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A groundbreaking civilian spacewalk saw two astronauts partially exit a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule wearing a brand new design of spacesuit. Every previous spacewalk completed before this was performed by government-trained astronauts.

A groundbreaking civilian spacewalk saw two astronauts partially exit a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule wearing a brand new design of spacesuit. Every previous spacewalk completed before this was performed by government-trained astronauts.

If you were standing on Mars as it was hit by charged particles from the sun, you might be able to see an aurora just like on Earth

If you were standing on Mars as it was hit by charged particles from the sun, you might be able to see an aurora just like on Earth

Astronomers have gotten the first-ever detailed views of turbulent activity on a star other than our own sun.

AST SpaceMobile's first five giant commercial direct-to-cell satellites, huge spacecraft called BlueBirds, lifted off this morning (Sept. 12) atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.

Ringed Ice Giant Neptune

Image: Digel Cloud 2S

I’ve been an avid stargazer for a fair few decades now and not once have I seen anything that makes me believe we are being visited by aliens! My own experiences aside, there’s no evidence of alien visitations but it seems much of the population believes anything that they cannot immediately identify in the sky MUST be ailens. A new paper suggests there are costs associated with increasing claims such as disctractions to government programs and background noise that hampers science communication. How on Earth should we deal with it? If debunking doesn’t work, then maybe its time for a scientific investigation. 

Do you believe in aliens? It seems that a great proportion of the population does. That’s despite all the usual issues that those of us in science communication trot out to enrich the debate with a little factual information; everything is a long way away, the universe is actually quite young and so on and so on  Yet still we have a problem that a lot of people still think we are being visited by our cosmic cousins. 

With thousands of exoplanets discovered so far, astronomers are learning how different planets can be. What if intelligent alien civilizations arise on extremely different habitable worlds? Some civilizations could develop space exploration technologies, but others would be trapped underwater, under ice, or in enormous gravity wells. How could they escape? Image Credit: DALL-E

Tony Milligan from Kings College London, the author of a new paper into this very phenomenon says that it is ‘no longer a quirk but a widespread societel problem.’ He goes on to explain that it is really quite unusual because there is zero evidence that aliens even exist let alone travel to Earth. He cites the same arguments about the sheer scale of the Universe and how we are far more likely to start to engage and learn about them from remote observation. 

Somewhat worryingly is that the paper articulates almost a quarter of Americans have seen a UFO. This is then supported by a poll that shows 68% of people believe the US Government knows more about UFOs than they are letting on! Of course, and as I have often retorted in such discussions, if you see an aeroplane in the sky but don’t know it’s an aeroplane then it is indeed an Unidentified Flying Object. Doesn’t mean it’s an alien though! 

Screenshot from the “UFO Over Santa Clarita VFX Breakdown” video.

The essence of the report is that alien visitation claims become a problem when they do one of three things; 1 – move into mainstream debate in such a way that governments have to reply and respond to them; 2 – when they generate background noise which impedes science communication and 3 – when they become entangled with indigenous origin narratives, making it hard to recover the latter.

The rise of artificial intelligence and sheer volume of content in social media makes item 2 even more difficult to separate the proveribal wheat from the chaif. The paper concludes that there it is clear the popular belief in alien visitations makes it difficult to articulate and discuss such topics. Even bursts of debunking seem to fail to cut through the noise and certainly seem to show no sign of reducing it. The Moon landing is another great exmple where people that believe the landings were faked seem to have great trouble in accepting evidence when it is presented to them. 

There will come a time in the not too distant future, asserts Tony Milligan when it will require something of a more structured scientific research program to investigate and explore the concept. The time may not be now but in the near future a program can apply scientific rigour to the debate and perhaps provide an answer. 

Source : Equivocal Encounters: Alien Visitation Claims as a Societal Problem

The post Are Claims of Alien Visitation Causing a Problem to Society? appeared first on Universe Today.

A single dose of a smallpox vaccine seems to lower the risk of catching mpox by around 60 per cent, and two doses would probably be even better

A single dose of a smallpox vaccine seems to lower the risk of catching mpox by around 60 per cent, and two doses would probably be even better

Jupiter’s moon, Io, is the most volcanic body in the Solar System. NASA’s Juno spacecraft has been getting closer and closer to Io in the last couple of years, giving us our first close-up images of the moon in 25 years.

Recent JunoCam images show a new volcano that appeared sometime after the Galileo spacecraft visited the region.

