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The Earth's horizon is barely visible as the International Space Station soars into an orbital sunset 261 miles above northeastern China. In the foreground, are the Canadarm2 robotic arm (left) with the Dextre fine-tuned robotic hand attached and the orbital outpost's main solar arrays (right) and shorter roll-out solar arrays. The International Space Station completes one trip around the globe every 92 minutes. Cruising along at 27,700 km (17,200 miles) per hour, crews experience 15 or 16 sunrises and sets every day.
Station Commander: Andreas Mogensen of the European Space Agency (Denmark)
Roscosmos (Russia): Oleg Kononenko, Nikolai Chub, Konstantin Borisov
JAXA: Flight Engineer Satoshi Furukawa (Japan)
NASA: Jasmin Moghbeli, Loral O'Hara (USA)
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.
Learn more about the important research being operated on Station:
China & France Set to Launch Astronomical Satellite for Gamma-Ray Burst Detection
An astronomical satellite, jointly developed by Chinese and French scientists, is scheduled for launch in June 2024. It will detect gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) and study cosmic evolution and dark energy, according to the Innovation Academy for Microsatellites under the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Research, development and assembly tasks, as well as environmental testing, for the satellite have been successfully completed. A quality review of the satellite before delivery has already been conducted by experts from China and France.
At the Innovation Academy of Microsatellites, Zhang Yonghe, the leader in charge of the satellite system, explained that the satellite is called a multi-band GRB detection satellite due to its wide bandwidth coverage.
The satellite possesses excellent maneuvering capabilities, stable observation capabilities, and the ability to conduct coordinated detection with Earth-based telescopes through rapid space-to-ground communication, Zhang said.
"After detecting gamma-ray bursts in space, the satellite will establish communication with Earth-based telescopes. It can transmit observational data from space to the ground within one minute, allowing more Earth-based telescopes to observe gamma-ray bursts. If signals of gravitational waves are detected, ground control can also rapidly send instructions to the satellite to observe these waves," Zhang said.
The satellite is equipped with four payloads. China is responsible for providing two payloads, including a gamma-ray monitor and an optical telescope, while France contributes the other two payloads—a hard X-ray camera and a soft X-ray telescope.
Gamma-ray bursts are immensely energetic explosions that have been observed in distant galaxies, making them the most significant targets for study in time-domain astronomy. Through this satellite, scientists from both countries hope to unravel scientific mysteries from the depths of the universe and since the Big Bang.
"Scientists aspire to discover the light emitted by very early stellar explosions. Due to the vast amount of time it takes for the light to reach Earth, it holds immense value in revealing the origin of the universe and shedding light on signals from the early universe," Zhang said.
Clouds on Peaks of Snow-capped Alps | International Space Station
Clouds stop on the peaks of the snow-capped Alps that separate Italy's Po Valley from Austria in this photograph from the International Space Station as it orbited 261 miles above.
Station Commander: Andreas Mogensen of the European Space Agency (Denmark)
Roscosmos (Russia): Oleg Kononenko, Nikolai Chub, Konstantin Borisov
JAXA: Flight Engineer Satoshi Furukawa (Japan)
NASA: Jasmin Moghbeli, Loral O'Hara (USA)
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.
Learn more about the important research being operated on Station:
Hubble Uncovers Water Vapor in Small Exoplanet’s Atmosphere | NASA Goddard
Astronomers using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope have observed water vapor in the atmosphere of the smallest exoplanet ever detected. Located 97 light-years away, planet GJ 9827d is approximately twice the size of Earth.
This finding raises the possibility of other planets with water-rich atmospheres in our galaxy. However, it remains uncertain whether the observed water vapor is in a hydrogen-rich atmosphere or if the planet's atmosphere is predominantly water.
Water on a planet this small is a landmark discovery, pushing us closer than ever to characterizing truly Earth-like worlds, and thanks to the Hubble Space Telescope we will be able to continue our search for more planets like our own.
