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    New Mexico Scientific Balloon Campaign Update- Aug. 21

    Aug. 21, 2025: The Salter Test Flight launched at 9:21 a.m. EDT (7:21 a.m. MDT) Thursday, Aug. 21 from the agency’s balloon launch facility, marking the first successful balloon flight of the campaign. The balloon and payload reached a float altitude of 124,000 feet, and flew for a total of 5 hours, 4 minutes. The hardware test flight reported a healthy balloon and flight systems, and requirements were met before successful termination. Several smaller payloads, or piggyback missions, rode along to support science and technology development, including numerous student experiments. Recovery efforts are underway.  

    Aerial view of a high-altitude scientific balloon launch preparation in a desert setting at sunset. The white balloon is partially inflated and tethered to a launch vehicle, with support vehicles and personnel positioned around the launch area on a cracked desert surface
    NASA's high-altitude scientific balloon being prepared for launch at Fort Sumner, N.M., during the agency's 2024 fall balloon campaign. The mission carried research instruments to the stratosphere to conduct experiments above 99.5% of Earth's atmosphere.
    NASA/Francis Reddy

    TOMEX+ Launch Update – Aug. 21

    The TOMEX+ sounding rocket mission is now targeting no earlier than Sunday, Aug. 24, for the first launch attempt due to high sea states in the recovery area from Hurricane Erin.

    NASA Delivers Artemis II Hardware to Kennedy

    A significant piece of hardware for NASA’s Artemis II mission arrived on Aug. 19 to the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida to complete final stacking operations. A semitrailer transported NASA’s Orion stage adapter nearly 700 miles from NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. NASA Marshall built and tested the Orion stage adapter […]

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    Expedition 73 Studies How Space Affects the Brain and the Body

    The warm city lights of Southeast Asia streak below the silvery U.S. segment of the International Space Station in this 30-second exposure from the orbital outpost as it soared 259 miles above China at approximately 10:39 a.m. local time. Near the top center, is the partially obscured SpaceX Dragon spacecraft that docked to the Harmony module's forward port carrying NASA's Crew-11 mission.

    Maintaining sense of balance and protecting immunity in space were the top human research experiments aboard the International Space Station on Wednesday. The Expedition 73 crew members also practiced medical emergency procedures, continued more Earth observations, and finished packing a cargo craft.

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    TOMEX+ Launch Update – Aug. 20

    The TOMEX+ sounding rocket mission is now targeting no earlier than Saturday, Aug. 23, for the first launch attempt due to high sea states in the recovery area from Hurricane Erin.

    Three sounding rockets, each on their own launch pad, standing vertical at a nearly 90 degree angle. One rocket is closest to the camera in the center. The other two flank it, sitting farther away. In the foreground is a grassy green hill, and beside each rocket is a long white building.
    Three sounding rockets for the TOMEX+ mission are raised vertical on their launch pads during a mission dress rehearsal on August 20, 2025, in Wallops Island, Virginia.
    NASA/Danielle Johnson

    New NASA-ESA Sea Level Satellite Arrives at California Launch Site

    The Sentinel-6B satellite will soon start final preparation to ready it for launch later this year. After a trans-Atlantic journey on a cargo ship and a truck ride from Texas to California, the international sea level satellite Sentinel-6B arrived at a NASA facility at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California Aug.18. Teams from the main […]

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    TOMEX+ Launch Update – Aug. 19

    The TOMEX+ sounding rocket mission is now targeting no earlier than Friday, Aug. 22, for the first launch attempt due to cloud cover and high sea states in the recovery area from Hurricane Erin.

    Health Monitoring, Exercise Science Keep Station Crew Busy

    NASA astronaut and Expedition 73 Flight Engineer Mike Fincke inserts a cryogenic storage unit, called a dewar, containing blood samples collected from a crew member into a science freezer for preservation and later analysis. The Minus Eighty-Degree Laboratory Freezer for International Space Station, or MELFI, is a research freezer that maintains experiment samples at ultra-cold temperatures in microgravity.

    Immunity and exercise science continued aboard the International Space Station on Wednesday giving doctors insight into how the human body adjusts to weightlessness. The Expedition 73 crew is also packing a cargo craft before the end of its mission and maintaining a variety of orbital lab hardware.

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    NASA’s Final Piece of Artemis II Rocket Hardware Leaves Marshall

    The Orion stage adapter is traveling by semitrailer for its voyage to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida in preparation for stacking. Built of lightweight aluminum at Marshall, the ring-shaped Orion stage adapter connects the interim cryogenic propulsion stage to the Orion spacecraft.

    The final piece of Artemis II flight hardware for the SLS (Space Launch System) rocket departed NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, Aug. 18, and will arrive at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida this week for integration with the rest of the rocket. Built of lightweight aluminum at Marshall, the ring-shaped […]

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