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A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with the company's Crew Dragon spacecraft onboard is seen on the launch pad at Launch Complex 39A after being rolled out overnight as preparations continue for the Crew-1 mission, Tuesday, Nov. 10, 2020, at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. NASA’s SpaceX Crew-1 mission is the first operational mission of the SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft and Falcon 9 rocket to the International Space Station as part of the agency’s Commercial Crew Program. NASA astronauts Mike Hopkins, Victor Glover, and Shannon Walker, and astronaut Soichi Noguchi of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) are scheduled to launch at 7:49 p.m. EST on Saturday, Nov. 14, from Launch Complex 39A at the Kennedy Space Center.
Image credit: NASA/Joel Kowsky
#NASA #space #NASAMarshall #msfc #CommercialCrewProgram #CommercialCrew #SpaceX #Dragonspacecraft #LaunchAmerica #Falcon9
High above the turn of the world, a mammoth construct largely made of aluminum, titanium, and human ingenuity – big as a football field, easily seen from the ground with the naked eye – skates forever along the edge of the sky, while its pioneering crew works to prepare the way for new human journeys to the Moon, Mars, and beyond.
NASA is marking 20 years of continuous crew operations in Earth orbit aboard the International Space Station, comprised of a 360-foot integrated “backbone” truss structure, four sets of 112-foot-long solar arrays, and 16 pressurized modules containing crew living quarters and state-of-the-art laboratories. Designed, built and tested by NASA and its 15 partner nations, its elements launched to orbit one by one over a 13-year period, the station is one of a kind. It weighs more than 925,000 pounds. It has roughly the interior volume of a six-bedroom house. It’s often the third-brightest object in the night sky.
The structure provided the backbone to transform the station into the orbiting laboratory it is today – and many of its largest structures were built, tested, and readied for flight by teams at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, working in partnership with American contractors and international firms around the world.
Image credit: NASA
#nasa #marshallspaceflightcenter #msfc #marshall #space #history #marshallhistory #KSC #KennedySpaceCenter #InternationalSpaceStation #ISS #SpaceStation20th #ISS20
A single solid rocket booster motor fires up at Northrop Grumman’s test facility in Promontory, Utah, on July 21. The booster motor, positioned horizontally for the ground test, fired for a little over two minutes and produced 3.6 million pounds of thrust. The only way to conduct a ground test of the boosters without launching is in a horizontal test stand. The test aids in the development of future versions of the solid rocket boosters for the SLS rocket. Based on the space shuttle solid rocket boosters, the SLS boosters are the largest, most powerful solid propellant boosters ever built for flight.
Image Credit: Northrop Grumman
#NASA #Moon2Mars #MoontoMars #NASAMarshall #msfc #sls #nasasls #rockets #exploration #artemis
NASA completed stacking Oct. 21, 2021, of the agency's Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft for the Artemis I uncrewed mission around the Moon. The stacking operations were conducted inside the Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Image Credit: NASA
#NASA #space #moon #Mars #Moon2Mars #MoontoMars #NASAMarshall #msfc #sls #spacelaunchsystem #nasasls #rockets #exploration #engineering #explore #rocketscience #artemis #Orion #KSC #KennedySpaceCenter #ArtemisI
The Flight Readiness Review for NASA’s Artemis I mission concluded August 22, and teams are proceeding toward a two-hour launch window that opens at 8:33 a.m. EDT Monday, August 29, from Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Pad 39B in Florida.
Here, NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket with the Orion spacecraft aboard is seen atop the mobile launcher as it moves up the ramp at Launch Pad 39B, Wednesday, Aug. 17, 2022, at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Image credit: NASA/Joel Kowsky
#MoontoMars #NASAMarshall #nasasls #artemis #NASA #NASAMarshall #MSFC #MarshallSpaceFlightCenter #SpaceLaunchSystem #ArtemisI #KSC #NASAKennedy
During its 33rd low pass over the cloud tops of Jupiter on April 15, 2021, NASA’s Juno spacecraft captured the intriguing evolution of a feature in the giant planet’s atmosphere known as “Clyde’s Spot.”
The feature is informally named for amateur astronomer Clyde Foster of Centurion, South Africa, who discovered it in 2020 using his own 14-inch telescope. On June 2, 2020, just two days after Foster’s initial discovery, Juno provided detailed observations of Clyde’s Spot (upper image), which scientists determined was a plume of cloud material erupting above the top layers of the Jovian atmosphere just southeast of Jupiter’s Great Red Spot, which is currently about 1.3 times as wide as Earth. These powerful convective outbreaks occasionally occur in this latitude band, known as the South Temperate Belt. The initial plume subsided quickly, and within a few weeks it was seen as a dark spot.
Many features in Jupiter’s highly dynamic atmosphere are short lived, but the April 2021 observation from the JunoCam instrument (lower image) revealed that nearly one year after its discovery, the remnant of Clyde’s Spot had not only drifted away from the Great Red Spot but had also developed into a complex structure that scientists call a folded filamentary region. This region is twice as big in latitude and three times as big in longitude as the original spot, and has the potential to persist for an extended period of time.
Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS; Image processing by Kevin M. Gill © CC BY
#NASA #MarshallSpaceFlightCenter #MSFC #Marshall #jpl #jetpropulsionlaboratory #nasamarshall #MSFC #solarsystem #juno #jupiter #space #astronomy #nasajuno #nasamarshallspaceflightcenter #GreatRedSpot #junocam
The life of a planetary nebula is often chaotic, from the death of its parent star to the scattering of its contents far out into space. Captured here by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, ESO 455-10 is one such planetary nebula, located in the constellation of Scorpius (The Scorpion).
