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Bright Rocks and “Bright Angel”
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Bright Rocks and “Bright Angel” NASA’s Mars Perseverance rover acquired this image using its Right Mastcam-Z camera. Mastcam-Z is a pair of cameras located high on the rover’s mast.This image was acquired on May 29, 2024 (Sol 1164) at the local mean solar time of 12:40:40.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASULast week the Perseverance rover descended into Neretva Vallis, an ancient river channel that brought water into Jezero Crater billions of years ago. Rocks found in Neretva Vallis could have come from far upstream, giving us the opportunity to examine material which may have come from many kilometers away. Turning north into the channel has allowed us to complete longer drives, a refreshing change of pace from the rugged terrain we tackled in the Western Margin.
Dodging dunes at Dunraven Pass, we approached Mount Washburn, an outcrop which our Mastcam-Z camera identified from a distance as having spectrally diverse boulders and patches of lighter-toned bedrock. Upon arriving, we were amazed by the variety of colors and textures in the rocks around the rover and immediately got to work planning observations with our remote sensing instruments. Much of our focus was on “Atoko Point”, a bright boulder with dark speckles. After acquiring numerous Mastcam-Z multispectral images and zapping Atoko Point with our SuperCam laser, we began to look towards our next goal: “Bright Angel”. This exposure of light-toned rock, northwest of our current location, stands out vividly in orbital imagery. By examining outcrops at Bright Angel and assessing stratigraphic relationships (i.e. the vertical sequence and stacking of different sets of rocks), it is hoped that we can understand its connection to Neretva Vallis and the crater rim.
Intrigued by what we have found at Mount Washburn, our first stop in the channel, we have now turned to the terrain to the north, where we will add yet another chapter to Perseverance’s story at “Bright Angel”.
Written by Henry Manelski, PhD Student at Purdue University
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NASA Sets Coverage for U.S. Spacewalk 90 Outside Space Station
NASA will provide live coverage, beginning at 6:30 a.m. EDT Thursday, June 13, as two astronauts conduct a spacewalk outside of the International Space Station. The spacewalk is scheduled to begin at 8 a.m. and last about six and a half hours.
NASA will stream the spacewalk on NASA+, NASA Television, the NASA app, YouTube, and the agency’s website. Learn how to stream NASA TV through a variety of platforms including social media.
NASA astronauts Tracy C. Dyson and Matt Dominick will exit the station’s Quest airlock to complete the removal of a faulty electronics box, called a radio frequency group, from a communications antenna on the starboard truss of the space station. The pair also will collect samples for analysis to understand the ability of microorganisms to survive and reproduce on the exterior of the orbiting laboratory.
Dyson will serve as spacewalk crew member 1 and will wear a suit with red stripes. Dominick will serve as spacewalk crew member 2 and will wear an unmarked suit. U.S. spacewalk 90 will be the fourth for Dyson and the first for Dominick in support of the space station.
Following the completion of the spacewalk, NASA will announce participating crew members for U.S. spacewalks 91 and 92, scheduled for Monday, June 24 and Tuesday, July 2, and will provide additional coverage details.
Get breaking news, images, and features from the space station on the station blog, Instagram, Facebook, and X.
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Josh Finch / Claire O’Shea
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1100
joshua.a.finch@nasa.gov / claire.a.o’shea@nasa.gov
Leah Cheshier / Anna Schneider
Johnson Space Center, Houston
281-483-5111
leah.d.cheshier@nasa.gov / anna.c.schneider@nasa.gov
NASA Awards Contract for Safety and Mission Assurance Services
NASA has selected KBR Wyle Services LLC, of Fulton, Maryland, to provide safety and mission assurance services to the agency.
The Safety and Mission Assurance, Audits, Assessments, and Analysis (SA3) Services contract is a cost-plus-fixed-fee contract with an indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity provision and a maximum potential value of approximately $75.3 million. The three-year base performance period of this contract begins August 1, 2024, and is followed by a two-year option, which would end July 31, 2029.
The SA3 contract will provide safety and mission assurance services to NASA Headquarters in Washington and other NASA centers, programs, projects, and activities through the NASA Safety Center in Cleveland. These services include, but aren’t limited to, audit/assessment/analysis support, safety assessments and hazard analysis, reliability and maintainability analysis, risk analysis and management, supply chain data management and analytics, software safety and assurance, training and outreach, quality engineering and assurance, and information systems support.