Because the planet is as hot as Venus at roughly 425 degrees Celsius, it definitely would be an inhospitable, steamy world if the atmosphere were predominantly water vapor.
At present the team is left with two possibilities. The planet is still clinging to a hydrogen-rich envelope laced with water, making it a mini-Neptune. Alternatively, it could be a warmer version of Jupiter’s moon Europa, which has twice as much water as Earth beneath its crust.
If the planet has a residual water-rich atmosphere, then it must have formed farther away from its host star, where the temperature is cold and water is available in the form of ice, than its present location. In this scenario, the planet would have then migrated closer to the star and received more radiation. The hydrogen was then heated and escaped, or is still in the process of escaping, the planet’s weak gravity. The alternative theory is that the planet formed close to the hot star, with a trace of water in its atmosphere.
The Hubble program observed the planet during 11 transits—events in which the planet crossed in front of its star—that were spaced out over three years. During transits, starlight is filtered through the planet’s atmosphere and carries the spectral fingerprint of water molecules. If there are clouds on the planet, they are low enough in the atmosphere that they do not completely hide Hubble’s view of the atmosphere, and Hubble is able to probe water vapor above the clouds.
Hubble’s discovery opens the door to studying the planet in more detail. It is a good target for the James Webb Space Telescope to do infrared spectroscopy to look for other atmospheric molecules.
GJ 9827d was discovered by NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope in 2017. It completes an orbit around a red dwarf star every 6.2 days. The star, GJ 9827, lies 97 light-years from Earth in the constellation Pisces.
Olympic Figure Skaters Explore Jupiter's Icy Moon Europa with NASA | JPL
Explore icy moons, like Jupiter’s moon Europa, with Olympic figure skaters Kaitlin Hawayek and Jean-Luc Baker!
Dr. Trina Ray, an astronomer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and a member of the Europa Clipper mission team, answers their questions about why Europa’s surface is one big ice sheet, and what it might be like to skate there.
After its scheduled October 2024 launch, Europa Clipper will embark on a six-year, 1.8-billion-mile (2.9-billion-kilometer) journey to this ocean world, that it will begin investigating in earnest starting in 2031.
The Europa Clipper spacecraft will train nine science instruments on Europa, all producing large amounts of rich data: high-resolution color and stereo images to study its geology and surface; thermal images in infrared light to find warmer areas where water could be near the surface; reflected infrared light to map ices, salts, and organics; and ultraviolet light readings to help determine the makeup of atmospheric gases and surface materials. Clipper will bounce ice-penetrating radar off the subsurface ocean to determine its depth, as well as the thickness of the ice crust above it. A magnetometer will measure the moon’s magnetic field to confirm the deep ocean’s existence and the thickness of the ice.
The Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, designed Europa Clipper’s body in collaboration with JPL and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
NASA's Space to Ground: Stronger Together | Week of Jan. 26, 2024
NASA's Space to Ground is your weekly update on what's happening aboard the International Space Station. There are eleven people and eight nationalities currently onboard the orbital complex.
Axiom Space’s Ax-3 Mission is visiting the International Space Station. The crew includes commander Michael López-Alegría (Spain-USA), pilot Walter Villadei (Italy), mission specialist Alper Gezeravcı (Türkiye) and European Space Agency project astronaut Marcus Wandt (Sweden).
Station Commander: Andreas Mogensen of the European Space Agency (Denmark)
Roscosmos (Russia): Oleg Kononenko, Nikolai Chub, Konstantin Borisov
JAXA: Flight Engineer Satoshi Furukawa (Japan)
NASA: Jasmin Moghbeli, Loral O'Hara (USA)
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.
Learn more about the important research being operated on Station:
The Twisted Dusty Disk of Galaxy NGC 4753 | Gemini South Telescope
Discovered by astronomer William Herschel in 1784, NGC 4753 displays truly fascinating features. In this image captured by the Gemini South telescope, one half of the International Gemini Observatory operated by National Science Foundation’s NOIRLab, the galaxy’s intricate dust lanes are a sight to behold. NGC 4753 is located about 60 million light-years away in the constellation Virgo.
