Two Rings To Shear Them All!

Tornado Recovery Underway at Michoud Assembly Facility

Teams at our Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans worked overnight and are continuing Wednesday with assessment and recovery efforts following a tornado strike at the facility Tuesday at 11:25 a.m. CST. All 3,500 employees at the facility have been accounted for, with five sustaining minor injuries.

Teams worked through the night on temporary repairs to secure the perimeter fencing and provide access for the essential personnel through the main gate. Approximately 40 to 50 percent of the buildings at Michoud have some kind of damage; about five buildings have some form of severe damage.

Approximately 200 parked cars were damaged, and there was damage to roads and other areas near Michoud.

“The entire NASA family pulls together during good times and bad, and the teams at the Michoud Assembly Facility are working diligently to recover from the severe weather that swept through New Orleans Tuesday and damaged the facility,” said acting NASA Administrator Robert Lightfoot. “We are thankful for the safety of all the NASA employees and workers of onsite tenant organizations, and we are inspired by the resilience of Michoud as we continue to assess the facility’s status.”

Teams will reassess the condition of the Vertical Assembly Center (VAC), as the initial examination revealed some electrical damage to its substation. The VAC is used to weld all major pieces of hardware for the core stage of the Space Launch System. The most recently welded part was removed from the facility last week.

The team has prioritized completing the assessment at the site’s main manufacturing building for the Space Launch System and Orion spacecraft flight hardware so power can be restored in phases and temporary protection put in place to shield hardware from any further inclement weather.

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Tune in, Starliner! How NASA’s Near Space Network Powers Communications

On May 19, 2022, our partners at Boeing launched their Starliner CST-100 spacecraft to the International Space Station as a part of our Commercial Crew Program. This latest test puts the company one step closer to joining the SpaceX Crew Dragon in ferrying astronauts to and from the orbiting laboratory. We livestreamed the launch and docking at the International Space Station, but how? Let’s look at the communications and navigation infrastructure that makes these missions possible.

Primary voice and data communications are handled by our constellation of Tracking and Data Relay Satellites (TDRS), part of our Near Space Network. These spacecraft relay communications between the crewed vehicles and mission controllers across the country via terrestrial connections with TDRS ground stations in Las Cruces, New Mexico, and Guam, a U.S. territory in the Pacific Ocean.

TDRS, as the primary communications provider for the space station, is central to the services provided to Commercial Crew vehicles. All spacecraft visiting the orbiting laboratory need TDRS services to successfully complete their missions.

During launches, human spaceflight mission managers ensure that Commercial Crew missions receive all the TDRS services they need from the Near Space Operations Control Center at our Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. There, communications engineers synthesize network components into comprehensive and seamless services for spacecraft as they launch, dock, undock, and deorbit from the space station.

Nearby, at our Flight Dynamics Facility, navigation engineers track the spacecraft on their ascent, leveraging years of experience supporting the navigation needs of crewed missions. Using tracking data sent to our Johnson Space Center in Houston and relayed to Goddard, these engineers ensure astronaut safety throughout the vehicles’ journey to the space station.

Additionally, our Search and Rescue office monitors emergency beacons on Commercial Crew vehicles from their lab at Goddard. In the unlikely event of a launch abort, the international satellite-aided search and rescue network will be able to track and locate these beacons, helping rescue professionals to return the astronauts safely. For this specific uncrewed mission, the search and rescue system onboard the Boeing Starliner will not be activated until after landing for ground testing.

To learn more about NASA’s Space Communications and Navigation (SCaN) services and technologies, visit  https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/heo/scan/index.html. To learn more about NASA’s Near Space Network, visit https://esc.gsfc.nasa.gov/projects/NSN.

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How has being in space changed your perspective of life on Earth?

Oddly Satisfying #NASAMoonKits 🌙

What would you take with you to the Moon? 🧳

We’re getting ready for our Green Run Hot Fire test, which will fire all four engines of the rocket that will be used for our Artemis I mission. This test will ensure the Space Launch System rocket is ready for the first and future missions beyond Earth’s orbit, putting us one step closer to landing the first woman and the next man on the Moon!