The oblate shells of ESO 455-10, previously held tightly together as layers of its central star, not only give this planetary nebula its unique appearance, but also offer information about the nebula. Seen in a field of stars, the distinct asymmetrical arc of material over the north side of the nebula is a clear sign of interactions between ESO 455-10 and the interstellar medium.
The interstellar medium is the material such as diffuse gas between star systems and galaxies. The star at the center of ESO 455-10 allows Hubble to see the interaction with the gas and dust of the nebula, the surrounding interstellar medium, and the light from the star itself. Planetary nebulae are thought to be crucial in galactic enrichment as they distribute their elements, particularly the heavier metal elements produced inside a star, into the interstellar medium which will in time form the next generation of stars.
Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, L. Stanghellini
#NASA #MarshallSpaceFlightCenter #MSFC #Marshall #HubbleSpaceTelescope #HST #astronomy #space #astrophysics #solarsystemandbeyond #gsfc #Goddard #GoddardSpaceFlightCenter #planetarynebula
Cleopatra’s Eye, or NGC 1535, is a planetary nebula in the constellation Eridanus. This nebula has an unusual structure that is similar to the better-known NGC 2392, with an outer region and a brighter inner center.
A planetary nebula forms when a star approximately the size of our Sun dies, exhaling its outer layers into space as the core turns into a white dwarf star. Through early telescopes these objects resembled planets – giving them their name – but planetary nebulae are unrelated to actual planets.
Hubble observed this nebula as part of a study of over 100 planetary nebulae with nearby stars. The proximity of the stars indicated a possible gravitational connection between the nearby stars and the central stars of the nebulae. Observations of the distance between NGC 1535’s central star and its possible companion suggest that Cleopatra’s Eye is indeed part of a gravitationally bound binary star system.
Image Credit: NASA, ESA, and H. Bond and R. Ciardullo (Pennsylvania State University), et. al.; Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America)
#NASA #MarshallSpaceFlightCenter #MSFC #Marshall #HubbleSpaceTelescope #HST #astronomy #space #astrophysics #solarsystemandbeyond #gsfc #Goddard #GoddardSpaceFlightCenter #ESA #EuropeanSpaceAgency #nebula
This week in 1966, AS-202 launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida. The mission was an uncrewed suborbital flight to test the Saturn IB rocket and the Apollo command and service modules. The objectives of the flight were to verify the structural integrity, launch loads, stage separation, and operation of subsystems of the Saturn 1B, and to evaluate the Apollo spacecraft separations, emergency detection system, subsystems, heatshield at high reentry velocity, and mission support facilities. All mission objectives were achieved. Today, NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center is playing a vital role in the Artemis program by developing the Space Launch System. SLS and the Orion spacecraft, along with the commercial human landing system and the Gateway in orbit around the Moon, are NASA’s backbone for deep space exploration. SLS is the only rocket that can send Orion, astronauts, and supplies to the Moon in a single mission. The NASA History Program is responsible for generating, disseminating, and preserving NASA’s remarkable history and providing a comprehensive understanding of the institutional, cultural, social, political, economic, technological, and scientific aspects of NASA’s activities in aeronautics and space. For more pictures like this one and to connect to NASA’s history, visit the Marshall History Program’s webpage.
Image credit: NASA
#tbt #nasa #marshallspaceflightcenter #msfc #marshall #space #history #marshallhistory #KSC #KennedySpaceCenter #nasamarshall #nasahistory #nasamarshallspaceflightcenter #Apollo
A young pulsar is blazing through the Milky Way at a speed of over a million miles per hour. This stellar speedster, witnessed by NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, is one of the fastest objects of its kind ever seen. This result teaches astronomers more about how some of the bigger stars end their lives.
Pulsars are rapidly spinning neutron stars that are formed when some massive stars run out of fuel, collapse, and explode. This pulsar is racing through the remains of the supernova explosion that created it, called G292.0+1.8, located about 20,000 light-years from Earth.
To make this discovery, the researchers compared Chandra images of G292.0+1.8 taken in 2006 and 2016. From the change in position of the pulsar over the 10-year span, they calculated it is moving at least 1.4 million miles per hour from the center of the supernova remnant to the lower left. This speed is about 30% higher than a previous estimate of the pulsar’s speed that was based on an indirect method, by measuring how far the pulsar is from the center of the explosion.
The newly determined speed of the pulsar indicates that G292.0+1.8 and its pulsar may be significantly younger than astronomers previously thought. Xi and his team estimate that G292.0+1.8 would have exploded about 2,000 years ago as seen from Earth, rather than 3,000 years ago as previously calculated. Several civilizations around the globe were recording supernova explosions at that time, opening up the possibility that G292.0+1.8 was directly observed.
Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO/L. Xi et al.; Optical: Palomar DSS2
#NASAMarshall #Chandra #NASA #MarshallSpaceFlightCenter #MSFC #ChandraXrayObservatory #astrophysics #supernova #pulsar
This week in 1965, SA-9, the eighth Saturn flight, launched from Cape Kennedy Launch Complex in Florida. This was the first Saturn flight with an operational payload – the Pegasus I meteoroid detection satellite. Pegasus was developed by Fairchild Stratos Corporation for NASA through the agency’s Marshall Space Flight Center. A Pegasus satellite also flew aboard the SA-8 and SA-10 missions in 1965. After being placed in orbit around Earth, the satellite electronically recorded the size and frequency of particles in space and compared the performance of protected and unprotected solar cells as important preliminaries to crewed flights to the Moon. Today, Marshall is playing a vital role in the Artemis program by developing the Space Launch System, the backbone of NASA’s exploration plans and the only rocket capable of sending humans to the Moon and Mars. The NASA History Program is responsible for generating, disseminating, and preserving NASA’s remarkable history and providing a comprehensive understanding of the institutional, cultural, social, political, economic, technological, and scientific aspects of NASA’s activities in aeronautics and space. For more pictures like this one and to connect to NASA’s history, visit the Marshall History Program’s webpage.
Image credit: NASA
#tbt #nasa #marshallspaceflightcenter #msfc #marshall #space #history #marshallhistory #nasamarshall #nasahistory #nasamarshallspaceflightcenter #apollo #saturn
Astronomers are winding back the clock on the expanding remains of a nearby, exploded star. By using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, they retraced the speedy shrapnel from the blast to calculate a more accurate estimate of the location and time of the stellar detonation.
The victim is a star that exploded long ago in the Small Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy to our Milky Way. The doomed star left behind an expanding, gaseous corpse, a supernova remnant named 1E 0102.2-7219, which NASA's Einstein Observatory first discovered in X-rays. Like detectives, researchers sifted through archival images taken by Hubble, analyzing visible-light observations made 10 years apart.
This Hubble Space Telescope portrait reveals the gaseous remains of an exploded massive star that erupted approximately 1,700 years ago. The stellar corpse, a supernova remnant named 1E 0102.2-7219, met its demise in the Small Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of our Milky Way.
Image credit: NASA, ESA, and J. Banovetz and D. Milisavljevic (Purdue University)
#NASA #MarshallSpaceFlightCenter #MSFC #Marshall #chandraxrayobservatory #ChandraXRay #cxo #chandra #astronomy #space #astrophysics #nasamarshallspaceflightcenter #solarsystemandbeyond #galaxy #supermassiveblackhole #blackhole #Goddard #GSFC #GoddardSpaceFlightCenter #HST #Hubble #HubbleSpaceTelescope #supernova
This week in 2012, engineers tested the power pack assembly of the Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne-built J-2X engine at NASA’s Stennis Space Center. The test ran for 278 seconds and verified the newly installed strain gauges designed to measure the turbine structural strain when the turbopump is spinning at high speeds. Today, NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center is playing a vital role in the Artemis program by developing the Space Launch System, the backbone of NASA’s exploration plans and the only rocket capable of sending humans to the Moon and Mars. The NASA History Program is responsible for generating, disseminating, and preserving NASA’s remarkable history and providing a comprehensive understanding of the institutional, cultural, social, political, economic, technological, and scientific aspects of NASA’s activities in aeronautics and space. For more pictures like this one and to connect to NASA’s history, visit the Marshall History Program’s webpage.
Image credit: NASA
#tbt #nasa #marshallspaceflightcenter #msfc #marshall #space #history #marshallhistory #nasamarshall #nasahistory #nasamarshallspaceflightcenter #StennisSpaceCenter #SSC
The contributions of NASA and Kennedy Space Center were stitched into the fabric of one of the nation's most recognizable symbols, when flags from Florida's Spaceport were sewn into an American Flag recovered near ground zero following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
In this image, the National 9/11 Flag was raised over the Rocket Garden at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex after Florida's contribution was added. The flag is now a part of the permanent collection of the National September 11 Memorial Museum at the World Trade Center site.
Image Credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett
#NASA #marshallspaceflightcenter #msfc #KSC #KennedySpaceCenter
A fiery meteor streaked across the morning skies in southern Mississippi yesterday on April 27, 2022.
More than 30 eyewitnesses in the states of Arkansas, Louisiana, and Mississippi reported seeing a bright fireball at 8:03 a.m. CDT. The sighting was soon followed by numerous reports of loud booms heard in Claiborne County, Mississippi, and surrounding counties.
Approximately 22,000 miles out in space, NOAA’s Geostationary Lightning Mappers (GLM) onboard the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES) 16 and 17 detected several bright flashes associated with the fragmentation’s of this bolide, or exceptionally bright meteor, which was first spotted 54 miles above the Mississippi River near the Mississippi town of Alcorn.
Image Credit: NOAA
#NASA #MarshallSpaceFlightCenter #MSFC #Marshall #meteor
NASA is partnering with Aerojet Rocketdyne to advance 3D printing technologies, known as metal additive manufacturing, and its capabilities for liquid rocket engines in landers and on-orbit stages/spacecraft.
The Robotic Deposition Technology (RDT) team, led out of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, is designing and manufacturing innovative and lightweight combustion chambers, nozzles, and injectors that will incorporate automated robotic deposition 3D-printing technologies: cold spray deposition, laser wire direct closeout, laser powder bed fusion, and laser powder directed energy deposition. The goal is to evolve these processes using weight-optimized materials to validate operability, performance, and reusability through hot fire testing.
Image credit: NASA
#NASA #MarshallSpaceFlightCenter #MSFC #Marshall #3dprinting
The Moon, with Earth's shadow draping across it during the May 15, 2022, lunar eclipse, is pictured in between the International Space Station's Nauka multipurpose laboratory module and the Rassvet module. Attached to Nauka is the new European robotic arm that was continuing checkouts and mobility tests.