It is a member of the NGC 4753 Group of galaxies within the Virgo II Cloud—a series of at least 100 galaxy clusters and individual galaxies stretching off the southern edge of the Virgo Supercluster. A 1992 study of NGC 4753 found that its complex network of twisted dust lanes is likely the result of a merger with a nearby dwarf galaxy companion about 1.3 billion years ago.
The 8.1 meter diameter Gemini South telescope is located on a mountain in the Chilean Andes called Cerro Pachón, where very dry air and negligible cloud cover make this another prime telescope location.
Credit: International Gemini Observatory/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA
Image Processing: J. Miller (International Gemini Observatory/NSF’s NOIRLab), M. Rodriguez (International Gemini Observatory/NSF’s NOIRLab), M. Zamani (NSF’s NOIRLab)
The Legacy of NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter | NASA/JPL
On April 19, 2021, NASA's Ingenuity Mars Helicopter made history when it completed the first powered, controlled flight on the Red Planet. It flew for the last time on January 18, 2024.
Designed to be a technology demonstration that would make no more than five test flights in 30 days, the helicopter eventually completed 72 flights in just under 3 years, soaring higher and faster than previously imagined. Ingenuity embarked on a new mission as an operations demonstration, serving as an aerial scout for scientists and rover planners, and for engineers ready to learn more about Perseverance’s landing gear debris.
In its final phase, the helicopter entered a new engineering demonstration phase where it executed experimental flight tests that further expanded the team’s knowledge of the vehicle’s aerodynamic limits.
NASA invites the public to celebrate Ingenuity’s legacy by sharing messages on social media with the hashtag #ThanksIngenuity.
Ingenuity's flights repeatedly proved its ability to fly in the extremely thin atmosphere of Mars, over a hundred million miles from Earth, without direct human control. Because radio signals take between 5–20 minutes to travel between Earth and Mars—depending on planetary positions—Ingenuity had to operate autonomously, performing maneuvers planned, scripted and transmitted to it by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).
The Ingenuity Mars Helicopter was built by JPL, and it also managed this technology demonstration project for NASA Headquarters. It was supported by NASA’s Science, Aeronautics, and Space Technology mission directorates. NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley and NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, provided significant flight performance analysis and technical assistance during Ingenuity’s development. AeroVironment Inc., Qualcomm, and SolAero also provided design assistance and major vehicle components. Lockheed Martin Space designed and manufactured the Mars Helicopter Delivery System.
Ingenuity's rotors measure 1.2 m (4 ft), and its entire body is 0.49 m (1 ft 7 in) tall. Its fuselage measures 13.6 cm × 19.5 cm × 16.3 cm (5.4 in × 7.7 in × 6.4 in), with four landing legs of 0.384 m (1 ft 3.1 in) each. It is operated by solar-charged batteries that power dual counter-rotating rotors mounted one above the other.
The Martian atmosphere is extremely thin—at the surface just about one percent of the pressure of Earth’s atmosphere at sea level.
Main Job: A technology demonstration to test the first powered flight on Mars. The helicopter rode to Mars attached to the belly of the Perseverance rover.
Launch: July 30, 2020, Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida
Landed: Feb. 18, 2021, Jezero Crater, Mars
Length of Mission:Technology demonstration complete; transitioned to new operations demo phase
The Mars 2020 Perseverance mission is part of NASA's Moon to Mars exploration approach, which includes Artemis missions to the Moon that will help prepare for human exploration of the Red Planet.
Mission Name: Mars 2020
Rover Name: Perseverance
Main Job: Seek signs of ancient life and collect samples of rock and regolith (broken rock and soil) for possible return to Earth.
NASA’s Mars Helicopter Team Says Goodbye | NASA/JPL
The Mars Ingenuity Helicopter flew for the last time on Jan. 18, 2024, and NASA concluded its flight operations after post-flight imagery confirmed damage to at least one of the rotorcraft’s rotor blades that rendered it no longer capable of flight. As the historic mission comes to its end, Ingenuity’s team reflects on some of their favorite moments and memories from the helicopter’s time on Mars.