In celebration of this important milestone, we’ve been asking everyone (yeah, you there!) to dust off your suitcase, get creative, and show us what you would take if you were heading to the Moon!

Take a moment to peruse these #oddlysatisfying #NASAMoonKits submitted by people like you, and let them inspire you to lay out your own masterpiece. Post a picture of what you’d pack for the moon using the hashtag #NASAMoonKit for a chance to be shared by us! ⁣

1. @alexandra4astronaut

A stunning #NASAMoonKit in blue. 💙

2.@timmerman.jess

Looks like a little friend is hoping to catch a ride with this #NASAMoonKit. 🐶

3. @guido_aerus_lombardo

A #NASAMoonKit fit for an explorer. 🧭

4. @melli.jp

Shout out to the monochrome #NASAMoonKit enthusiasts! 🖤

5. @mycactusdress

This #NASAMoonKit is thoughtfully laid out by a true fan. 📚

6. Mar Christian V. Cruz

This geologist’s #NASAMoonKit rocks. ⛏️

7. Nelli

Beauty in simple #NASAMoonKits. ✨

8. @urbanxkoi

This #NASAMoonKit successfully fits into our Expert Mode — a volume of 5” by 8” by 2” (12.7 cm x 20.32 cm x 5.08 cm). The Expert Mode dimensions are based on the amount of space astronauts are allowed when they travel to the International Space Station!

9. PWR Aerospace

Nothing like a cozy #NASAMoonKit. 🧦

10. LEGO

This #NASAMoonKit is clearly for the builder-types! 🧸

How to Show Us What’s In Your #NASAMoonKit:    

There are four social media platforms that you can use to submit your work:

Instagram: Use the Instagram app to upload your photo or video, and in the description include #NASAMoonKit  

Twitter: Share your image on Twitter and include #NASAMoonKit in the tweet  

Facebook: Share your image on Facebook and include #NASAMoonKit in the post  

Tumblr: Share your image in Tumblr and include #NASAMoonKit in the tags

If a #NASAMoonKit post catches our eye, we may share your post on our NASA social media accounts or share it on the Green Run broadcast! 

Click here for #NASAMoonKit Terms and Conditions.  

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Our New Satellite to Study the Edge of Space

We're about to launch a new satellite called ICON — the Ionospheric Connection Explorer — to study our planet's boundary to space.

The overlap between Earth's upper atmosphere and outer space is complicated and constantly changing. It's made up of a mix of neutral gas (like the air we breathe) and charged particles, where negatively charged electrons have separated from positively charged ions. This charged particle soup reacts uniquely to the changing electric and magnetic fields in near-Earth space, while weather conditions from here on Earth can also travel upwards and influence this region. This makes Earth's interface to space a dynamic, hard-to-predict region of the atmosphere.

Understanding what causes the changes in this region and how to predict them isn't just a matter of curiosity. Earth's boundary to space is home to many of our Earth-orbiting satellites, and it also plays a role in transmitting signals for communications and navigation systems. Unpredictable changes here can garble those signals and even shorten the lifetime of satellites.

ICON, launching on Nov. 7, will study this region with a unique combination of instruments. Orbiting about 360 miles above Earth, ICON will use its cameras to measure winds near the upper edge of Earth’s boundary to space and track atmospheric composition and temperature by studying a phenomenon called airglow. ICON also carries an instrument that will capture and measure the particles directly around the spacecraft, or in situ. 

ICON is launching aboard a Northrop Grumman Pegasus XL rocket. On launch day, the Pegasus XL is carried out over the ocean by Northrop Grumman's L-1011 Stargazer aircraft, which takes off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. About 50 miles off the coast of Florida, the Pegasus XL drops from the plane and free-falls for about five seconds before igniting and carrying ICON into low-Earth orbit.