For information about NASA and other agency programs, visit:
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Tiernan Doyle
Headquarters, Washington
202-774-8357
tiernan.doyle@nasa.gov
Jan Wittry
Glenn Research Center, Cleveland
216-433-5466
jan.m.wittry-1@nasa.gov
North Carolina Volunteers Work Toward Cleaner Well Water
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North Carolina Volunteers Work Toward Cleaner Well Water Road closure due to flooding. Volunteers helped NASA scientists predict where floods like these will contaminate well water. Image credit: Kelsey PieperWhen the ground floods during a storm, floodwaters wash bacteria and other contaminants into private wells. But thanks to citizen scientists in North Carolina, we now know a bit more about how to deal with this problem. A new NASA-Funded study describes the contributions of these volunteers and how their work makes other disaster data more useful.
After Hurricane Florence, the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services distributed sampling bottles to 754 private well users upon request. They asked these volunteers to collect samples at their wellheads or outdoor taps. As expected, the rates of fecal contamination measured with help from the volunteers were almost 8 times higher than during routine conditions.
The new study compares the water quality measurements made by volunteers to predictions from various kinds of flood boundary maps made using data from NASA’s Landsat, Sentinel, and MODIS satellites. Turns out, the flood boundary maps are pretty good predictors—under certain conditions. Now we know how to better use them for this purpose in the future, thanks to help from citizen scientists!
Contact your local health department and tell them you are interested in testing your own well water supply!
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NASA Awards Contract for IT Support, Platform Services
NASA has selected CACI, Inc. of Chantilly, Virginia, to maintain and improve IT services across the agency.
The NASA Consolidated Applications and Platform Services (NCAPS) award is a hybrid firm-fixed price and cost-plus-fixed-fee contract with an indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity provision and a maximum potential value of about $2 billion. The performance period will extend eight years with a 90-day phase-in period, followed by a base period, seven option periods, and a six-month extension period.
The NCAPS award will provide a comprehensive enterprise solution to standardize and centralize NASA’s IT services. This includes the maintenance of IT systems, development of new applications as needed for NASA, a rationalization of duplicative efforts to create efficiencies across NASA Centers, and other functions.
For information about NASA and other agency programs, visit:
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Tiernan Doyle
Headquarters, Washington
202-774-8357
tiernan.doyle@nasa.gov
Hubble Finds Surprises Around a Star That Erupted 40 Years Ago
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Hubble Finds Surprises Around a Star That Erupted 40 Years Ago This artist’s concept shows the nova system HM Sagittae (HM Sge), where a white dwarf star is pulling material from its red giant companion. This forms a blazing hot disk around the dwarf, which can unpredictably undergo a spontaneous thermonuclear explosion as the infall of hydrogen from the red giant grows denser and reaches a tipping point. These fireworks between companion stars are fascinating to astronomers by yielding insights into the physics and dynamics of stellar evolution in binary systems. NASA, ESA, Leah Hustak (STScI)Download this image
Astronomers have used new data from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and the retired SOFIA (Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy) as well as archival data from other missions to revisit one of the strangest binary star systems in our galaxy – 40 years after it burst onto the scene as a bright and long-lived nova. A nova is a star that suddenly increases its brightness tremendously and then fades away to its former obscurity, usually in a few months or years.
Between April and September 1975, the binary system HM Sagittae (HM Sge) grew 250 times brighter. Even more unusual, it did not rapidly fade away as novae commonly do, but has maintained its luminosity for decades. Recently, observations show that the system has gotten hotter, but paradoxically faded a little.
HM Sge is a particular kind of symbiotic star where a white dwarf and a bloated, dust-producing giant companion star are in an eccentric orbit around each other, and the white dwarf ingests gas flowing from the giant star. That gas forms a blazing hot disk around the white dwarf, which can unpredictably undergo a spontaneous thermonuclear explosion as the infall of hydrogen from the giant grows denser on the surface until it reaches a tipping point. These fireworks between companion stars fascinate astronomers by yielding insights into the physics and dynamics of stellar evolution in binary systems.