Credit: NASA
#NASA #NASAMarshall #MarshallSpaceFlightCenter #MSFC #InternationalSpaceStation #ISS #lunareclipse #eclipse
Just two days after leaving the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, in a specialized container carefully strapped to the deck of a semi-trailer truck, NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft arrived in California — its final stop here on Earth.
DART will be the world’s first mission to test planetary defense techniques, demonstrating one mitigation method of asteroid deflection, called kinetic impact. DART will impact the small asteroid moonlet Dimorphos, which orbits a larger companion, Didymos, in a binary asteroid system to change its orbital period.
Inside a cleanroom at Johns Hopkins APL, the DART spacecraft being moved into a specialized shipping container that headed across the country to Vandenberg Space Force Base near Lompoc, California, where DART is scheduled to launch from late next month.
Image credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins APL/Ed Whitman
#NASA #MarshallSpaceFlightCenter #MSFC #Marshall #DART #DoubleAsteroidRedirectionTest #asteroid
No matter where you are on this planet, we're all #ConnectedByEarth
When NASA Marshall isn't studying the universe and bringing humanity to other worlds, we're taking time to explore and understand the beauty of our home planet. As we celebrate #EarthDay, take a look at a few of our favorite photos taken by Marshall team members-and follow @NASAEarth to learn more about our environment and the connections that hold it together.
#tbt #nasa #marshallspaceflightcenter #msfc #marshall #space #nasamarshall #nasamarshallspaceflightcenter #earth #earthday2021 #earthpix #earthoutdoors #nasamarshall #nasa #msfc #marshallspaceflightcenter #explore
Image credit: NASA
This view of sample site Nightingale on asteroid Bennu is a mosaic of images collected by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft on March 3. These images were captured when the spacecraft performed an 820-foot (250-meter) reconnaissance pass over site Nightingale, which at the time was the closest the site had been imaged. The low-altitude pass provided high-resolution imagery for the OSIRIS-REx team to identify the best location within the site to target for sample collection. Sample site Nightingale is located in the relatively clear patch just above the crater’s center – visible in the center of the image. The large, dark boulder located at the top right measures 43 feet (13 meters) on its longest axis. The mosaic is rotated so that Bennu’s east is at the top of the image. Nightingale is the primary sample collection site for the OSIRIS-REx mission. OSIRIS-REx is scheduled to make its first sample collection attempt at site Nightingale on Oct. 20.
Image credit: NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona
#NASA #MarshallSpaceFlightCenter #NASAMarshall #Marshall #MSFC #GSFC #GoddardSpaceFlightCenter #OSIRISRex #OriginsSpectralInterpretationResourceIdentificationSecurityRegolithExplorer #asteroid #newfrontiers #bennu
No matter where you are on this planet, we're all #ConnectedByEarth
When NASA Marshall isn't studying the universe and bringing humanity to other worlds, we're taking time to explore and understand the beauty of our home planet. As we celebrate #EarthDay, take a look at a few of our favorite photos taken by Marshall team members-and follow @NASAEarth to learn more about our environment and the connections that hold it together.
Image credit: NASA
#tbt #nasa #marshallspaceflightcenter #msfc #marshall #space #nasamarshall #nasamarshallspaceflightcenter #earth #earthday2021 #earthpix #earthoutdoors #nasamarshall #nasa #msfc #marshallspaceflightcenter #explore
This week in 1973, the third and final crewed Skylab mission launched aboard a Saturn IB rocket from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. The crew – astronauts Gerald Carr, William Pogue, and Ed Gibson – performed a diverse range of experiments and observed the comet Kohoutek. After 84 days in space, the crew returned to Earth on Feb. 8, 1974. Today, the Payload Operations Integration Center at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center serves as “science central” for the International Space Station, working 24/7, 365 days a year in support of the orbiting laboratory’s science experiments. After 20 years of continuous human presence, the space station remains the sole space-based proving ground and stepping stone toward achieving the goals of the Artemis program. The NASA History Program is responsible for generating, disseminating, and preserving NASA’s remarkable history and providing a comprehensive understanding of the institutional, cultural, social, political, economic, technological, and scientific aspects of NASA’s activities in aeronautics and space. For more pictures like this one and to connect to NASA’s history, visit the Marshall History Program’s webpage.
Image credit: NASA
#tbt #nasa #marshallspaceflightcenter #msfc #marshall #space #history #marshallhistory #nasamarshall #nasahistory #nasamarshallspaceflightcenter #Skylab #SaturnIB #SaturnRocket #Saturn
Did you know that it's Pollinator Week—and that Marshall has a 165-plant "pollinator garden" on-site to provide a home for local birds, bees, and butterflies? Marshall's pollinator garden is also a waypoint for monarch butterflies as they migrate every summer and winter. Learn more about our "green team."
Image credit: NASA
#NASA #MarshallSpaceFlightCenter #MSFC #Marshall #PollinatorWeek
The Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage for the second flight of NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket arrived in Florida on July 28 for the final phase of production. The stage and its single RL10 engine provide the in-space propulsion needed to send NASA’s Orion spacecraft and its crew on a precise trajectory to the Moon for Artemis II, the first crewed mission of NASA’s Artemis lunar missions. It is the first piece of the rocket for the Artemis II flight to arrive in Florida. Boeing and United Launch Alliance, the contractor team for the stage, shipped the Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage from ULA’s facilities in Decatur, Alabama, to its Delta IV Operation Center at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. The stage will undergo final processing and checkout before it is transported to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center for launch preparations.
