The Sun emitted a significant solar flare peaking at 11:35 a.m. EDT on Oct. 28, 2021. NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory, which watches the Sun constantly, captured an image of the event. Solar flares are powerful bursts of radiation. Harmful radiation from a flare cannot pass through Earth’s atmosphere to physically affect humans on the ground, …
Four commercial crew astronauts await their launch to join the Expedition 66 crew this weekend as a Russian space cargo mission is on its way to the International Space Station. Meanwhile, the seven station residents orbiting the Earth today are headlong into a series of life science and physics experiments. The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, …
In the early morning hours on Oct. 28, the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket that will launch the Dragon Endurance capsule and Crew-3 astronauts to the International Space Station surpassed a key milestone ahead of launch. While standing on the launch pad at Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Complex 39A in Florida, the rocket’s nine Merlin first-stage …
By Dragana Perkovic-Martin, Principal Investigator for DopplerScatt at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory // SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA // The first of three aircraft participating in the S-MODE campaign has arrived at Moffett Field in California. The NASA King Air B200 aircraft, carrying two science instruments – DopplerScatt and MOSES – landed on October 18th and is preparing …
The uncrewed Russian Progress 79 is safely in orbit headed for the International Space Station following launch at 8 p.m. EDT (5 a.m. Thursday, Oct. 28, Baikonur time) from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The resupply ship reached preliminary orbit and deployed its solar arrays and navigational antennas as planned for a two-day rendezvous on …
The Lucy spacecraft remains in cruise mode, which is the standard flight mode for outbound flight and allows for substantial autonomy for the spacecraft. The spacecraft has successfully executed several small planned maneuvers, which have had no adverse effect on the one solar array that is not fully deployed. On Oct. 29, NASA will adjust …
Payloads: Cold Atom Lab (CAL): Using a Grab Sample Container (GSC), the crew collected a sample of the cabin air around the lower quad area of LAB1P2. These samples will later be returned to the ground for analysis so the CAL team can track ISS atmosphere constituents. CAL produces clouds of atoms that are chilled …
The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, with the Crew Dragon spacecraft atop, rolled out to the launch pad last night, Oct. 26, at Kennedy Space Center in Florida in preparation for NASA’s SpaceX Crew-3 launch. The rocket is now in a vertical position at Kennedy’s Launch Pad 39A, awaiting liftoff on Sunday, Oct. 31. The mission …
NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft, the first designed to deflect an asteroid, arrived at the Astrotech Space Operations Facility at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on Oct. 2, 2021. The spacecraft was transported by truck from a cleanroom at Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland. Inside Astrotech, the APL …
Around the world, more than 10,000 virtual guests are registered to be a part of NASA’s SpaceX Crew-3 mission to the International Space Station. Since this is a crewed flight, we asked our guests to share a message with the crew. Thousands of guests from Germany, Turkey, the United States, Ireland, Croatia, Spain, New Zealand, …