When I first saw the new data, I went – ‘wow this is what Hubble UV spectroscopy can do!’ – I mean it’s spectacular, really spectacular.Ravi Sankrit
Astronomer
“In 1975 HM Sge went from being a nondescript star to something all astronomers in the field were looking at, and at some point that flurry of activity slowed down,” said Ravi Sankrit of the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore. In 2021, Steven Goldman of STScI, Sankrit and collaborators used instruments on Hubble and SOFIA to see what had changed with HM Sge in the last 30 years at wavelengths of light from the infrared to the ultraviolet (UV).
The 2021 ultraviolet data from Hubble showed a strong emission line of highly ionized magnesium that was not present in earlier published spectra from 1990. Its presence shows that the estimated temperature of the white dwarf and accretion disk increased from less than 400,000 degrees Fahrenheit in 1989 to greater than 450,000 degrees Fahrenheit now. The highly ionized magnesium line is one of many seen in the UV spectrum, which analyzed together will reveal the energetics of the system, and how it has changed in the last three decades.
“When I first saw the new data,” Sankrit said, “I went – ‘wow this is what Hubble UV spectroscopy can do!’ – I mean it’s spectacular, really spectacular.”
A Hubble Space Telescope image of the symbiotic star Mira HM Sge. Located 3,400 light-years away in the constellation Sagitta, it consists of a red giant and a white dwarf companion. The stars are too close together to be resolved by Hubble. Material bleeds off the red giant and falls onto the dwarf, making it extremely bright. This system first flared up as a nova in 1975. The red nebulosity is evidence of the stellar wind. The nebula is about one-quarter light-year across. NASA, ESA, Ravi Sankrit (STScI), Steven Goldman (STScI); Image Processing: Joseph DePasquale (STScI)Download this image
With data from NASA’s flying telescope SOFIA, which retired in 2022, the team was able to detect the water, gas, and dust flowing in and around the system. Infrared spectral data shows that the giant star, which produces copious amounts of dust, returned to its normal behavior within only a couple years of the explosion, but also that it has dimmed in recent years, which is another puzzle to be explained.
With SOFIA astronomers were able to see water moving at around 18 miles per second, which they suspect is the speed of the sizzling accretion disk around the white dwarf. The bridge of gas connecting the giant star to the white dwarf must presently span about 2 billion miles.
The team has also been working with the AAVSO (American Association of Variable Star Observers), to collaborate with amateur astronomers from around the world who help keep telescopic eyes on HM Sge; their continued monitoring reveals changes that haven’t been seen since its outburst 40 years ago.
“Symbiotic stars like HM Sge are rare in our galaxy, and witnessing a nova-like explosion is even rarer. This unique event is a treasure for astrophysicists spanning decades,” said Goldman.
The initial results from the team’s research were published in the Astrophysical Journal, and Sankrit is presenting research focused on the UV spectroscopy at the 244th meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Madison, Wisconsin.
The Hubble Space Telescope has been operating for over three decades and continues to make ground-breaking discoveries that shape our fundamental understanding of the universe. Hubble is a project of international cooperation between NASA and ESA (European Space Agency). NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the telescope and mission operations. Lockheed Martin Space, based in Denver, Colorado, also supports mission operations at Goddard. The Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, conducts Hubble science operations for NASA.
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NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD
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Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, MD
Science Contacts:
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Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, MD
Steven Goldman
Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, MD
Since its 1990 launch, the Hubble Space Telescope has changed our fundamental understanding of the universe.
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NASA’s Webb Opens New Window on Supernova Science
Peering deeply into the cosmos, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope is giving scientists their first detailed glimpse of supernovae from a time when our universe was just a small fraction of its current age. A team using Webb data has identified 10 times more supernovae in the early universe than were previously known. A few of the newfound exploding stars are the most distant examples of their type, including those used to measure the universe’s expansion rate.
“Webb is a supernova discovery machine,” said Christa DeCoursey, a third-year graduate student at the Steward Observatory and the University of Arizona in Tucson. “The sheer number of detections plus the great distances to these supernovae are the two most exciting outcomes from our survey.”
DeCoursey presented these findings in a press conference at the 244th meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Madison, Wisconsin.