NASA TV coverage of the launch starts at 2:45 a.m. EST on Nov. 7 at nasa.gov/live. You can also follow along with the mission on Twitter, Facebook or at nasa.gov/icon.

Meteorites Help Answer Questions About Solar System Evolution

A team of eight scientists including our own Astromaterials Curation Chief Cindy Evans spent two-months in the frozen landscape of Antarctica as part of the Antarctic Search for Meteorites (ANSMET), a 40-year program that has helped reveal information about asteroids, other bodies of our solar system and the red planet which will assist us on our Journey to Mars.

The team recovered nearly 570 new meteorite samples from the Miller Range of the Trans-Antarctic Mountains during the expedition.

After a several-month journey from Antarctica, these samples arrived at our Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, on April 14 to become part of the U.S. Antarctic meteorite collection housed at Johnson and the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.

Samples recovered from recent seasons include rare and scientifically valuable pieces of Mars and Moon, as well as rocks formed very early during the formation and evolution of the solar system that hold clues to the origin of volatiles, planets and the organic compounds essential to life.

Meteorites are currently the only way to acquire samples from Mars as well as new samples of the moon that are different from – and originated far from – the Apollo landing sites, as well as a variety of asteroid bodies.

Samples from this collection (representing nearly 40 individual collection seasons) are available to researchers worldwide, and hundreds are distributed every year by the Astromaterials Curation Office.

The meteorites collected give us important clues about the early solar system, but even the thousands of meteorites recovered over the years represent a tiny part of the larger puzzle, including a find in the 1990s that produced evidence that sparked a vigorous debate about whether life could have existed on Mars more than 3.6 billion years ago.

As engineers and scientists around the country work hard to develop the technologies astronauts will use to one day live and work on Mars, and safely return home from the next giant leap for humanity, the meteorites provide critical data that enable engineers to build the right technologies.

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Juno: Join the Mission!

Our Juno spacecraft may be millions of miles from Earth, but that doesn’t mean you can’t get involved with the mission and its science. Here are a few ways that you can join in on the fun:

Juno Orbit Insertion

This July 4, our solar-powered Juno spacecraft arrives at Jupiter after an almost five-year journey. In the evening of July 4, the spacecraft will perform a suspenseful orbit insertion maneuver, a 35-minute burn of its main engine, to slow the spacecraft by about 1,212 miles per hour so it can be captured into the gas giant’s orbit. Watch live coverage of these events on NASA Television:

Pre-Orbit Insertion Briefing Monday, July 4 at 12 p.m. EDT

Orbit Insertion Coverage Monday, July 4 at 10:30 p.m. EDT

Join Us On Social Media

Orbit Insertion Coverage Facebook Live Monday, July 4 at 10:30 p.m. EDT

Be sure to also check out and follow Juno coverage on the NASA Snapchat account!

JunoCam

The Juno spacecraft will give us new views of Jupiter’s swirling clouds, courtesy of its color camera called JunoCam. But unlike previous space missions, professional scientists will not be the ones producing the processed views, or even choosing which images to capture. Instead, the public will act as a virtual imaging team, participating in key steps of the process, from identifying features of interest to sharing the finished images online.

After JunoCam data arrives on Earth, members of the public will process the images to create color pictures. Juno scientists will ensure JunoCam returns a few great shots of Jupiter’s polar regions, but the overwhelming majority of the camera’s image targets will be chosen by the public, with the data being processed by them as well. Learn more about JunoCam HERE.

Follow our Juno mission on the web, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Tumblr.

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Each year we hold a Day of Remembrance. Today, Jan. 25, we pay tribute to the crews of Apollo 1 and space shuttles Challenger and Columbia, as well as other NASA colleagues who lost their lives while furthering the cause of exploration and discovery. 

#NASARemembers

Learn more about the Day of Remembrance HERE. 

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Solar System: Things to Know This Week

Reaching out into space yields benefits on Earth. Many of these have practical applications — but there's something more than that. Call it inspiration, perhaps, what photographer Ansel Adams referred to as nature's "endless prospect of magic and wonder." 