The new volcano is just south of Io’s equator. Since tidal heating from Jupiter causes Io’s volcanic activity, most volcanoes are in the moon’s equatorial region, within about 30 degrees north and south of the equator. When NASA’s Galileo spacecraft imaged the region where the new volcano was spotted in 1997, the surface was featureless.

The new volcano is near an existing volcano called Kanehekili. JunoCam’s image from April 2024 revealed multiple lava flows and volcanic deposits covering an area of about 180 kilometres by 180 kilometres.

The grey inset image shows what the Galileo spacecraft saw about 25 years ago. The larger colour image is from JunoCam and clearly shows a new volcano and lava flows. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Europlanet.

“Our recent JunoCam images show many changes on Io, including this large, complicated volcanic feature that appears to have formed from nothing since 1997,” said Michael Ravine. Ravine is the Advanced Projects Manager at Malin Space Science Systems, the company that built and operates JunoCam for NASA’s Juno mission.

Of course, the volcano didn’t form from nothing. Io is in a tough spot orbitally. Tidal friction from massive Jupiter, and some from its fellow moon Europa, is dissipated as orbital and heat energy in Io. In its sibling ocean moons like Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto, the heat keeps their subsurface oceans in liquid form. But Io doesn’t have an ocean, so the heat causes magma to well up and break through the surface as volcanoes. Io has over 400 active volcanoes, and the surface is covered in sulphuric compounds from these eruptions, which give it its colours.

JunoCam’s best image of the region and the new volcano was taken on February 3rd, 2024, from a distance of about 2,530 km. The scale is about 1.7 km per pixel. In this image, Io is illuminated with sunlight reflected off of Jupiter.

This image shows the Galileo and JunoCam images sisde by side. NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS.

There are unanswered questions about Io, its volcanism, and its interior composition. Scientists know that tidal heating from Jupiter is the moon’s primary heat source, but they aren’t certain how the heat is distributed inside. They are also uncertain about the extent of Io’s magma ocean.

They also want to know what initiates eruptions and what drives the different types of eruptions, like plumes, lava flows, and pyroclastic flows. There are unanswered questions about Io’s volcanic history and how often the surface is reshaped. There are no impact craters on Io, which means the surface must be young.

This schematic illustrates four competing explanations for Io’s interior and how tidal heating is dissipated. Though Juno won’t tell us which one is correct, every volcanic eruption is a piece of the puzzle. Image Credit: Chuck Carter and James Tuttle Keane / Keck Institute for Space Studies.

Researchers are also keen to understand how the gases from eruptions might affect the surface and the moon’s extremely thin atmosphere. Io’s volcanic activity has likely changed over time, and how that happens and what drives it are also unknown.

Answers to these questions will not only help us understand Io, but other rocky planets as well.

Juno’s discovery of a new volcano on Io is interesting, and its observations are a valuable contribution to the body of knowledge. However, Juno won’t provide the in-depth answers scientists seek. It has several more flybys of Io in the future, with the last one in 2025. Unfortunately, it’ll be getting further from the moon, and the last one will be at a distance of 94,000 km.

This graphic shows Juno’s orbits around Jupiter. PJ (perijove) 58 was its closest approach to Io, and as time goes on, its flybys will be more and more distant. Image Credit: Scott Bolton/SWRI

These images do highlight an important part of the Juno mission, though. The JunoCam isn’t a scientific instrument, strictly speaking. It was included for the rest of us, and the images are freely available for anyone to work on and post.

By spotting the new volcano, JunoCam has proven its scientific value.

The post Juno Sees a Brand New Volcano on Io appeared first on Universe Today.

Although stars are enormous, they’re extremely far away, and appear as point sources in telescopes. Usually, you never get to see more than a pixel. Now astronomers have used the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) to resolve details on the surface of the star R Doradus and track its activity for 30 days. The images revealed giant, hot bubbles of gas 75 times larger than the entire Sun. R Doradus is 350 times larger than our Sun, but only 180 light-years away.

“This is the first time the bubbling surface of a real star can be shown in such a way,“ said Wouter Vlemmings, a professor at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden, and lead author of the study, in a press release from the European Southern Observatory (ESO). “We had never expected the data to be of such high quality that we could see so many details of the convection on the stellar surface.”

In the study, published in Nature, the astronomers detailed how they observed R Doradus, a massive red supergiant star, over four weeks between July 2 and August 2, 2023. The observations were made using the longest available ALMA baselines. The images revealed a stellar disk with prominent small-scale features that provide the structure and motions of convection on the stellar surface.