Image A: Jades Deep Field Annotated The JADES Deep Field uses observations taken by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) as part of the JADES (JWST Advanced Deep Extragalactic Survey) program. A team of astronomers studying JADES data identified about 80 objects (circled in green) that changed in brightness over time. Most of these objects, known as transients, are the result of exploding stars or supernovae.Prior to this survey, only a handful of supernovae had been found above a redshift of 2, which corresponds to when the universe was only 3.3 billion years old — just 25% of its current age. The JADES sample contains many supernovae that exploded even further in the past, when the universe was less than 2 billion years old. It includes the farthest one ever spectroscopically confirmed, at a redshift of 3.6. Its progenitor star exploded when the universe was only 1.8 billion years old.
‘A Supernova Discovery Machine’To make these discoveries, the team analyzed imaging data obtained as part of the JWST Advanced Deep Extragalactic Survey (JADES) program. Webb is ideal for finding extremely distant supernovae because their light is stretched into longer wavelengths — a phenomenon known as cosmological redshift.
Prior to Webb’s launch, only a handful of supernovae had been found above a redshift of 2, which corresponds to when the universe was only 3.3 billion years old — just 25% of its current age. The JADES sample contains many supernovae that exploded even further in the past, when the universe was less than 2 billion years old.
Previously, researchers used NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope to view supernovae from when the universe was in the “young adult” stage. With JADES, scientists are seeing supernovae when the universe was in its “teens” or “pre-teens.” In the future, they hope to look back to the “toddler” or “infant” phase of the universe.
To discover the supernovae, the team compared multiple images taken up to one year apart and looked for sources that disappeared or appeared in those images. These objects that vary in observed brightness over time are called transients, and supernovae are a type of transient. In all, the JADES Transient Survey Sample team uncovered about 80 supernovae in a patch of sky only about the thickness of a grain of rice held at arm’s length.
“This is really our first sample of what the high-redshift universe looks like for transient science,” said teammate Justin Pierel, a NASA Einstein Fellow at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, Maryland. “We are trying to identify whether distant supernovae are fundamentally different from or very much like what we see in the nearby universe.”
Pierel and other STScI researchers provided expert analysis to determine which transients were actually supernovae and which were not, because often they looked very similar.
The team identified a number of high-redshift supernovae, including the farthest one ever spectroscopically confirmed, at a redshift of 3.6. Its progenitor star exploded when the universe was only 1.8 billion years old. It is a so-called core-collapse supernova, an explosion of a massive star.
Image B: Jades Deep Field Transients (NIRCam) This mosaic displays three of about 80 transients, or objects of changing brightness, identified in data from the JADES (JWST Advanced Deep Extragalactic Survey) program. Most of the transients are the result of exploding stars or supernovae. By comparing images taken in 2022 and 2023, astronomers could locate supernovae that recently exploded (like the examples shown in the first two columns), or supernovae that had already exploded and whose light was fading away (third column).The age of each supernova can be determined from its redshift (designated by ‘z’). The light of the most distant supernova, at a redshift of 3.8, originated when the universe was only 1.7 billion years old. A redshift of 2.845 corresponds to a time 2.3 billion years after the big bang. The closest example, at a redshift of 0.655, shows light that left its galaxy about 6 billion years ago, when the universe was just over half its current age.
Uncovering Distant Type Ia SupernovaeOf particular interest to astrophysicists are Type Ia supernovae. These exploding stars are so predictably bright that they are used to measure far-off cosmic distances and help scientists to calculate the universe’s expansion rate. The team identified at least one Type Ia supernova at a redshift of 2.9. The light from this explosion began traveling to us 11.5 billion years ago when the universe was just 2.3 billion years old. The previous distance record for a spectroscopically confirmed Type Ia supernova was a redshift of 1.95, when the universe was 3.4 billion years old.
Scientists are eager to analyze Type Ia supernovae at high redshifts to see if they all have the same intrinsic brightness, regardless of distance. This is critically important, because if their brightness varies with redshift, they would not be reliable markers for measuring the expansion rate of the universe.
Pierel analyzed this Type Ia supernova found at redshift 2.9 to determine if its intrinsic brightness was different than expected. While this is just the first such object, the results indicate no evidence that Type Ia brightness changes with redshift. More data is needed, but for now, Type Ia supernova-based theories about the universe’s expansion rate and its ultimate fate remain intact. Pierel also presented his findings at the 244th meeting of the American Astronomical Society.