Our ongoing exploration of the solar system has yielded more than a few magical images. Why not keep some of them close by to inspire your own explorations? This week, we offer 10 planetary photos suitable for wallpapers on your desktop or phone. Find many more in our galleries. These images were the result of audacious expeditions into deep space; as author Edward Abbey said, "May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view."

1. Martian Selfie

This self-portrait of NASA's Curiosity Mars rover shows the robotic geologist in the "Murray Buttes" area on lower Mount Sharp. Key features on the skyline of this panorama are the dark mesa called "M12" to the left of the rover's mast and pale, upper Mount Sharp to the right of the mast. The top of M12 stands about 23 feet (7 meters) above the base of the sloping piles of rocks just behind Curiosity. The scene combines approximately 60 images taken by the Mars Hand Lens Imager, or MAHLI, camera at the end of the rover's robotic arm. Most of the component images were taken on September 17, 2016.

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2. The Colors of Pluto

NASA's New Horizons spacecraft captured this high-resolution, enhanced color view of Pluto on July 14, 2015. The image combines blue, red and infrared images taken by the Ralph/Multispectral Visual Imaging Camera (MVIC). Pluto's surface sports a remarkable range of subtle colors, enhanced in this view to a rainbow of pale blues, yellows, oranges, and deep reds. Many landforms have their own distinct colors, telling a complex geological and climatological story that scientists have only just begun to decode.

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3. The Day the Earth Smiled

On July 19, 2013, in an event celebrated the world over, our Cassini spacecraft slipped into Saturn's shadow and turned to image the planet, seven of its moons, its inner rings — and, in the background, our home planet, Earth. This mosaic is special as it marks the third time our home planet was imaged from the outer solar system; the second time it was imaged by Cassini from Saturn's orbit, the first time ever that inhabitants of Earth were made aware in advance that their photo would be taken from such a great distance.

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4. Looking Back

Before leaving the Pluto system forever, New Horizons turned back to see Pluto backlit by the sun. The small world's haze layer shows its blue color in this picture. The high-altitude haze is thought to be similar in nature to that seen at Saturn's moon Titan. The source of both hazes likely involves sunlight-initiated chemical reactions of nitrogen and methane, leading to relatively small, soot-like particles called tholins. This image was generated by combining information from blue, red and near-infrared images to closely replicate the color a human eye would perceive.

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5. Catching Its Own Tail

A huge storm churning through the atmosphere in Saturn's northern hemisphere overtakes itself as it encircles the planet in this true-color view from Cassini. This picture, captured on February 25, 2011, was taken about 12 weeks after the storm began, and the clouds by this time had formed a tail that wrapped around the planet. The storm is a prodigious source of radio noise, which comes from lightning deep within the planet's atmosphere.

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6. The Great Red Spot

Another massive storm, this time on Jupiter, as seen in this dramatic close-up by Voyager 1 in 1979. The Great Red Spot is much larger than the entire Earth.

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7. More Stormy Weather

Jupiter is still just as stormy today, as seen in this recent view from NASA's Juno spacecraft, when it soared directly over Jupiter's south pole on February 2, 2017, from an altitude of about 62,800 miles (101,000 kilometers) above the cloud tops. From this unique vantage point we see the terminator (where day meets night) cutting across the Jovian south polar region's restless, marbled atmosphere with the south pole itself approximately in the center of that border. This image was processed by citizen scientist John Landino. This enhanced color version highlights the bright high clouds and numerous meandering oval storms.

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8. X-Ray Vision

X-rays stream off the sun in this image showing observations from by our Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR, overlaid on a picture taken by our Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO). The NuSTAR data, seen in green and blue, reveal solar high-energy emission. The high-energy X-rays come from gas heated to above 3 million degrees. The red channel represents ultraviolet light captured by SDO, and shows the presence of lower-temperature material in the solar atmosphere at 1 million degrees.

