Friends of NASA (FoN) is an independent non-governmental organization (NGO) dedicated to building international support for peaceful space exploration, commerce, scientific discovery, and STEM education.
NASA Astronaut Profile: Loral O’Hara | International Space Station
NASA astronaut Loral O’Hara launched to the International Space Station for the first time on Sept. 15, 2023, from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, aboard a Russian Soyuz rocket. Her launch signifies a lifetime of dedication to exploration for O’Hara, who grew space-flown tomato seeds in the second grade, studied aerospace engineering in college, and even worked on scientific research vessels to study Earth’s oceans before coming to NASA.
O’Hara will serve as an Expedition 69 and 70 flight engineer over the course of her six-month mission. During her stay at the orbiting laboratory, she will work on hundreds of science experiments across a variety of disciplines including biology, physics, and physiology.
An international partnership of space agencies provides and operates the elements of the International Space Station (ISS). The principals are the space agencies of the United States, Russia, Europe, Japan, and Canada. The ISS has been the most politically complex space exploration program ever undertaken.
Expedition 70 Soyuz Rocket Launch in Kazakhstan | International Space Station
NASA astronaut Loral O’Hara and Roscosmos cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko (Олег Кононенко) and Nikolai Chub (Николай Чуб) of Russia are safely in orbit aboard the Soyuz MS-24 spacecraft after launching on a Russian Soyuz 2.1a launch vehicle at 11:44 a.m. EDT from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan (8:44 p.m. Baikonur time). The Soyuz spacecraft will dock to the International Space Station’s Rassvet module at 2:56 p.m EDT. A short time after docking, hatches between the Soyuz and the station will open.
NASA astronaut Loral O’Hara will begin a six-month mission aboard the station, and Kononenko and Chub will both spend a year on the orbital outpost. This is the first spaceflight for O'Hara.
An international partnership of space agencies provides and operates the elements of the International Space Station (ISS). The principals are the space agencies of the United States, Russia, Europe, Japan, and Canada. The ISS has been the most politically complex space exploration program ever undertaken.
Expedition 70 Soyuz Rocket Launch in Kazakhstan | International Space Station
A Russian Soyuz rocket for Expedition 70 successfully launched with NASA astronaut Loral O'Hara, and Roscosmos cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub of Russia, Friday, Sept. 15, 2023, at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
Expedition 70 crew members NASA astronaut Loral O’Hara, top, and Roscosmos cosmonauts Nikolai Chub, middle, and Oleg Kononenko of Russia wave farewell prior to boarding the Soyuz MS-24 spacecraft for launch, Friday, Sept. 15, 2023 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
Expedition 70 crew member NASA astronaut Loral O’Hara is seen prior to boarding the Soyuz MS-24 spacecraft for launch with fellow crewmates Roscosmos cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub of Russia.
The Soyuz rocket is seen in this 90-second exposure as it launches with Expedition 70 crew members.
NASA astronaut Loral O’Hara and Roscosmos cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub of Russia are safely in orbit aboard the Soyuz MS-24 spacecraft after launching on a Russian Soyuz rocket at 11:44 a.m. EDT from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan (8:44 p.m. Baikonur time). The Soyuz spacecraft will dock to the International Space Station’s Rassvet module at 2:56 p.m EDT. A short time after docking, hatches between the Soyuz and the station will open.
NASA astronaut Loral O’Hara will begin a six-month mission aboard the station, and Kononenko and Chub will both spend a year on the orbital outpost. This is the first spaceflight for O'Hara.
An international partnership of space agencies provides and operates the elements of the International Space Station (ISS). The principals are the space agencies of the United States, Russia, Europe, Japan, and Canada. The ISS has been the most politically complex space exploration program ever undertaken.
Image Credit: NASA's Johnson Space Center/Bill Ingalls
Summer 2023: The Hottest on Record | NASA Earth Science
Summer 2023 was Earth’s hottest since global records began in 1880, according to scientists at NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies (GISS) in New York.
The months of June, July, and August 2023 combined were 0.23 degrees Celsius (0.41 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than any other summer in NASA’s record, and 1.2°C (2.1°F) warmer than the average summer between 1951 and 1980. August alone was 1.2°C (2.2°F) warmer than the average. June through August is considered meteorological summer in the Northern Hemisphere.