Looking Toward the FutureThe early universe was a very different place with extreme environments. Scientists expect to see ancient supernovae that come from stars that contain far fewer heavy chemical elements than stars like our Sun. Comparing these supernovae with those in the local universe will help astrophysicists understand star formation and supernova explosion mechanisms at these early times.
“We’re essentially opening a new window on the transient universe,” said STScI Fellow Matthew Siebert, who is leading the spectroscopic analysis of the JADES supernovae. “Historically, whenever we’ve done that, we’ve found extremely exciting things — things that we didn’t expect.”
“Because Webb is so sensitive, it’s finding supernovae and other transients almost everywhere it’s pointed,” said JADES team member Eiichi Egami, a research professor at the University of Arizona in Tucson. “This is the first significant step toward more extensive surveys of supernovae with Webb.”
The James Webb Space Telescope is the world’s premier space science observatory. Webb is solving mysteries in our solar system, looking beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probing the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it. Webb is an international program led by NASA with its partners, ESA (European Space Agency) and CSA (Canadian Space Agency).
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Media ContactsLaura Betz – laura.e.betz@nasa.gov, Rob Gutro – rob.gutro@nasa.gov
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
Ann Jenkins – jenkins@stsci.edu / Christine Pulliam – cpulliam@stsci.edu
Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Md.
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NASA Wallops to Support Sounding Rocket Launch
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Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) This June 2021 aerial photograph shows the coastal launch range at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility on Virginia’s Eastern Shore. The Atlantic Ocean is at the right side of this image, and nearby Chincoteague and Assateague islands are at upper left and right, respectively. A subset of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Wallops is the agency’s only owned-and-operated launch range. Shore replenishment and elevated infrastructure at the range are incorporated into Goddard’s recently approved master plan.Courtesy Patrick J. Hendrickson; used with permissionA suborbital rocket is scheduled for launch the week of June 10-17 from NASA’s launch range at the Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. This launch is supporting the Missile Defense Agency (MDA), Naval Surface Warfare Center (NSWC), Port Hueneme Division’s White Sands Detachment, other Department of Defense organizations, industry, and academia.
No real-time launch status updates will be available. The launch will not be livestreamed nor will launch status updates be provided during the countdown.
The rocket launch may be visible from the Chesapeake Bay region.
Share Details Last Updated Jun 10, 2024 EditorAmy BarraContactAmy Barraamy.l.barra@nasa.govLocationWallops Flight Facility Related Terms Explore More 1 min read NASA Wallops Visitor Center Extended Hours June 12 Article 7 days ago 4 min read NASA Mission Flies Over Arctic to Study Sea Ice Melt Causes Article 2 weeks ago 2 min read NASA Goddard, Maryland Sign Memo to Boost State’s Aerospace Sector Article 2 weeks agoFood Safety Program for Space Has Taken Over on Earth
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Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) Food for the Apollo astronauts was not always especially appealing, but thanks to the protocol NASA and Pillsbury came up with, known as the Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HAACP) system, it was always safe.Credit: NASACountless NASA technologies turn up in our everyday lives, but one of the space agency’s most important contributions to modern society isn’t a technology at all – it’s the methodology that ensures the safety of the food we eat. Today the safety procedures and regulations for most of the food produced around the world are based on a system NASA created to guarantee safe food for Apollo astronauts journeying to the Moon.
For the Gemini missions, NASA and partner Pillsbury tested the food they were producing at the Manned Spacecraft Center, now Johnson Space Center in Houston, and destroyed entire batches when irregularities were found, a process similar to industry practices of the day. In response to agencywide guidelines from the Apollo Program Office aimed at ensuring the reliability of all critical systems, they altered that method for the Apollo missions.
They focused on identifying any points in the production process where hazards could be introduced, establishing procedures to eliminate or control each of those hazards, and then monitoring each of those points regularly. And they required extensive documentation of all this work. This became the foundation for the Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) system.