Designed as a technology demonstration that was expected to fly no more than five times over 30 days, the helicopter’s primary mission was to prove that powered, controlled flight on another planet was possible. It accomplished this on April 19, 2021. However, Ingenuity exceeded expectations and transitioned into an operations demonstration – completing 72 flights in just under three years and paving the way for future aerial exploration on the Red Planet and beyond.
NASA invites the public to celebrate Ingenuity’s legacy by sharing messages on social media with the hashtag #ThanksIngenuity.
Ingenuity's flights repeatedly proved its ability to fly in the extremely thin atmosphere of Mars, over a hundred million miles from Earth, without direct human control. Because radio signals take between 5–20 minutes to travel between Earth and Mars—depending on planetary positions—Ingenuity had to operate autonomously, performing maneuvers planned, scripted and transmitted to it by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).
The Ingenuity Mars Helicopter was built by JPL, and it also managed this technology demonstration project for NASA Headquarters. It was supported by NASA’s Science, Aeronautics, and Space Technology mission directorates. NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley and NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, provided significant flight performance analysis and technical assistance during Ingenuity’s development. AeroVironment Inc., Qualcomm, and SolAero also provided design assistance and major vehicle components. Lockheed Martin Space designed and manufactured the Mars Helicopter Delivery System.
Ingenuity's rotors measure 1.2 m (4 ft), and its entire body is 0.49 m (1 ft 7 in) tall. Its fuselage measures 13.6 cm × 19.5 cm × 16.3 cm (5.4 in × 7.7 in × 6.4 in), with four landing legs of 0.384 m (1 ft 3.1 in) each. It is operated by solar-charged batteries that power dual counter-rotating rotors mounted one above the other.
The Martian atmosphere is extremely thin—at the surface just about one percent of the pressure of Earth’s atmosphere at sea level.
Main Job: A technology demonstration to test the first powered flight on Mars. The helicopter rode to Mars attached to the belly of the Perseverance rover.
Launch: July 30, 2020, Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida
Landed: Feb. 18, 2021, Jezero Crater, Mars
Length of Mission:Technology demonstration complete; transitioned to new operations demo phase
The Mars 2020 Perseverance mission is part of NASA's Moon to Mars exploration approach, which includes Artemis missions to the Moon that will help prepare for human exploration of the Red Planet.
Mission Name: Mars 2020
Rover Name: Perseverance
Main Job: Seek signs of ancient life and collect samples of rock and regolith (broken rock and soil) for possible return to Earth.
Launch: July 30, 2020
Landing: Feb. 18, 2021, Jezero Crater, Mars
Video Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech; WATSON images: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS; Mastcam-Z images: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS
Full House: Ax-3 & Expedition 70 Crews | International Space Station
Holding on to each other to keep from floating away, the newcomers from the Axiom 3 mission (Ax-3) pose up front for a crowded crew picture on the International Space Station. There are eleven people and eight nationalities currently onboard the orbital complex.
European Space Agency (ESA) project astronaut Marcus Wandt, on the left and with a Swedish flag on his flight suit, became the 677th person to go to space on January 20, 2024, when the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft seamlessly docked with the Space Station.
The Expedition 70 crew members were waiting for him and his Axiom 3 colleagues Walter Villadei from Italy, Alper Gezeravcı from Türkiye and Michael López-Alegría, a dual US-Spanish citizen.
“It was very strange to have someone knock on the hatch after 36 hours travelling in the capsule,” said Marcus during the welcome ceremony. It was 12:16 GMT (13:16 CET) when a ’weightless’ Marcus went through the hatch of the Harmony module, marking the start of his Muninn mission.
Right behind him in this space family picture is his friend, colleague and Station’s commander Andreas Mogensen from Denmark. This is the first time two Scandinavians are together in space.
