This is it! It is less than two months until the Webb telescope finally launches, and we couldn’t be more excited. Webb is NASA’s next flagship observatory and a technological marvel, more than twenty years in the making. It has just arrived in Kourou, French Guiana – home to Europe’s Spaceport facility and our upcoming …
Five Expedition 66 crew members spent Thursday studying a variety of space phenomena while working on spacesuits and continuing the upkeep of the International Space Station. Two cosmonauts, in the meantime, will be monitoring the late night redocking of a Russian resupply ship. NASA Flight Engineers Shane Kimbrough and Megan McArthur, also commander and pilot …
The uncrewed Russian Progress 78 spacecraft undocked from the International Space Station’s Poisk module at 7:42 p.m. EDT today and will arrive at the station’s Nauka Multipurpose Laboratory Module for redocking tomorrow. Progress 78 will back out to a distance of 120 miles from the space station for a period of just over 24 hours …
Teams with Exploration Ground Systems successfully lifted the Orion Spacecraft for the Artemis I mission inside the Vehicle Assembly Building on Oct. 20, 2021. Teams attached the spacecraft to one of the five overhead cranes inside the building and began lifting it a little after midnight EDT. Work is underway to fully secure Orion to …
Payloads: Plant Habitat-04: A crewmember removed plant litter (detritus) from the growth chamber and photographed the plants/peppers. Numerous healthy peppers have been reported and the crew has been watching the plants with interest. Microgravity Growth of New Mexico Hatch Green Chile as a Technical Display of Advanced Plant Habitat’s Capabilities (Plant Habitat-04) demonstrates using the …
Life support, spacesuits and botany work filled Wednesday’s schedule for the Expedition 66 crew aboard the International Space Station. The orbital residents are also gearing up for a Russian resupply ship backing away from the station tonight and switching docking ports just over a day later. Astronauts Megan McArthur of NASA and Akihiko Hoshide of …
Final stacking operations for NASA’s mega-Moon rocket are underway inside the Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center as the Orion spacecraft is lifted onto the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket for the Artemis I mission. Engineers and technicians with Exploration Ground Systems (EGS) and Jacobs attached the spacecraft to one of the five …
After successful separation from the rocket on Oct. 16, NASA’s Lucy spacecraft deployed both solar arrays. Soon after deployment, NASA received confirmation that one of the solar arrays was fully deployed and latched. Analysis currently shows the second solar array is partially unfurled. The team continues to look at all available engineering data to establish …
Payloads: Combustion Integrated Rack/Advanced Combustion via Microgravity Experiments/Cool Flames Investigation with Gasses (CIR/ACME/CFI-G part 1 repeat): The crew removed an empty 30% butane (CH3CH2CH2CH3)/70% N2 fuel bottle and installed another 30% butane/70% N2 fuel bottle. They also replaced an empty 40% O2/60% N2 bottle with another one of the same composition. Spherical Cool Diffusion Flames …
NASA and SpaceX now are targeting 2:21 a.m. EDT Sunday, Oct. 31, for the agency’s Crew-3 launch to the International Space Station to allow additional time for spacecraft processing. The backup launch time and date is 1:10 a.m. Wednesday, Nov. 3. NASA astronauts Raja Chari, mission commander, Tom Marshburn, pilot, and Kayla Barron, mission …