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9. One Space Robot Photographs Another

This image from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows Victoria crater, near the equator of Mars. The crater is approximately half a mile (800 meters) in diameter. It has a distinctive scalloped shape to its rim, caused by erosion and downhill movement of crater wall material. Since January 2004, the Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity has been operating in the region where Victoria crater is found. Five days before this image was taken in October 2006, Opportunity arrived at the rim of the crater after a drive of more than over 5 miles (9 kilometers). The rover can be seen in this image, as a dot at roughly the "ten o'clock" position along the rim of the crater. (You can zoom in on the full-resolution version here.)

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10. Night Lights

Last, but far from least, is this remarkable new view of our home planet. Last week, we released new global maps of Earth at night, providing the clearest yet composite view of the patterns of human settlement across our planet. This composite image, one of three new full-hemisphere views, provides a view of the Americas at night from the NASA-NOAA Suomi-NPP satellite. The clouds and sun glint — added here for aesthetic effect — are derived from MODIS instrument land surface and cloud cover products.

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Discover more lists of 10 things to know about our solar system HERE.

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Put to the Test: Orion Service Module

Blasted with sound, shaken for hours and pyro detonated, the Orion Service Module Completes Ground Tests at our Glenn Research Center

We recently completed a structural integrity evaluation on the test version of the Orion service module at our Plum Brook Station in Sandusky, Ohio. Designed to ensure the module can withstand launch atop the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, the battery of tests was conducted in stages over a 16-month period.

The 13-ton European service module will power, propel and cool Orion, while supplying vital oxygen and water to its crew during future missions.

The Powerhouse: Space Launch System and Orion

Our Space Launch System is an advanced launch vehicle that will usher in a new era of human exploration beyond Earth’s orbit. SLS, with its unparalleled power and capabilities, will launch missions to explore deep-space destinations aboard our Orion spacecraft.

What is Orion? Named after one of the largest constellations in the night sky and drawing from more than 50 years of spaceflight research and development, the Orion spacecraft will be the safest, most advanced spacecraft ever built. It will be flexible and capable enough to take astronauts to a variety of deep destinations, including Mars.

Welcome to the Buckeye State

In November 2015, the full-sized test version of the Orion service module arrived at Cleveland Hopkins Airport aboard an Antonov AN-124. After being unloaded from one of the world’s largest transport aircraft, the module was shipped more than 50 miles by truck to Plum Brook for testing.

Spread Your Wings

The first step of the service module’s ground test journey at Plum Brook’s Space Power Facility, saw one of its 24-foot solar array wings deployed to verify operation of the power system. The test confirmed the array extended and locked into place, and all of the wing mechanisms functioned properly.

Can You Hear SLS Now?

The SLS will produce a tremendous amount of noise as it launches and climbs through our atmosphere. In fact, we’re projecting the rocket could produce up to 180 decibels, which is louder than 20 jet engines operating at the same time.

While at the Reverberant Acoustic Test Facility, the service module was hit with more than 150 decibels and 20-10,000 hertz of sound pressure. Microphones were placed inside the test environment to confirm it matched the expected acoustic environment during launch.

After being blasted by sound, it was time to rock the service module, literally.

Shake Without the Bake 

Launching atop the most powerful rocket ever built – we’re talking more than eight million pounds of thrust – will subject Orion to stresses never before experienced in spaceflight.

To ensure the launch doesn’t damage any vital equipment, the engineering team utilized the world’s most powerful vibration table to perform nearly 100 different tests, ranging from 2.5 Hz to 100 Hz, on the module in the summer of 2016. 

Gotta Keep ‘Em Separated

The team then moved the Orion test article from the vibration table into the high bay for pyroshock tests, which simulated the shock the service module will experience as it separates from the SLS during launch.

Following the sound, vibration and separation tests, a second solar array wing deployment was conducted to ensure the wing continued to properly unfurl and function.

Headed South for the Summer

The ground test phase was another crucial step toward the eventual launch of Exploration Mission-1, as it validated extensive design prep and computer modeling, and verified the spacecraft met our safety and flight requirements.

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