NASA
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NASA
A Rover Retrospective: Turning Trials to Triumphs in 2024
A look back at a few Mars 2020 mission highlights of 2024 Perseverance’s past year operating on the surface of Mars was filled with some of the mission’s highest highs, but also some of its greatest challenges. True to its name and its reputation as a mission that overcomes challenges, Perseverance and its team of scientists and engineers turned…
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NASA
NASA Selects Electrical Systems Engineering Services Contractor
NASA has selected Columbus Technologies and Services Inc. of El Segundo, California, to provide electrical and electronic engineering support to the agency’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. The Electrical Systems Engineering Services IV is a cost-plus-award-fee indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract with a maximum estimated value of $1.1 billion. The base period of performance begins on April 9 and runs for…
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NASA
Houston, We Have the Holiday Cookies
Supporting the International Space Station is an around-the-clock responsibility for NASA and its international partners. This means there is always a team of flight operations and payload personnel working with the orbiting laboratory’s crew – including overnight, on weekends, and during the holidays. At Johnson Space Center’s Mission Control Center (MCC) in Houston, flight directors organize fun activities to help…
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NASA
415 Years Ago: Astronomer Galileo Discovers Jupiter’s Moons
On Jan. 7, 1610, Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei peered through his newly improved 20-power homemade telescope at the planet Jupiter. He noticed three other points of light near the planet, at first believing them to be distant stars. Observing them over several nights, he noted that they appeared to move in the wrong direction with regard to the background stars…
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NASA
Astronaut Set to Patch NASA’s X-ray Telescope Aboard Space Station
NASA astronaut Nick Hague will install patches to the agency’s NICER (Neutron star Interior Composition Explorer) X-ray telescope on the International Space Station as part of a spacewalk scheduled for Jan. 16. Hague, along with astronaut Suni Williams, will also complete other tasks during the outing. NICER will be the first NASA observatory repaired on-orbit since the last servicing mission for the Hubble…
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NASA
NASA to Test Solution for Radiation-Tolerant Computing in Space
Onboard computers are critical to space exploration, aiding nearly every spacecraft function from propulsion and navigation systems to life support technology, science data retrieval and analysis, communications, and reentry. But computers in space are susceptible to ionizing solar and cosmic radiation. Just one high-energy particle can trigger a so-called “single event effect,” causing minor data errors that lead to cascading…
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NASA
NASA Lander to Test Vacuum Cleaner on Moon for Sample Collection
Among all the challenges of voyaging to and successfully landing on other worlds, the effective collection and study of soil and rock samples cannot be underestimated. To quickly and thoroughly collect and analyze samples during next-generation Artemis Moon missions and future journeys to Mars and other planetary bodies, NASA seeks a paradigm shift in techniques that will more cost-effectively obtain samples, conduct in…
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NASA
NASA Joins Telescope, Instruments to Roman Spacecraft
Technicians have successfully integrated NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope’s payload – the telescope, instrument carrier, and two instruments – to the spacecraft that will deliver the observatory to its place in space and enable it to function while there. “With this incredible milestone, Roman remains on track for launch, and we’re a big step closer to unveiling the cosmos…
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NASA
NASA’s 2024 International Space Station Achievements
For more than 24 years, NASA has supported a continuous U.S. human presence aboard the International Space Station, advancing scientific knowledge and making research breakthroughs not possible on Earth for the benefit of humanity. The space station is a springboard to NASA’s next great leaps in exploration, including future missions to the Moon under Artemis, and ultimately, human exploration of…
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NASA
Sols 4416-4417: New Year, New Clouds
Earth planning date: Monday, Jan. 6, 2025 After our marathon holiday plan, we’re easing back into the new year with a standard two-sol plan. We did arrive today to the news that the drive hadn’t made it as far as we wanted, but luckily the rover planners determined that we were still in a good position to do contact science…
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