NASA
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NASA
Goodnight, Moon: NASA Cameras on Blue Ghost Capture Lunar Sunset
This compressed, resolution-limited gif shows the view of lunar sunset from one of the six Stereo Cameras for Lunar-Plume Surface Studies (SCALPSS) 1.1 cameras on Firefly’s Blue Ghost lander, which operated on the Moon’s surface for a little more than 14 days and stopped, as anticipated, a few hours into lunar night. SCALPSS was taking images every 10 minutes during…
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NASA
ESA Previews Euclid Mission’s Deep View of ‘Dark Universe’
With contributions from NASA, the mission is looking back into the universe’s history to understand how the universe’s expansion has changed. The Euclid mission — led by ESA (European Space Agency) with contributions from NASA — aims to find out why our universe is expanding at an accelerating rate. Astronomers use the term “dark energy” to refer to the unknown…
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NASA
Sols 4481-4483: Humber Pie
Written by Michelle Minitti, Planetary Geologist at Framework Earth planning date: Friday, March 14, 2025 The rover successfully arrived at the “Humber Park” outcrop which, on this fine “Pi Day” on Earth, we could convince ourselves looked like a pie with a sandy interior and a rough and rocky crust. We can only hope our instruments are as excited to…
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NASA
Welcome Home! NASA’s SpaceX Crew-9 Back on Earth After Science Mission
NASA’s SpaceX Crew-9 completed the agency’s ninth commercial crew rotation mission to the International Space Station on Tuesday, splashing down safely in a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft off the coast of Tallahassee, Florida, in the Gulf of America. NASA astronauts Nick Hague, Suni Williams, and Butch Wilmore, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov, returned to Earth at 5:57 p.m. EDT. Teams aboard SpaceX recovery vessels retrieved the spacecraft…
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NASA
NASA Science Continues After Firefly’s First Moon Mission Concludes
After landing on the Moon with NASA science and technology demonstrations March 2, Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost Mission 1 concluded its mission March 16. Analysis of data returned to Earth from the NASA instruments continues, benefitting future lunar missions. As part of NASA’s CLPS (Commercial Lunar Payload Services) initiative and Artemis campaign, Firefly’s Blue Ghost lunar lander delivered 10 NASA science and…
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NASA
NASA Invites Media to View Wildland Fire Technology Flight Test
NASA will conduct a live flight test of aircraft performing simulated wildland fire response operations using a newly developed airspace management system at 9 a.m. PDT on Tuesday, March 25, in Salinas, California. NASA’s new portable airspace management system, part of the agency’s Advanced Capabilities for Emergency Response Operations (ACERO) project, aims to significantly expand the window of time crews…
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NASA
NASA’s SpaceX Crew-9 Members Pose for Portrait
NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore, Nick Hague, and Suni Williams, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov – the members of NASA’s SpaceX Crew-9 mission – smile at the camera in this Feb. 19, 2025, photo. While aboard the International Space Station, Hague, Williams, and Wilmore completed more than 900 hours of research between more than 150 unique scientific experiments and technology demonstrations during their…
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NASA
Observing Storms from Skylab
Skylab 3 astronauts witnessed many spectacular sights during their 858 orbital trips around the Earth in the summer of 1973. One involved watching powerful Hurricane Ellen take shape off the West African coast. “There’s a nice storm down there. She looks pretty big. She’s got a lot of clouds,” said astronaut Alan L. Bean upon viewing the storm from Skylab’s low-Earth orbit. Knowing…
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NASA
Atomic Layer Processing Coating Techniques Enable Missions to See Further into the Ultraviolet
Astrophysics observations at ultraviolet (UV) wavelengths often probe the most dynamic aspects of the universe. However, the high energy of ultraviolet photons means that their interaction with the materials that make up an observing instrument are less efficient, resulting in low overall throughput. New approaches in the development of thin film coatings are addressing this shortcoming by engineering the coatings…
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NASA
Bringing the Heat: Abigail Howard Leads Thermal Systems for Artemis Rovers, Tools
Depending on where you stand at the lunar South Pole, you may experience temperatures of 130°F (54°C) during sunlit periods, or as low as -334°F (-203°C) in a permanently shadowed region. Keeping crews comfortable and tools and vehicles operational in such extreme temperatures is a key challenge for engineers at Johnson Space Center working on elements of NASA’s Artemis campaign.…
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