NASA – National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Preparations for NASA’s Artemis program are in full swing as the first mission, Artemis I, is set to launch later this year. However, one crucial part of the program that still requires a solution is navigation architecture. With extended stays on the moon, humans and autonomous robots alike would benefit greatly from having a system similar to GPS available.

NASA’s Lucy mission is primed to be the first space mission to study the Trojan asteroids around Jupiter. Today the mission moved one step closer to its launch following the successful integration of the L’TES instrument into the spacecraft.

Good spacesuits are arguably the most crucial aspect of any mission to space that involves humans. Even an uncomfortable spacesuit could impose substantial issues or limitations that you wouldn’t expect. That’s why engineers and designers at NASA have been hard at work designing a next-generation spacesuit called xEMU.

Back in early October, Northrup Grumman launched a Cygnus spacecraft named after NASA Astronaut Kalpana Chawla on top of an Antares rocket from Wallops Island, Virginia. It carried over 8,000 pounds of supplies to the station and was released today by ground teams.

The Washington Post’s Christian Davenport reports that NASA is considering extending the mission duration of the Crew-1 astronauts aboard the International Space Station.

NASA astronauts Mike Hopkins, Victor Glover, Shannon Walker, and JAXA astronaut Soichi Noguchi arrived at the station in mid-November. The four astronauts launched from Kennedy Space Center inside a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule atop a Falcon 9 rocket.

A couple of weeks ago, on December 20, NASA completed the wet dress rehearsal test for the Space Launch System (SLS) core stage. And then today, the agency finally announced that it would be moving forward with the green run hot fire test, targeting a date “as early as January 17.”

SPHEREx, or Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer, is NASA’s newest space telescope, and today, NASA announced that the project has entered into “Phase C.” This is essentially a final design phase, meaning that a final design can now be accomplished as well as building out hardware and software for the project.

We can likely all agree that 2020 will go down as one of the worst years in history for many reasons. Among those was the devastating effects that climate change had on the Earth, including enormous fires, prolonged droughts, etc. And for better or worse, it was all captured in a series of powerful images by NASA.

Ever since NASA has started sending spacecraft to other planetary bodies, we have had a system in place to make sure life here on Earth doesn’t tag along for the trip. This has been left up to NASA historically, but now the National Space Council is working on their own set of guidelines for commercial and governmental agencies to use.

Axiom Space is currently working on plans to develop what will be the world’s first commercial space station. The company has stated that it plans on setting up its headquarters in Houston, where it will later begin production of the bold project.

NASA tapped Astra, Firefly, and Relativity Space for its Venture Class Launch Services Demo 2 program, giving each company a contract to launch a group of smallsats into orbit to demonstrate the capabilities of their new vehicles. NASA didn’t share their reasoning for the selections or who else submitted proposals in that announcement. This information is found in a source selection statement published later in the month that addresses each company’s strengths and weaknesses.

On November 4, 2018, NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day was titled “Flying Saucer Crash Lands in Utah Desert” and was accompanied by a fitting image. Unfortunately, the image showing a mangled disk in the middle of the desert had nothing to do with extraterrestrials, but it did have quite a fantastic story behind it.

While it only feels like 2020 was the year that refused to end for so many, the men and women aboard the International Space Station really did see 2021 arrive only to slip back into the previous year … 16 times! NASA explains…

Researchers at NASA’s Langley Research Center are working with Blue Origin in testing a new, more accurate version of flash lidar. The testing is part of NASA’s suite of lunar lander technologies that will be used as part of the Artemis program.

Plum Brook Station is a remote test facility for NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio. It is home to four cutting-edge test facilities used for ground tests for the international space community. Today, a name change for the facility was signed into law.

NASA’s Technology Transfer Program is rarely talked about but has contributed to many of the technologies that we take for granted in our daily lives. In this article, we will be discussing a few of the essential technologies that have benefited from the program over the years.

On October 14, NASA announced that it had selected an experiment by the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) to participate in its Flight Opportunities program. However, what’s unique about this experiment is that the payload will include a human named Alan Stern.

NASA has added two new science missions to its slate of future explorations to study the Sun. The two missions will cost just over $100 million to better understand how the Sun works and how it affects us here on Earth.

The Extreme Ultraviolet High-Throughput Spectroscopic Telescope Epsilon Mission, or EUVST, and the Electrojet Zeeman Imaging Explorer, or EZIE will help NASA and an international cooperation of researchers study how the Sun’s atmosphere and Earth’s magnetosphere work, two parts of the solar system we still don’t fully understand.

The United Arab Emeritus has been in the process over last year to select its next class of astronauts that will begin training to join the international team of researchers on the International Space Station. With the help of NASA astronauts Jessica Meir and Anne McClain, they will choose two new astronauts out 14 candidates.