With Artemis, NASA will land the first woman and the first person of color on the lunar surface and establish long-term exploration at the Moon in preparation for human missions to Mars. SLS and NASA’s Orion spacecraft, along with the commercial human landing system and the Gateway in orbit around the Moon, are NASA’s backbone for deep space exploration. SLS is the only rocket that can send Orion, astronauts, and supplies to the Moon in a single mission.
Image Credit: ULA
#NASA #space #moon #Mars #Moon2Mars #MoontoMars #NASAMarshall #msfc #sls #spacelaunchsystem #nasasls #rockets #exploration #engineering #explore #rocketscience #artemis #ArtemisII #KSC #KennedySpaceCenter
SERVIR is a joint program of NASA, USAID, and partners in Asia, Africa, and Latin America collaborating to help communities address environmental challenges with the use of Earth and climate satellites. Headquartered at UAH, SERVIR's collaborates with communities of all sizes to make every day #EarthDay.
Credit: USAID/Reynaldo Vela.
#NASA #MarshallSpaceFlightCenter #MSFC #space #earth #SPoRT #SERVIR #EarthDay
This 2003 Chandra image shows multimillion degree gas in two galaxies in the Virgo galaxy cluster that are now more than 100,000 light years apart. In NGC 4438, the larger galaxy in the lower part of the image, filaments of hot gas have been pulled to the right of the galaxy. The hot gas in the smaller galaxy, NGC 4435 (upper right), is concentrated around its central region.
Combined X-ray, optical, and radio observations indicate that the two galaxies bumped into each other in the relatively recent past, about 100 million years ago. The collision was apparently a glancing one, in which the galaxies came within about 16,000 light years of each other. Such collisions are relatively common in the crowded confines of the Virgo galaxy cluster. The center of the cluster contains hundreds of galaxies whizzing around at speeds of millions of miles per hour.
During the encounter between NGC4438 and NGC 4435, gravitational tidal forces tugged at the gas and stars on the outer parts of the galaxies. NGC 4438 was damaged in the collision, but the hot gas will probably fall back into the disk of the galaxy in a few hundred million years. NGC 4435, being less massive than NGC 4438, proved to be less crash worthy and appears to have lost most of its hot gas to intergalactic space.
Image credit: NASA/CXC/M.Machacek et al.
#NASA #MarshallSpaceFlightCenter #MSFC #Marshall #chandraxrayobservatory #ChandraXRay #cxo #chandra #astronomy #space #astrophysics #nasamarshallspaceflightcenter #solarsystemandbeyond #globularcluster
No matter where you are on this planet, we're all #ConnectedByEarth
When NASA Marshall isn't studying the universe and bringing humanity to other worlds, we're taking time to explore and understand the beauty of our home planet. As we celebrate #EarthDay, take a look at a few of our favorite photos taken by Marshall team members-and follow @NASAEarth to learn more about our environment and the connections that hold it together.
Image credit: NASA
#tbt #nasa #marshallspaceflightcenter #msfc #marshall #space #nasamarshall #nasamarshallspaceflightcenter #earth #earthday2021 #earthpix #earthoutdoors #nasamarshall #nasa #msfc #marshallspaceflightcenter #explore
NASA astronaut Mike Hopkins has tended to multiple plant experiments on the International Space Station (ISS). Hopkins believes plants grown in space can help astronauts become more self-sufficient.
Image Credit: NASA
#NASA #space #moon #NASAMarshall #msfc #InternationalSpaceStation #ISS
The Science Verification Test for NASA’s Advanced Plant Experiment-08 (APEX-08) testing Arabidopsis thaliana, a plant scientists routinely use for research, takes place inside the Veggie growth chamber at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Nov. 6, 2020. The test is part of the process for demonstrating readiness for space research ahead of its flight on SpaceX’s 23rd Commercial Resupply Services mission to the International Space Station. The APEX-08 study includes making genetic alterations that elicit a response in a group of organic compounds that modulate plant responses to environmental stress.
Image Credit: NASA/Lucy Orozco
#NASA #space #MarshallSpaceFlightCenter #NASAMarshall #msfc #InternationalSpaceStation #ISS
The spinning, solar-powered spacecraft will take another look of the fiery Jovian moon on July 30.
When NASA’s Juno mission flies by Jupiter’s fiery moon Io on Sunday, July 30, the spacecraft will be making its closest approach yet, coming within 13,700 miles (22,000 kilometers) of it. Data collected by the Italian-built JIRAM (Jovian InfraRed Auroral Mapper) and other science instruments is expected to provide a wealth of information on the hundreds of erupting volcanoes pouring out molten lava and sulfurous gases all over the volcano-festooned moon.
NASA’s Juno spacecraft flew past Jupiter’s volcanic moon Io and the gas giant itself on May 16, as shown in this rendering that relies on images from the spacecraft’s JunoCam.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS
#NASA #MarshallSpaceFlightCenter #MSFC #Marshall #jpl #nasamarshall #juno #nasajuno #io
More than 40 high-powered, amateur rockets successfully launched April 15, in North Alabama, each carrying a scientific payload nearly one-mile-high above ground level, as part of a NASA student competition.
