Earth
NASA renames HQ in honor of ‘Hidden Figure’ Mary Jackson
NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine announced that the agency’s headquarters building in Washington, D.C., will be named in honor of Mary W. Jackson, the first African American female engineer at NASA. The ‘Hidden Figure’ story of Mary Jackson and other African-American women trailblazers that helped launch America’s first astronauts safely into space and back including Alan …
Dragon Endeavour delivers astronauts to ISS after historic flight
A pair of veteran NASA astronauts flying aboard a commercial SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft safely docked at the International Space Station ISS) this Sunday morning just 19 hours after the first human launch from US soil for the first time in nine years on a history-making and flawless blastoff from the Florida Space Coast. NASA …
James Webb’s primary mirror passes test before pandemic suspends work
The team building NASA’s mammoth James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) recently accomplished a major milestone – fully deploying its 21 foot (6.5 meter) primary mirror into the same configuration it will have when it is carrying out astronomical observations in space. However, NASA has also suspended virtually all future testing of the Webb Telescope – …
NASA prepares robot to traverse beneath oceans of Europa
NASA is planning a mission to look for life on Jupiter’s moon Europa and has created a rover that will be able to navigate its icy surface from above and below. That’s how BRUIE — the Buoyant Rover for Under-Ice Exploration — was born. A nimble and buoyant robot, BRUIE can traverse sheets of ice …
Christina Koch Breaks Record for Longest Female Spaceflight
NASA astronaut Christina Koch set a new mark for the longest single spaceflight by a female space flyer this past week on Saturday, Dec. 28 when she broke the record of 289 continuous days in space while living and working aboard the International Space Station (ISS) during the Christmas and New Year’s holiday season. Koch eclipsed …
Koch and Meir complete historic first all-female spacewalk
A dynamic duo of NASA women astronauts – Christina Koch and Jessica Meir – made history Friday, Oct. 18 when they carried out and successfully completed history’s first all-female spacewalk. Soaring some 400 kilometers above Earth while working and floating outside the International Space Station (ISS), they performed a critical task of swapping out a …
NASA’s first women-only spacewalk to occur this week
U.S. space agency NASA will send astronauts Anne McClain, 39, and Christina Koch, 40, on NASA’s first women-only spacewalk this Friday (March 29th). The all-female spacewalk also will be supported by a female ground crew: Mary Lawrence will serve as lead flight director and Jackie Kagey will be lead spacewalk flight controller at NASA’s Johnson …
SpaceX Crew Dragon completes successful first mission to ISS
The United States of America moved one giant step closer to regaining the ability to send astronauts into space today. Early this morning SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Florida after conducting a five-day test mission docked to the International Space Station. “If you just think about …
International Space Station’s 20 years of transformation
The largest and most complex international construction project in space began on the steppes of Kazakhstan 20 years ago today. Atop its Proton rocket, on Nov. 20, 1998, the Zarya Functional Cargo Block thundered off its launch pad at the Baikonur Cosmodrome to serve as a temporary control module for the nascent International Space Station. …
NASA mission in Senegal promotes scientific discovery
When NASA scientists assembled telescopes in her home country of Senegal, Binita Yanni knew very little about astronomy and didn’t realize a career in planetary sciences was even a possibility. Determined to learn why 21 U.S. telescopes were stationed throughout the Senegalese countryside, the 20-year-old chemical engineering student approached lead scientist Adriana Ocampo on the …