The map here depicts global temperature anomalies for June, July, and August 2023. It shows how much warmer or cooler Earth was compared to the baseline average from 1951 to 1980. Note that the deepest reds are at least 4°C (7°F) above the mean.
This new record comes as exceptional heat swept across much of the world, exacerbating deadly wildfires in Canada and Hawaii, and searing heat waves in South America, Japan, Europe, and the U.S., while likely contributing to severe rainfall in Italy, Greece, and Central Europe.
NASA assembles its temperature record, known as GISTEMP, from surface air temperature data acquired by tens of thousands of meteorological stations, as well as sea surface temperature data from ship- and buoy-based instruments. This raw data is analyzed using methods that account for the varied spacing of temperature stations around the globe and for urban heating effects that could skew the calculations.
The analysis calculates temperature anomalies rather than absolute temperature. A temperature anomaly shows how far the temperature has departed from the 1951 to 1980 base average.
“Exceptionally high sea surface temperatures, fueled in part by the return of El Niño, were largely responsible for the summer’s record warmth,” said Josh Willis, climate scientist and oceanographer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.
El Niño is a natural climate phenomenon characterized by warmer than normal sea surface temperatures (and higher sea levels) in the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean.
The record-setting summer of 2023 continues a long-term trend of warming. Scientific observations and analyses made over decades by NASA, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and other international institutions have shown this warming has been driven primarily by human-caused greenhouse gas emissions. At the same time, natural El Niño events in the Pacific pump extra warmth into the global atmosphere and often correlate with the warmest years on record.
“With background warming and marine heat waves that have been creeping up on us for decades, this El Niño shot us over the hump for setting all kinds of records,” Willis said. “The heat waves that we experience now are longer, they’re hotter, and they’re more punishing. The atmosphere can also hold more water now, and when it’s hot and humid, it’s even harder for the human body to regulate its temperature.”
Willis and other scientists expect to see the biggest impacts of El Niño in February, March, and April 2024. El Niño is associated with the weakening of easterly trade winds and the movement of warm water from the western Pacific toward the western coast of the Americas. The phenomenon can have widespread effects, often bringing cooler, wetter conditions to the U.S. Southwest and drought to countries in the western Pacific, such as Indonesia and Australia.
“Unfortunately, climate change is happening. Things that we said would come to pass are coming to pass,” said Gavin Schmidt, climate scientist and director of GISS. “And it will get worse if we continue to emit carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into our atmosphere.”
NASA’s full temperature data set and the complete methodology used for the temperature calculation and its uncertainties are available online: https://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/
Video & Image Credits: NASA Earth Observatory images by Lauren Dauphin, based on data from the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies
Story Credit: Jenny Marder, NASA Earth Science News Team
Expedition 70 NASA Astronaut Loral O'Hara | International Space Station
NASA astronaut Loral O'Hara prepares to enter a Soyuz spacecraft simulator in her Sokol launch and entry suit for preflight training before beginning her mission to the International Space Station.
NASA astronaut Loral O'Hara conducts preflight training aboard a T-38 trainer jet at Ellington Field in Houston, Texas, before beginning her mission to the International Space Station.
NASA astronaut Loral O'Hara during spacewalk training at Johnson Space Center in Houston.
NASA astronaut Loral O'Hara - Official Portrait (2017)
NASA astronaut Loral O'Hara - Official Portrait (2022)
Expedition 70 Patch
NASA astronaut Loral O’Hara and Roscosmos cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub of Russia are scheduled to lift off on the Roscosmos Soyuz MS-24 spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 11:44 a.m. EDT (8:44 p.m. Baikonur time). NASA selected Loral O'Hara as an astronaut in 2017. This is her first spaceflight.
O’Hara, who will begin a six-month mission aboard the station, and Kononenko and Chub, who will both spend a year on the orbital outpost, will fly on a quick two-orbit, three-hour trajectory that will result in a scheduled docking to the station’s Rassvet module at 2:56 p.m. A short time later, hatches between the station and the Soyuz will open and the crew will be welcomed aboard.
An international partnership of space agencies provides and operates the elements of the International Space Station (ISS). The principals are the space agencies of the United States, Russia, Europe, Japan, and Canada. The ISS has been the most politically complex space exploration program ever undertaken.
A Blessing for Expedition 70 in Kazakhstan | International Space Station
A Russian Orthodox Priest blessed the Soyuz Rocket and personnel, Thursday, Sept. 14, 2023 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome launch pad 31 in Kazakhstan.
