NASA has selected astronaut Andre Douglas as its backup crew member for the agency’s Artemis II test flight, the first crewed mission under NASA’s Artemis campaign. Douglas will train alongside NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch, and Canadian Space Agency (CSA) astronaut Jeremy Hansen. In the event a NASA astronaut is unable to take part...
NASA has released two white papers associated with the agency’s Moon to Mars architecture efforts. The papers, one on lunar mobility drivers and needs, and one on lunar surface cargo, detail NASA’s latest thinking on specific areas of its lunar exploration strategy. While NASA has established a yearly cadence of releasing new documents associated with its Moon to...
Infrared imagery from the solar-powered spacecraft heats up the discussion on the inner workings of Jupiter’s hottest moon. New findings from NASA’s Juno probe provide a fuller picture of how widespread the lava lakes are on Jupiter’s moon Io and include first-time insights into the volcanic processes at work there. These results come courtesy of Juno’s Jovian...
With the dress rehearsal completed during Apollo 10 in May 1969, only a few weeks remained until Apollo 11, the actual Moon landing mission to meet President Kennedy’s goal set in 1961. Apollo 11 astronauts Neil A. Armstrong, Michael Collins, and Edwin E. “Buzz” Aldrin and their backups James A. Lovell, William A. Anders, and Fred W. Haise entered the final phase of...
The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) and the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) launched together from Cape Canaveral Air Force, now Space Force, Station on June 18, 2009, atop an Atlas V launch vehicle. The primary mission of the LRO, managed by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, involved imaging the entire Moon’s...
Media are invited in late July to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida to see progress on the agency’s SLS (Space Launch System) Moon rocket as preparations continue for the Artemis II test flight around the Moon. Participants joining the multi-day events will see the arrival and unloading of the 212-foot-tall SLS core stage at the center’s turn basin before it is...
Friday evening, July 5, 2024, at 6:57 PM EDT, will be the new Moon, when the Moon passes between the Earth and the Sun and will not be visible from the Earth. The day of or the day after the New Moon marks the start of the new month for most lunisolar calendars. Saturday, July 6 will be the start of the sixth month of the Chinese year of the Dragon. Sundown on July 6...
NASA will roll the fully assembled core stage for the agency’s SLS (Space Launch System) rocket that will launch the first crewed Artemis mission out of NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans in mid-July. The 212-foot-tall stage will be loaded on the agency’s Pegasus barge for delivery to Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Media will have the opportunity to...
NASA astronauts Victor Glover (left), Reid Wiseman (middle left), and Christina Koch (middle right), and Canadian Space Agency (CSA) astronaut Jeremy Hansen (right), pose for a photo after a Moon Tree dedication ceremony, Tuesday, June 4, 2024, at the United States Capitol in Washington. The American Sweetgum tree pictured was grown from a seed that was flown around...
NASA astronaut and Artemis II Commander Reid Wiseman provides remarks at a Moon Tree dedication ceremony Tuesday, June 4, at the U.S. Capitol in Washington. The American Sweetgum tree was grown from a seed that flew around the Moon during the agency’s Artemis I mission in 2022. In April, NASA announced the agency selected organizations from across the country to...