NASA’s Libera instrument, which is designed to maintain the global data record of Earth’s radiation budget, has successfully completed comprehensive environmental testing. This critical milestone included thermal vacuum tests that simulate the expected space temperature and environments that Libera will experience during its mission. The Libera instrument will fly on Joint Polar Satellite System-4 (JPSS-4), […]
The Expedition 74 trio wrapped up the week packing cargo for return to Earth and exploring artificial intelligence to benefit crew operations. Earth observations and lab gear maintenance rounded out the shift aboard the International Space Station on Friday.
NASA is targeting Monday, Feb. 2, as the tanking day for the upcoming Artemis II wet dress rehearsal at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, as a result of weather. With this change, the first potential opportunity to launch is no earlier than Sunday, Feb. 8. Over the past several days, engineers have been […]
Expedition 74 focused on installing CubeSats and observing Earth aboard the International Space Station on Thursday. The trio from NASA and Roscosmos kept up ongoing research operations along with standard orbital lab maintenance throughout the day.
Scouring archived observations from NASA missions, scientists may have solved a mystery about what powers a type of aurora called auroral arcs. The answer, they say, is space waves. From the ground, auroral arcs look like green, glowing curtains of light sweeping across the night sky. From space, they appear as thin, green lines — or arcs — slicing across the […]
New analysis of decades-old data has turned up a significant result: the first discovery of ammonia-bearing compounds on the surface of Jupiter’s moon Europa. Ammonia is a nitrogen-bearing molecule, and nitrogen — like carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen — is key to life as we know it. As the first such detection at Europa, the finding […]
The four crew members of NASA’s SpaceX Crew-12 mission began their routine two-week quarantine on Wednesday at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston ahead of their upcoming launch to the International Space Station. The earliest opportunity for Crew-12 to launch to the orbital complex is 6 a.m. EST Wednesday, Feb. 11, from Space Launch Complex 40 at […]
Robotics and artificial intelligence were back on the research schedule Wednesday for the Expedition 74 crew to inspire college students and explore boosting crew efficiency. Earth observations and life support maintenance also rounded out the day for the orbital residents aboard the International Space Station.
NASA’s Arcstone instrument, designed to improve the accuracy of lunar calibration, successfully completed its technology demonstration, and now begins extended operations. Arcstone launched on June 23 on a SpaceX Transporter-14 from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, on a six-month mission to measure light reflected by the Moon, which is a stable and potentially highly-accurate calibration source, for satellite sensors. The mission, led by NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, uses a specially designed spectrometer system and is the first on-orbit instrument solely dedicated […]
Robotics and virtual reality filled the science schedule aboard the International Space Station on Tuesday as the Expedition 74 crew promoted education and explored human research. The orbital trio also inspected safety equipment, worked on cargo swaps, and conducted Earth observations.