A Russian Orthodox priest blessed the Soyuz rocket and personnel for Expedition 70 on Thursday, Sept. 14, 2023, at the Baikonur Cosmodrome launch pad 31 in Kazakhstan.
A NASA astronaut and two Roscosmos cosmonauts (Russia) are set to launch to the International Space Station on Friday, Sept. 15, 2023. NASA astronaut Loral O’Hara and Roscosmos cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub of Russia are scheduled to lift off on the Roscosmos Soyuz MS-24 spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 11:44 a.m. EDT (8:44 p.m. Baikonur time).
O’Hara, who will begin a six-month mission aboard the station, and Kononenko and Chub, who will both spend a year on the orbital outpost, will fly on a quick two-orbit, three-hour trajectory that will result in a docking to the station’s Rassvet module at 2:56 p.m. A short time later, hatches between the station and the Soyuz will open and the crew will be welcomed aboard.
An international partnership of space agencies provides and operates the elements of the International Space Station (ISS). The principals are the space agencies of the United States, Russia, Europe, Japan, and Canada. The ISS has been the most politically complex space exploration program ever undertaken.
Image Credit: NASA's Johnson Space Center/Bill Ingalls
Expedition 70 Crew Press Conference in Kazakhstan | International Space Station
Expedition 70 NASA astronaut Loral O'Hara, left, Roscosmos cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko (Russia), and Nikolai Chub (Russia), right, pose for a group photograph while in quarantine behind glass during a press conference, Thursday, Sept. 14, 2023 at the Cosmonaut Hotel in Baikonur, Kazakhstan.
Expedition 70 astronaut Loral O'Hara is seen in quarantine behind glass during a press conference.
Expedition 70 NASA astronaut Loral O'Hara, left, Roscosmos cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko (Russia), and Nikolai Chub (Russia), right.
Expedition 70 prime crew NASA astronaut Loral O'Hara, left, and backup crew member NASA astronaut Tracy Dyson pose for a photograph
A NASA astronaut and two Roscosmos cosmonauts (Russia) are set to launch to the International Space Station on Friday, Sept. 15, 2023. NASA astronaut Loral O’Hara and Roscosmos cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub of Russia are scheduled to lift off on the Roscosmos Soyuz MS-24 spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 11:44 a.m. EDT (8:44 p.m. Baikonur time). O’Hara, who will begin a six-month mission aboard the station, and Kononenko and Chub, who will both spend a year on the orbital outpost, will fly on a quick two-orbit, three-hour trajectory that will result in a docking to the station’s Rassvet module at 2:56 p.m. A short time later, hatches between the station and the Soyuz will open and the crew will be welcomed aboard.
Expedition 69 Commander Sergey Prokopyev (Russia) and flight engineer Dmitri Petelin (Russia) will be on duty Friday to monitor the arrival of the new Soyuz. After the new crew docks and after leak and pressure checks, Prokopyev will open the station’s Rassvet hatch while Kononenko and Chub will open the Soyuz hatch. The new trio will enter the orbital outpost, join the station crew for a welcoming ceremony, participate in a safety briefing, and begin a six-month space research mission.
Prokopyev and Petelin continued preparing for the arrival of the new trio by setting up crew quarters for the new cosmonauts inside the orbital lab’s Roscosmos segment on Thursday. NASA Flight Engineer Frank Rubio will configure O’Hara’s new crew quarters in the Columbus laboratory module on Friday before she arrives.
Prokopyev, Petelin, and Rubio are also preparing for their return to Earth inside the Soyuz MS-23 spacecraft on Sept. 27. When Rubio lands with his Soyuz crewmates, he will have the record for the longest single spaceflight by a NASA astronaut at 371 days, surpassing astronaut Mark Vande Hei’s record of 355 days.
An international partnership of space agencies provides and operates the elements of the International Space Station (ISS). The principals are the space agencies of the United States, Russia, Europe, Japan, and Canada. The ISS has been the most politically complex space exploration program ever undertaken.