A happy Marcus spent his first day in space settling in for his two-week stay. He set up his belongings in Europe’s CASA sleeping crew quarters in the Columbus laboratory, began unloading the cargo from the Dragon capsule and synced up with the Expedition 70 crew members to live and work together in their new space home.
After his first night’s sleep on the International Space Station, the Ax-3 crew finished unpacking the Dragon cargo to begin a full slate of microgravity research, technology demonstrations and outreach activities.
In total, Marcus will run around 20 experiments, ranging from studies into how the design of space habitats affects an astronaut’s stress levels to unraveling the changes in cellular structures and gene expression in microgravity. He will also take part in educational programs.
The mission is scheduled to conclude on February 3, 2024, with undocking, culminating in a splashdown off the coast of Florida aboard the Dragon spacecraft.
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.
NASA Day of Remembrance 2024: Honoring Our Fallen Heroes
NASA remembers the crews of Apollo 1, Challenger STS-51L, and Columbia STS-107 during the agency's Day of Remembrance on Jan. 25, 2024.
Our annual Day of Remembrance honors all members of the NASA family who lost their lives while furthering the cause of exploration and discovery. We pause to honor them and reflect on maintaining a strong safety culture.
Japan's Experimental SLIM Mission Moon Landing: Onboard Camera View
JAXA’s Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) successfully landed on the Moon on January 20, 2024, at 00:20 Japan Standard Time. Images from the navigation camera (CAM-PX) show its landing descent trajectory. Photo taken by CAM-PX immediately after landing shows the surrounding area.
The Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) is a Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) mission designed to demonstrate accurate lunar landing techniques.
The landed weight was about 210 kg. The landing objective was to be within 100 meters of the target point, the ejecta blanket of Shioli Crater (a crater centered at approximately 13.322 S, 25.232 E). Shioli is a small lunar impact crater that is located within the much larger Cyrillus Crater on the near side of the Moon. It is a young crater with a prominent ray system.
SLIM launched on September 7, 2023, as a "ride-share" payload with the XRISM mission.
Credit: Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA)/立命館大学/会津大学
Simulation: Merging Galaxies & Hydrogen Emission in Early Universe | NASA Webb
One of the key missions of the NASA/European Space Agency/Canadian Space Agency James Webb Space Telescope is to probe the early Universe. Now, Webb’s unmatched resolution and sensitivity have revealed, for the first time, what lies in the local environment of galaxies in the very early Universe. This has solved one of the most puzzling mysteries in astronomy—why astronomers detect light from hydrogen atoms that should have been entirely blocked by the pristine gas that formed after the Big-Bang.
These new Webb observations have found small, faint galaxies surrounding the galaxies showing this ‘inexplicable’ hydrogen emission. In conjunction with state-of-the-art simulations of galaxies (a sample is highlighted in this video) in the early Universe, the observations have shown that the chaotic merging of these neighboring galaxies is the source of this hydrogen emission. This video showcases the studied merging system and the stripping of neutral gas from these objects.
This video was produced by Sergio Martin-Alvarez. The Azahar simulations shown in this video are the result of a collaboration of Stanford University and the University of Cambridge, generated in the Cosma supercomputers from the DIRAC UK HPC facilities.
NASA's X-59 Rollout: First Look at The Future of Supersonic Flight
Get excited for the first flight of X-59 in 2024!
Lockheed Martin rolled out the X-59 with NASA, revealing a first look at the future of commercial supersonic flight over land.
The X-59 is the centerpiece of NASA’s Quesst mission. It seeks to solve one of the major barriers to supersonic flight over land, currently banned in the United States, by making sonic booms quieter.
NASA’s X-59 quiet supersonic research aircraft is the product of decades of aeronautics and supersonic flight research. The X-59 is designed to be able to fly supersonic, or faster than the speed of sound, without producing a loud sonic boom. This occurs when aircraft fly at such speeds. Instead, the X-59 is designed to reduce that boom to a quieter sonic “thump.”
The X-59's goal is to help change existing national and international aviation rules that ban commercial supersonic flight over land.
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