The Apollo missions were humans’ longest and farthest voyages in space, so food for the astronauts had to be guaranteed safe for consumption hundreds of thousands of miles from any medical facility. Credit: NASAHoward Bauman, the microbiologist leading Pillsbury’s Apollo work, convinced his company to adopt the approach, and he became the leading advocate for its adoption across the food industry. That gradual process took decades, starting with the regulation of certain canned foods in the 1970s and culminating in the 2011 Food Safety Modernization Act, which mandated HACCP-like requirements across all food producers regulated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. By then, the U.S. Department of Agriculture was managing HACCP requirements for meat and poultry, while Canada and much of Europe had also put similar rules in place.
The standards also apply to any outside producers who want to export food into a country that requires HACCP, effectively spreading them across the globe.
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“Earthrise” by NASA Astronaut Bill Anders
NASA astronaut Bill Anders took this iconic image of Earth rising over the Moon’s horizon on Dec. 24, 1968. Anders, lunar module pilot on the Apollo 8 mission, and fellow astronauts Frank Borman and Jim Lovell became the first humans to orbit the Moon and the first to witness the sight pictured.
After becoming a fighter pilot in the Air Force, Anders was selected as an astronaut by NASA. He was backup pilot for the Gemini XI and Apollo 11 flights, and he was lunar module pilot for Apollo 8 – the first lunar orbit mission in December 1968. Anders passed away on June 7, 2024.
Image Credit: NASA
Gateway’s HALO Making Moves
The Gateway space station’s HALO (Habitation and Logistics Outpost), one of four modules where astronauts will live, conduct science, and prepare for lunar surface missions, is a step closer to launch following welding completion in Turin, Italy, a milestone highlighted by NASA earlier this year.
Teams at Thales Alenia Space gently guide HALO to a new location in the company’s facility for a series of stress tests to ensure the module’s safety. Upon successful completion, the future home for astronauts will travel to Gilbert, Arizona, where Northrop Grumman will complete final outfitting ahead of launch to lunar orbit with Gateway’s Power and Propulsion Element.
NASA and its international partners will explore the scientific mysteries of deep space with Gateway, humanity’s first space station in lunar orbit supporting the Artemis campaign to return humans to the Moon and chart a path for the first human missions to Mars.
Learn more about Gateway at: https://nasa.gov/gateway.
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NASA Administrator Remembers Apollo Astronaut William Anders
The following is a statement from NASA Administrator Bill Nelson on the passing of Apollo astronaut Maj. Gen. (ret.) William “Bill” Anders, who passed away June 7, in San Juan Islands, Washington state, at the age of 90.
“In 1968, as a member of the Apollo 8 crew, as one of the first three people to travel beyond the reach of our Earth and orbit the Moon, Bill Anders gave to humanity among the deepest of gifts an explorer and an astronaut can give. Along with the Apollo 8 crew, Bill was the first to show us, through looking back at the Earth from the threshold of the Moon, that stunning image – the first of its kind – of the Earth suspended in space, illuminated in light and hidden in darkness: the Earthrise.
“As Bill put it so well after the conclusion of the Apollo 8 mission, ‘We came all this way to explore the Moon, and the most important thing is that we discovered the Earth.’
“That is what Bill embodied – the notion that we go to space to learn the secrets of the universe yet in the process learn about something else: ourselves. He embodied the lessons and the purpose of exploration.
“The voyage Bill took in 1968 was only one of the many remarkable chapters in Bill’s life and service to humanity. In his 26 years of service to our country, Bill was many things – U.S. Air Force officer, astronaut, engineer, ambassador, advisor, and much more.
“Bill began his career as an Air Force pilot and, in 1964, was selected to join NASA’s astronaut corps, serving as backup pilot for the Gemini XI and Apollo 11 flights, and lunar module pilot for Apollo 8.
“He not only saw new things but inspired generation upon generation to see new possibilities and new dreams – to voyage on Earth, in space, and in the skies. When America returns astronauts to the Moon under the Artemis campaign, and ultimately ventures onward to Mars, we will carry the memory and legacy of Bill with us.
“At every step of Bill’s life was the iron will of a pioneer, the grand passion of a visionary, the cool skill of a pilot, and the heart of an adventurer who explored on behalf of all of us. His impact will live on through the generations. All of NASA, and all of those who look up into the twinkling heavens and see grand new possibilities of dazzling new dreams, will miss a great hero who has passed on: Bill Anders.”
For more information about Anders’ NASA career, and his agency biography, visit:
https://www.nasa.gov/former-astronaut-william-a-anders/
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