Image Credit: NASA's Johnson Space Center/Bill Ingalls
Spiral Galaxy NGC 7331 | Kitt Peak National Observatory
NGC 7331 is one of 18 galaxies chosen by the HST Extragalactic Distance Scale Key Project to calibrate secondary distance estimators. The project will use the Hubble Space Telescope to obtain an accurate distance to galaxies via Cepheid variables, with the ultimate goal of using these to measure H0 (a cosmological parameter) to an external accuracy of 10%. It was determined this galaxy is 49 million light years away (and perhaps 30,000 light years across). In this image you will see some of the nearby neighbors being both spiral and elliptical galaxies. Nearby this field (not shown) is another famous group of galaxies known as Stephan's Quintet.
This image was taken as part of Advanced Observing Program (AOP) program at Kitt Peak Visitor Center during 2014.
Credit: KPNO/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/Paul Mortfield and Dietmar Kupke/Flynn Haase
Q&A with NASA Psyche Spacecraft Solar Propulsion Engineer Julie Li | JPL
This is a replay of a live chat event with Julie Li, an engineer on NASA’s Psyche mission, which will be the first to explore a metal-rich asteroid. Li, of Maxar Technologies, shares how the Psyche team developed the solar electric propulsion hardware on the spacecraft and accepted questions from viewers.
The Psyche mission aims to help answer fundamental questions about Earth’s own metal core and the formation of our solar system. Scheduled to launch on Oct. 5, 2023, from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the spacecraft is expected to begin orbiting the asteroid Psyche in 2029.
"For most of human history, darkness meant danger. Humans sought out light to stay safe and extend our active hours. Centuries later, we’ve succeeded so well in our illumination efforts, we have literally dimmed the stars."
"Join host Baratunde Thurston in exploring one small town’s mission to become a Dark Sky Community and reclaim the darkness of night. Follow researchers in Western Colorado to discover how the darkness of night is not just important to experience the wonders of the cosmos, it’s vital to maintaining healthy ecosystems—and saving the epic migrations of America’s birds."
The Fading Milky Way
Light pollution is a growing environmental problem that threatens to erase the night sky before its time. A recent study revealed that perhaps two-thirds of the world's population can no longer look upwards at night and see the Milky Way—a hazy swath of stars that on warm summer nights spans the sky from horizon to horizon.
The Milky Way is dimming, not because the end of the Universe is near, but rather as a result of light pollution: the inadvertent illumination of the atmosphere from street lights, outdoor advertising, homes, schools, airports and other sources. Every night billions of bulbs send their energy skyward where microscopic bits of matter—air molecules, airborne dust, and water vapor droplets—reflect much of the wasted light back to Earth.
Herbig-Haro 211 Bipolar Jet in Perseus | James Webb Space Telescope
In this image from the NASA/European Space Agency/Canadian Space Agency James Webb Space Telescope is Herbig-Haro 211 (HH 211), a bipolar jet travelling through interstellar space at supersonic speeds. At roughly 1,000 light-years away from Earth in the constellation Perseus, the object is one of the youngest and nearest protostellar outflows, making it an ideal target for Webb.
Herbig-Haro objects are luminous regions surrounding newborn stars, and are formed when stellar winds or jets of gas spewing from these newborn stars form shockwaves colliding with nearby gas and dust at high speeds. This spectacular image of HH 211 reveals an outflow from a Class 0 protostar, an infantile analog of our Sun when it was no more than a few tens of thousands of years old and with a mass only 8% of the present-day Sun (it will eventually grow into a star like the Sun).
Infrared imaging is powerful in studying newborn stars and their outflows, because such stars are invariably still embedded within the gas from the molecular cloud in which they formed. The infrared emission of the star’s outflows penetrates the obscuring gas and dust, making a Herbig-Haro object like HH 211 ideal for observation with Webb’s sensitive infrared instruments. Molecules excited by the turbulent conditions, including molecular hydrogen, carbon monoxide and silicon monoxide, emit infrared light that Webb can collect to map out the structure of the outflows.
The image showcases a series of bow shocks to the southeast (lower-left) and northwest (upper-right) as well as the narrow bipolar jet that powers them in unprecedented detail—roughly 5 to 10 times higher spatial resolution than any previous images of HH 211. The inner jet is seen to “wiggle” with mirror symmetry on either side of the central protostar. This is in agreement with observations on smaller scales and suggests that the protostar may in fact be an unresolved binary star.
Image Description: At the center is a thin horizontal multi-colored cloud tilted from bottom left to top right. At its center is a dark brown cloud from which both outflows are spewing from. These outflows transition from colors of yellow/orange, to a light blue region, with prominent light pink features in the outer regions.