Convection is the mixing of gas within a star, where heated gas from the interior of the star created by nuclear fusion in the core rises to the surface and the cooler, denser gas on the star’s photosphere sinks. This continuous motion also distributes the heavy elements formed in the core, such as carbon and nitrogen, throughout the star, and convection is also thought to be responsible for the stellar winds that carry these elements out into the cosmos to build new stars and planets.

“Convection creates the beautiful granular structure seen on the surface of our Sun, but it is hard to see on other stars,” said Theo Khouri, a researcher at Chalmers who is a co-author of the study. “With ALMA, we have now been able to not only directly see convective granules — with a size 75 times the size of our Sun! — but also measure how fast they move for the first time.”

While convection bubbles have been previously observed in detail on the surface of other stars, including another observation of a red giant star using with the PIONIER instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope Interferometer, ALMA’s higher resolution allowed astronomers to track the motion of the bubbles in a way that was not possible with other telescopes.

The researchers found that the granules of R Doradus appear to move on a one-month cycle, which is faster than scientists expected based on how convection works in the Sun.

“We don’t yet know what is the reason for the difference. It seems that convection changes as a star gets older in ways that we don’t yet understand,” said Vlemmings. In their paper, the team wrote, “This indicates a possible difference between the convection properties of low-mass and high-mass evolved stars.”

This wide-field view, created from Digitized Sky Survey 2 images, shows the region around R Doradus, the bright, orange star in the centre. The star’s surface was recently imaged in detail using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), in which ESO is a partner. Credit: ESO/Digitized Sky Survey 2. Acknowledgement: Davide De Martin

Red giant stars are what become of main sequence stars like our Sun once they have exhausted their hydrogen fuel, and they expand to becomes hundreds the size of times their normal diameter. Since R Doradus has a mass similar to that of our Sun, this red giant star is likely a good example of how our Sun will look like in approximately five billion years.

“It is spectacular that we can now directly image the details on the surface of stars so far away, and observe physics that until now was mostly only observable in our Sun,” said Behzad Bojnodi Arbab, a PhD student at Chalmers who was also involved in the study.

The post High Resolution Images Show Bubbling Gas on the Surface of Another Star appeared first on Universe Today.

Mars is known for its unique geological features. Olympus Mons is a massive shield volcano 2.5 times taller than Mt. Everest. Hellas Planitia is the largest visible impact crater in the Solar System. However, Mars’ most striking feature is Valles Marineris, the largest canyon in the Solar System.

This fascinating geological feature begs to be explored, and a team of German researchers think that a swarm of robots is best suited to the task.

Valles Marineris (VM) is named after NASA’s Mariner 9 spacecraft, which discovered the massive canyon in 1971. It’s about 4,000 km long, 8 km deep at its deepest point, and 600 km wide in some places. These measurements dwarf the Grand Canyon in the USA.

From a distance, VM looks like a scab on Mars’s surface. It’s an interconnected network of chasms, faults, valleys, and probably caves. Unlike the Grand Canyon, VM wasn’t excavated by a flowing river. Instead, scientists think it was likely formed by rift faults, regions on the surface where plates receded from one another.

Annotated close-up of High-Resolution Stereo Camera images of Valles Marineris. The HRSC is an instrument on the ESA’s Mars Express mission. Credit: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin (G. Michael)

German scientists are developing a way to explore this unique region. It’s called the Valles Marineris Explorer (VaMEx), and the idea dates back several years. VaMEx is an initiative of the German Aerospace Centre (DLR) and it’s making significant progress.

NASA’s Mars rovers have made great progress in understanding Mars and its potentially habitable past. They’re incredible machines that put humanity’s inventiveness on display. But they’re ill-suited to rough, obstacle-strewn terrain like Valles Mariners. Instead of building one robotic vehicle, VaMEx will build several types of vehicles and stationary units that will work together to explore VM and its chasms, valley walls, and caves.

VaMEx will be a swarm of interconnected vehicles that fly, move across the ground, and visit caves in VM. They’ll be linked with a ground station that acts as a command center, and a satellite will provide communications with Earth. The vehicles will collect images and data and send them to the command center and an orbiter or satellite, then to Earth.

This image outlines the different components of the VaMEx Mars Symphony concept. Image Credit: Clemens Riegler / University of Wuerzburg

VaMEx is particularly aimed at caves that scientists think are likely plentiful in VM. Caves are protected from radiation, and if Mars hosted simple life in its past, there may be traces of it deep in these caves. VaMEx also includes ground repeater stations that will allow cave-exploring robots to share data and images in real time.

All of this will require finely tuned communications.