The launches were the culminating event of NASA’s Student Launch, a competition tasking students to design, build, and launch rockets in support of NASA research. When students were asked to describe learning from and working with NASA engineers, excited was the word used most often.
Here, students watch a high-powered amateur rocket launch during NASA’s 2023 Student Launch competition near NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.
Image Credit: NASA/Charles Beason
#nasa #NASAMarshall #MSFC #MarshallSpaceFlightCenter #education #space #studentlaunch
For more information about Student Launch, click here.
These 2001 Chandra and Hubble Space Telescope images of two recently detected emitting globular star clusters - so called because of their spherical shape - were used as a cross-check to determine the position of X-ray sources near the center of the Andromeda galaxy to an accuracy ten times greater than before. The inset shows the three Chandra sources closest to the supermassive black hole, overlaid with the intensity contours from the HST image (red). The location of supermassive black hole is thought to be in the middle of the peanut-shaped intensity contours, and very close to the Northern-most of the three Chandra sources.
These highly accurate positions show that the very cool X-ray source (blue) previously identified with the supermassive black hole in the center of the galaxy is actually about 10 light years south of the center. A second, hotter X-ray source, is found to be at a position consistent with the position of the super massive black hole. The globular clusters are outside the field of view in this image.
Image credit: X-ray: (NASA/SAO/CXC/M.Garcia et al.) Optical: (NASA/GSFC/T.Brown et al.)
#NASA #MarshallSpaceFlightCenter #MSFC #Marshall #ChandraX-RayObservatory #cxo #MilkyWay #galaxy #blackhole #astronomy #space #BlackHoleWeek #supermassiveblackhole #gsfc #Goddard #GoddardSpaceFlightCenter #ESA #EuropeanSpaceAgency #HubbleSpaceTelescope #HST #Hubble
The next full Moon will be Wednesday night, August 30, 2023, appearing opposite the Sun (in Earth-based longitude) at 9:36 PM EDT. The planet Saturn, just a few days from its closest and brightest for the year, will appear near the Moon. As evening twilight ends (at 8:42 PM) Saturn will be 5 degrees to the upper right of the Moon, and will appear to swing clockwise around the Moon as the evening progresses. The Moon will appear full for 3 days around the peak of the full Moon, from Tuesday night to Friday morning.
This will be a supermoon. Publications use different thresholds for deciding which Moons qualify as "super," but all agree that in 2023 the two full Moons in August qualify.
This full Moon will be the second full Moon in August, making it a Blue Moon by the newer definition introduced by Sky & Telescope magazine in 1946. The older definition of Blue Moon, dating back to at least the 1500s, is the name for the third full Moon in a season that has four Moons. By this definition, the full Moon in August 2024 will be the Blue Moon and this full Moon, as the last full Moon of summer, shares some of the seasonal names from my posting for the August 1 full Moon. Neither of these definitions has anything to do with the color of the Moon, so the Blue Moon will not actually look blue.
This full Moon corresponds with the Hindu festival Raksha Bandhan, also called Rakhi or Rakhi Purnima, celebrating the bond between brothers and sisters. One of the traditions is for sisters of all ages to tie a rakhi (a cotton bracelet) around their brother's wrist, receiving a gift from the brother in return, as a sign of the continuing bond between them. The term "Raksha Bandhan" translates as "the bond of protection, obligation, or care."
Here, the Moon, or supermoon, is seen as it rises behind the U.S. Capitol, Monday, March 9, 2020, in Washington, DC.
Credit: NASA/Joel Kowsky
#NASA #space #moon #Mars #NASAMarshall #msfc #supermoon
Our ‘Moon Tree’ seedling that flew around the Moon on the NASAArtemis I mission is celebrating its second holiday season at #NASAMarshall. They really do grow up fast!
Image Credit: NASA
#NASA #MarshallSpaceFlightCenter #MSFC #Marshall #happyholidays
Read more about the Moon trees
In its second asteroid encounter, NASA’s Lucy spacecraft obtained a close look at a uniquely shaped fragment of an asteroid that formed about 150 million years ago. The spacecraft has begun returning images that were collected as it flew approximately 600 miles (960 km) from the asteroid Donaldjohanson on April 20, 2025.
The asteroid was previously observed to have large brightness variations over a 10-day period, so some of Lucy team members’ expectations were confirmed when the first images showed what appeared to be an elongated contact binary (an object formed when two smaller bodies collide). However, the team was surprised by the odd shape of the narrow neck connecting the two lobes, which looks like two nested ice cream cones.
In this image is the asteroid Donaldjohanson as seen by the Lucy Long-Range Reconnaissance Imager (L’LORRI). This is one of the most detailed images returned by NASA’s Lucy spacecraft during its flyby.
Credit: NASA/Goddard/SwRI/Johns Hopkins APL
#nasa #msfc #marshallspaceflightcenter #GoddardSpaceFlightCenter #Goddard #GSFC #lucypacecraft #asteroids #Donaldjohanson
The winds that carve the north pole’s troughs of Mars also reshape Mars’ sand dunes, causing sand to pile up on one side while removing sand from the other side. Over time, the process causes dunes to migrate, just as it does with dunes on Earth.