Credit: ESA/Webb, NASA, CSA, T. Ray (Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies)
A Fab Five: New Images | NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory
A new collection of images features data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory. These objects have been observed in invisible light—including X-rays, infrared, and radio—by some of the most powerful telescopes. Each layer represents data that has been assigned colors that the human eye can perceive, allowing us to explore these cosmic entities.
The objects in this quintet of images range both in distance and category. Vela and Kepler are the mesmerizing remains of exploded stars within our own Milky Way galaxy, the center of which can be seen in the top panorama. In NGC 1365, we see a double-barred spiral galaxy located about 60 million light-years from Earth. Farther away and on an even larger scale, ESO 137-001 shows what happens when a galaxy hurtles through space and leaves a wake behind it.
Let’s take a closer look at each one.
The Galactic Center is about 26,000 light-years years from Earth, but telescopes like NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory allow us to visit virtually. The center of the Milky Way contains a supermassive black hole, superheated clouds of gas, massive stars, neutron stars, and much more.
By combining data from NASA’s Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (or “ix-pee” as it’s known for short), Chandra, and NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, researchers are probing Vela, the aftermath of a star that collapsed and exploded and now sends a remarkable storm of particles and energy into space. IXPE shows the average orientation of the X-rays with respect to the jet in this image.
The center of the spiral galaxy NGC 1365 contains a supermassive black hole being fed by a steady stream of material. Some of the hot gas revealed in the X-ray image from Chandra will eventually be pulled into the black hole. The Chandra image has been combined with infrared data from Webb.
The Kepler supernova remnant is the remains of a white dwarf that exploded after undergoing a thermonuclear explosion. Chandra shows a powerful blast wave that ripped through space after the detonation, while infrared data from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope and optical light from Hubble show the debris of the destroyed star.
As the galaxy moves through space at 1.5 million miles per hour, it leaves not one—but two—tails behind it. These tails trailing after ESO 137-001 are made of superheated gas that Chandra detects in X-rays. The European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope shows light from hydrogen atoms, which have been added to the image along with optical and infrared data from Hubble.
Cosmic Careers: NBL Diver | NASA Needs Scuba Divers | Johnson Space Center
Human spaceflight is a team sport—and not everyone needs a Ph.D. to be a part of it. In Cosmic Careers, we explore the different, and sometimes unusual jobs needed to make NASA’s mission possible. We’re making a splash this episode with divers Emily Cox and Reilly Holmgreen. They work at NASA’s Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory (NBL) and explain that if you want to work underwater with astronauts in training, all you need is a dive certification.
The Neutral Buoyancy Lab is 40 foot deep pool where astronauts can train for spacewalks—the process of putting on a spacesuit and performing tasks out in the vacuum of space. Come along to the bottom of the pool with our host Dane Turner for a tour of the International Space Station’s mockups and the lunar terrain area that astronauts will use to practice working on the lunar surface through NASA’s Artemis program.
NASA Visits Virginia Baseball Game | Langley Research Center
NASA's Langley Research Center has nearly 200 facilities on 764 acres in Hampton, Virginia. It employs about 3,400 civil servants and contractors. Langley works to improve aviation, to expand our understanding of Earth’s atmosphere, and to develop new technologies for space exploration.
NASA Langley is having an open house on Saturday, Oct. 21, 2023, from 9am to 4pm!
This fall, visit Langley and see NASA facilities in person, hear from experts on the latest missions at NASA, and take part in STEM activities.
Mark your calendars and tell your friends!
The Langley Research Center (LaRC or NASA Langley) is the oldest of NASA's field centers. LaRC has focused primarily on aeronautical research but has also tested space hardware such as the Apollo Lunar Module. In addition, many of the earliest high-profile space missions were planned and designed on-site.
Established in 1917 by the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), the Langley Research Center devotes two-thirds of its programs to aeronautics and the rest to space. LaRC researchers use more than 40 wind tunnels to study and improve aircraft and spacecraft safety, performance, and efficiency. Between 1958 and 1963, when NASA (the successor agency to NACA) started Project Mercury, LaRC served as the main office of the Space Task Group.
NASA's "Espacio a Tierra" | Amerizaje en el Atlántico: 8 de septiembre de 2023
Espacio a Tierra, la versión en español de las cápsulas Space to Ground de la NASA, te informa semanalmente de lo que está sucediendo en la Estación Espacial Internacional.
