researcher for this project based at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California. “Passengers who enjoy their experience in an air taxi are more likely to become repeat riders, which will help the industry grow.”
The air taxi comfort research team uses NASA Armstrong’s Ride Quality Laboratory as well as the Human Vibration Lab and Vertical Motion Simulator at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley to study passenger response to ride quality, as well as how easily and precisely a pilot can control and maneuver aircraft.
After pilots checked out the simulator setup, the research team conducted a study in October where NASA employees volunteered to participate as passengers to experience the virtual air taxi flights and then describe their comfort level to the researchers.
Curt Hanson, senior flight controls researcher for the Revolutionary Vertical Lift Technology project based at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California, explains the study about to begin to NASA employee and test subject Naomi Torres on Oct. 23, 2024. Behind them is the air taxi passenger ride quality simulator in NASA Armstrong’s Ride Quality Laboratory. Studies continue to better understand passenger comfort for future air taxi rides.NASA/Steve Freeman Using this testing, the team produced an initial study that found a relationship between levels of sudden vertical motion and passenger discomfort. More data collection is needed to understand the combined effect of motion, vibration, and other factors on passenger comfort.
“In the Vertical Motion Simulator, we can investigate how technology and aircraft design choices affect the handling qualities of the aircraft, generate data as pilots maneuver the air taxi models under realistic conditions, and then use this to further investigate passenger comfort in the Ride Quality and Human Vibration Labs,” said Carlos Malpica, senior rotorcraft flight dynamics researcher for this effort based at NASA Ames.
This work is managed by the Revolutionary Vertical Lift Technology project under NASA’s Advanced Air Vehicles Program in support of NASA’s Advanced Air Mobility mission, which seeks to deliver data to guide the industry’s development of electric air taxis and drones.
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Last Updated Jun 20, 2025 EditorDede DiniusContactTeresa Whitingteresa.whiting@nasa.govLocationArmstrong Flight Research Center Related Terms
Armstrong Flight Research Center Advanced Air Mobility Advanced Air Vehicles Program Aeronautics Ames Research Center Drones & You Revolutionary Vertical Lift Technology Explore More
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By NASA
For the first time, scientists can observe temperature changes in the Sun’s outer atmosphere thanks to new technology introduced by NASA’s CODEX instrument. This animated, color-coded heat map shows temperature changes over the course of a couple days, where red indicates hotter regions and purple indicates cooler ones. NASA/KASI/INAF/CODEX Key Points:
NASA’s CODEX investigation captured images of the Sun’s outer atmosphere, the corona, showcasing new aspects of its gusty, uneven flow. The CODEX instrument, located on the International Space Station, is a coronagraph — a scientific tool that creates an artificial eclipse with physical disks — that measures the speed and temperature of solar wind using special filters. These first-of-their-kind measurements will help scientists improve models of space weather and better understand the Sun’s impact on Earth. Scientists analyzing data from NASA’s CODEX (Coronal Diagnostic Experiment) investigation have successfully evaluated the instrument’s first images, revealing the speed and temperature of material flowing out from the Sun. These images, shared at a press event Tuesday at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Anchorage, Alaska, illustrate the Sun’s outer atmosphere, or corona, is not a homogenous, steady flow of material, but an area with sputtering gusts of hot plasma. These images will help scientists improve their understanding of how the Sun impacts Earth and our technology in space.
“We really never had the ability to do this kind of science before,” said Jeffrey Newmark, a heliophysicist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and the principal investigator for CODEX. “The right kind of filters, the right size instrumentation — all the right things fell into place. These are brand new observations that have never been seen before, and we think there’s a lot of really interesting science to be done with it.”
The Sun continuously radiates material in the form of the solar wind. The Sun’s magnetic field shapes this material, sometimes creating flowing, ray-like formations called coronal streamers. In this view from NASA’s CODEX instrument, large dark spots block much of the bright light from the Sun. Blocking this light allows the instrument’s sensitive equipment to capture the faint light of the Sun’s outer atmosphere. NASA/KASI/INAF/CODEX NASA’s CODEX is a solar coronagraph, an instrument often employed to study the Sun’s faint corona, or outer atmosphere, by blocking the bright face of the Sun. The instrument, which is installed on the International Space Station, creates artificial eclipses using a series of circular pieces of material called occulting disks at the end of a long telescope-like tube. The occulting disks are about the size of a tennis ball and are held in place by three metal arms.
Scientists often use coronagraphs to study visible light from the corona, revealing dynamic features, such as solar storms, that shape the weather in space, potentially impacting Earth and beyond.
NASA missions use coronagraphs to study the Sun in various ways, but that doesn’t mean they all see the same thing. Coronagraphs on the joint NASA-ESA Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) mission look at visible light from the solar corona with both a wide field of view and a smaller one. The CODEX instrument’s field of view is somewhere in the middle, but looks at blue light to understand temperature and speed variations in the background solar wind.
In this composite image of overlapping solar observations, the center and left panels show the field-of-view coverage of the different coronagraphs with overlays and are labeled with observation ranges in solar radii. The third panel shows a zoomed-in, color-coded portion of the larger CODEX image. It highlights the temperature ratios in that portion of the solar corona using CODEX 405.0 and 393.5 nm filters. NASA/ESA/SOHO/KASI/INAF/CODEX “The CODEX instrument is doing something new,” said Newmark. “Previous coronagraph experiments have measured the density of material in the corona, but CODEX is measuring the temperature and speed of material in the slowly varying solar wind flowing out from the Sun.”
These new measurements allow scientists to better characterize the energy at the source of the solar wind.
The CODEX instrument uses four narrow-band filters — two for temperature and two for speed — to capture solar wind data. “By comparing the brightness of the images in each of these filters, we can tell the temperature and speed of the coronal solar wind,” said Newmark.
Understanding the speed and temperature of the solar wind helps scientists build a more accurate picture of the Sun, which is necessary for modeling and predicting the Sun’s behaviors.
“The CODEX instrument will impact space weather modeling by providing constraints for modelers to use in the future,” said Newmark. “We’re excited for what’s to come.”
by NASA Science Editorial Team
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md
CODEX is a collaboration between NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and the Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute (KASI) with additional contribution from Italy’s National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF).
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Last Updated Jun 10, 2025 Related Terms
Heliophysics Coronagraph Coronal Diagnostic Experiment (CODEX) Goddard Space Flight Center Heliophysics Division Space Weather The Sun The Sun & Solar Physics View the full article
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