Surrounded by frost, these Martian dunes in Mars’ northern hemisphere were captured from above by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter using its HiRISE camera on Sept. 8, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona
#NASA #jpl #jetpropulsionlaboratory #marshallspaceflightcenter #msfc #mars #moontomars #planet #space #MarsReconnaissanceOrbiter #MRO
Scientists thought Bennu's surface was like a sandy beach, abundant in fine sand and pebbles, which would have been perfect for collecting samples. Past telescope observations from Earth had suggested the presence of large swaths of fine-grained material smaller than a few centimeters called fine regolith. But when NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission arrived at Bennu in late 2018, the mission saw a surface covered in boulders. The mysterious lack of fine regolith became even more surprising when mission scientists observed evidence of processes potentially capable of grinding boulders into fine regolith.
New research, published in Nature and led by Saverio Cambioni, of the University of Arizona, used machine learning and surface temperature data to solve the mystery. Cambioni conducted the research at the university's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory. He and his colleagues ultimately found that Bennu's highly porous rocks are responsible for the surface's surprising lack of fine regolith.
This image shows a view of asteroid Bennu’s surface in a region near the equator. It was taken by the PolyCam camera on NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft on March 21, 2019 from a distance of 2.2 miles (3.5 km). The field of view is 158.5 ft (48.3 m). For scale, the light-colored rock in the upper left corner of the image is 24 ft (7.4 m) wide.
Image credit: NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona
#NASA #MarshallSpaceFlightCenter #NASAMarshall #Marshall #MSFC #GSFC #GoddardSpaceFlightCenter #OSIRISRex #OriginsSpectralInterpretationResourceIdentificationSecurityRegolithExplorer #asteroid #newfrontiers #bennu #regolith
NASA’s Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE) mission launched at 1 a.m. EST Thursday on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. A joint effort with the Italian Space Agency, the IXPE observatory is NASA’s first mission dedicated to measuring the polarization of X-rays from the most extreme and mysterious objects in the universe – supernova remnants, supermassive black holes, and dozens of other high-energy objects.
Image credit: NASA
#NASA #MarshallSpaceFlightCenter #MSFC #Marshall #ImagingX-RayPolarimetryExplorer #IXPE #astronomy #space #astrophysics #nasamarshallspaceflightcenter #solarsystemandbeyond
MSFC artist’s concept depicting an aft view of the Liquid Boost Module proposed to meet DoD launch requirements for missions originating from Vandenberg Air Force Base.
Additionally, from the abstract of “SHUTTLE PERFORMANCE AUGMENTATION WITH THE TITAN LIQUID BOOST MODULE”, proposed by the Martin Marietta Corporation & Aerojet Liquid Rocket Company, and linked to below:
“The projected 24,000-pound payload lift capability for the baseline Space Shuttle, with anticipated orbiter and external tank weight savings programs implemented, will not meet the 32,000-pound payload requirements for the DoD Mission 4 from Vandenberg Air Force Base. NASA has selected the Titan Liquid Boost Module (LBM) to provide thrust augmentation during the boost phase sufficient to meet and provide margin for the defined Mission 4 requirements. The LBM will use Titan 34D Stage I engines and a cluster of four Titan derived 10-foot diameter tanks. The module will be attached to the aft end of the ET. This paper will provide a description of the LBM and discuss some of its advantages and capabilities.”
At, with a whole lot more, to include diagrams:
commons.erau.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2565&con...
Credit: EMBRY-RIDDLE Aeronautical University Scholarly Commons website
“Mission 4" requirement:
“…The requirement to increase the Western Test Range (WTR) payload capability by 8,000 pounds is to satisfy the Performance Reference Mission 4 requirement of 32,000 pounds deployed and 25,000 pounds retrieved at 150 NM circular and 98-degree inclination on a 4-man, 7-day mission. This requirement encompasses all known, projected civil and military needs during the current mission model period.”
Again, for shuttle purposes, WTR applies to VAFB.
From/at:
www.gao.gov/assets/masad-81-6.pdf
Credit: GAO website
See also:
Credit: "The Unwanted Blog" blog
This week in 1983, STS-9 launched aboard the space shuttle Columbia from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center carrying the first Spacelab mission. Spacelab-1 was a cooperative venture between NASA and the European Space Agency. Scientists from Canada, Japan, the United States and 11 different European countries provided instruments and experimental procedures for more than 70 different investigations in five research disciplines: astronomy and solar physics, space plasma physics, atmospheric physics and Earth observations, life sciences and materials science. Here, the Spacelab-1 module is visible in the orbiter’s cargo bay. Today, the Payload Operations Integration Center at Marshall serves as "science central" for the space station, working 24/7, 365 days a year in support of the orbiting laboratory's scientific experiments. The NASA History Program is responsible for generating, disseminating and preserving NASA’s remarkable history and providing a comprehensive understanding of the institutional, cultural, social, political, economic, technological and scientific aspects of NASA’s activities in aeronautics and space. For more pictures like this one and to connect to NASA’s history, visit the Marshall History Program’s webpage.
Image credit: NASA
NASA, Marshall Space Flight Center, MSFC, Kennedy Space Center, KSC, Space Shuttle Atlantis, STS-9, International Space Station, ISS, Spacelab,
On March 18, NASA’s IMAP (Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe) arrived at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, for thermal vacuum testing at the X-ray and Cryogenic Facility, which simulates the harsh conditions of space.
The IMAP mission is a modern-day celestial cartographer that will map the solar system by studying the heliosphere, a giant bubble created by the Sun’s solar wind that surrounds our solar system and protects it from harmful interstellar radiation.
In this image, the IMAP mission was loaded into NASA Marshall’s XRCF thermal vacuum chamber where the spacecraft will undergo testing.
Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins APL/Princeton/Ed Whitman
#NASA #space #moon #NASAMarshall #msfc #InterstellarMappingandAccelerationProbe #IMAP #SolarWind #heliophysics #Sun #XRCF
At the Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC), the fuel tank assembly for the Saturn V S-IC-T (static test stage) fuel tank assembly is mated to the liquid oxygen (LOX) tank in building 4705. This stage underwent numerous static firings at the newly-built S-IC Static Test Stand at the MSFC west test area. The S-IC (first) stage used five F-1 engines that produced a total thrust of 7,500,000 pounds as each engine produced 1,500,000 pounds of thrust. The S-IC stage lifted the Saturn V vehicle and Apollo spacecraft from the launch pad. This July, in a series of special events, NASA is marking the 50th anniversary of the Apollo Program – the historic effort that sent the first U.S. astronauts into orbit around the Moon in 1968, and landed a dozen astronauts on the lunar surface between 1969 and 1972. For more pictures, and to connect to NASA’s remarkable history, visit the Marshall History Program’swebpage.
Image credit: NASA
The fourth and final structural test article for NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) core stage was unloaded from NASA’s barge Pegasus at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, Tuesday, July 9, 2019. The nearly 70-foot-long liquid oxygen (LOX) tank structural test article was manufactured at NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans and is structurally identical to the flight version. Next, crews will load it into a test stand at Marshall for critical testing. The liquid oxygen tank is one of two propellant tanks in the rocket’s core stage that will produce more than 2 million pounds of thrust to help launch Artemis 1, the first flight of NASA’s Orion spacecraft and SLS, to the Moon.
Image credit: NASA/Fred Deaton
“SPACE TUG CONCEPT”
“Space Tug: Boeing
The Boeing Space Tug is a modular design. This concept was later developed into the NASA Space Tug. One way to tell the difference is that the Boeing tug's crew and cargo modules were spherical, while the NASA tug's modules were cylindrical.”
The above & image at/from
www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/spacetug.php#spacetug
Specifically:
www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/images/realdesigns/...
Credit both above: ATOMIC ROCKETS website
The signature looks to be that of Lois A. Smith, hence my posting, and therefore, a WIN. Please see my other postings of the few works of hers that I’ve come upon/identified. A talented & genuine trailblazer she was!
On April 1, 1983, divers and astronauts at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, prepared for the first satellite repair mission in space. Before the repair, the crew of Space Shuttle Challenger mission STS-41C spent months at the Marshall Center Neutral Buoyancy Simulator, an underwater training facility that is now a historic landmark. They used a mockup of the Solar Maximum satellite to practice retrieving the satellite and piloting a new Manned Maneuvering Unit (MMU), which allowed astronauts to travel in space without being tethered to the shuttle. About a year after this picture was taken, on April 6, 1984, Space Shuttle Challenger (STS-41C) launched on a mission to repair the Solar Max satellite. Solar Max was designed to study the sun but had a systems failure about a year after it was launched. The STS-41C crew chalked up a number of firsts for NASA: the first satellite retrieval, the first service use of a MMU and the Remote Manipulator System, and all of this on the Space Shuttle Challenger's first space flight. The crew retrieved Solar Max, repaired it, and placing it back in service. The Solar Maximum Repair mission provided engineers with valuable data that helped them design the Hubble Space Telescope for on-orbit repair and maintenance.
Credit: NASA
Image Number: MSFC-8334107
Date: April 1, 1983
Striking 1970 NASA/MSFC artist’s depiction of a “Mars Base”.
I presume as part of NASA’s grand Integrated Program Plan (IPP). Good regarding the IPP:
spaceflighthistory.blogspot.com/2016/01/thinking-big-traf...
Credit: David S. F. Portree/“No Shortage of Dreams” blog
And:
www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/atoms/files/19690804_man...
Although of a different writing style, i.e., block letters, the artist’s signature, “L A Smith”, must surely be Lois Virginia Archambeault Smith. I mean, how many “L. A. Smith” NASA/MSFC artists could there have been in 1970? Another WIN WRT Ms. Smith!
With sincerest appreciation to J. L. Pickering for making the image available. And, if you want to see but a mere fraction of the world’s preeminent collection of space photographs, I HIGHLY advise you to explore Mr. Pickering’s FB presence. Prepare to be blown away:
And/or Twitter:
And/or YouTube:
www.youtube.com/c/RetroSpaceHD
And/or his website:
The first integrated 3D printer and recycler is part of the cargo that was launched to the International Space Station on Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus spacecraft’s 10th commercial resupply services mission. The machine, known as Refabricator, will demonstrate the capability to turn waste plastic and previously 3D printed parts into high-quality 3D printer filament (3D printing “ink”) to create new tools and materials. The demonstration will use control plastic recycled multiple times to create parts that will be tested for quality back on Earth.
Image credit: NASA/Emmett Given
“SHUTTLE ALT CRAFT AT MSFC ---- The Space Shuttle Orbiter 101 “Enterprise” riding atop its 747 carrier aircraft, arrives at the Redstone Arsenal airstrip near Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC), Huntsville, Alabama, on March 13, 1978. It is to undergo ground vibration tests along with the external tank and solid rocket boosters, preparatory to Orbiter Flight Tests (OFT) in which its successor craft (Orbiter 102) will take several two-man crews into earth orbit.”
A wonderful perspective most often seen of the combination landing at KSC or EAFB, not MSFC…cool.