“We have given our sub-project the name ‘VaMEx3-MarsSymphony’ because the aim is to make the individual elements of the robot swarm play together harmoniously like an orchestra,” said project leader Professor Hakan Kayal. Kayal is a professor of Astronautics at the Satellite Mission Control Centre at the University of Würzburg.

The walls of Valles Mariners are an ideal place to study Mars’ layered geology, as shown in this HiRISE image of layered deposits. Scientists can learn about the planet’s geological history without the need for excavation. Image Credit: NASA/JPL/UA/HiRISE

Units called autorotation bodies are also part of the swarm. Autorotation is a term from rotary-wing (helicopter) flight. It describes a situation where power to the rotors is lost, and as the helicopter falls toward Earth, air makes the rotors spin, providing enough energy for a controlled descent. VaMEx’s autorotation bodies aren’t helicopters. They’re like maple seeds, which float gently to the ground, spinning as they descend. Once they’ve reached the surface, they’re stationary.

VaMEx is also taking an unusual approach to cameras. The stationary ground station will feature a camera that monitors the Martian sky. “All previous Mars missions have focussed on the surface of the planet, but we want to look upwards for the first time,” says Hakan Kayal. The camera can monitor cloud formation and dust in the atmosphere. It will also capture any transient phenomena like unusual cloud illumination or lightning.

NASA’s Mars rovers have occasionally imaged the Martian sky. The gif below is from the Perseverance rover, which used one of its navigation cameras to capture images. A purpose-built sky-monitoring camera would image the Martian sky like never before.

via GIPHY

It will also see incoming meteors, and data shows that one about the size of a basketball strikes Mars every day. “We could further substantiate this with data if we film the entry of meteorites with our UAP camera and correlate these events with the seismic signals,” says Hakan Kayal.

VaMEx faces many technical challenges that still need to be overcome. The mobile robots will need powerful route-finding AI to maneuver through difficult terrain, especially in caves. It takes about 40 minutes for a signal to travel from Mars and back, making remote real-time control impossible.

There are also communication challenges. A key challenge is getting VaMEx’s ground segments to communicate with a satellite. One company is working on special transceivers that operate in the Ka-band to handle all of the scientific data. The Ka-band is used in satellites because it allows higher bandwidth communications, but landers currently use the S or X-band. The issue is that the Ka-band usually requires more and bulkier equipment, including larger antennae, that may not be practical on a surface robot.

In August, scientists tested some aspects of VaMEx at the DLR site in Oberpfaffenhofen. They tested LIDAR (Light Detection and Ranging), IMU (Inertial Measurement Unit), and GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) sensors for ground truth validation. This compared sensor information against known data. They also successfully tested Wi-Fi-like communication systems and radio-ranging.

“One of the highlights of our field test was the live test of multi-robot SLAM (Simultaneous Localization and Mapping),” the VaMEx website says. “In a dual-robot scenario, we tested the real-time capabilities of our SLAM algorithms.” They say the results were promising and illustrate a way forward for individual robots to cooperate.

This image shows several robots during tests at the DLR site. Image Credit: VaMEX/DLR

Not everything in the tests went well, though. The Robot Operating System 2 (ROS2) encountered some challenges with so many units trying to communicate with one another. Bandwidth and synchronization were both problematic.

These results are helping the VaMEx team prepare for upcoming analog tests in 2025. These will take place at a quarry in Germany, where the robot swarm will be tested after improvements gained from August’s tests. The Wurzburg UAP (Unidentified Aerial Phenomena) Skycam will be part of these tests, with its resource-hungry video data added to the mix to test the system’s overall robustness.

This image shows an early version of the automated Wurzurg UAP Skycam from 2021. Image Credit: Hakan Kayal / Universität Würzburg

If all goes well, the next step is to harden the VaMEx equipment. Mars has much harsher conditions, with much lower temperatures, a thin atmosphere, and global dust storms that can interrupt exploration.

“In a possible follow-up project, the hardware would have to be adapted for use on Mars,” explains Hakan Kayal.

The post A Swarm of Robots to Explore Mars’ Valles Marineris appeared first on Universe Today.

SpaceX's Polaris Dawn astronaut mission plans to conduct the first-ever private spacewalk early Thursday morning (Sept. 12), and you can watch the historic action live.

22 Min Read The Marshall Star for September 11, 2024 Starship Super Heavy Breezes Through Wind Tunnel Testing

NASA and its industry partners continue to make progress toward Artemis III and beyond, the first crewed lunar landing missions under the agency’s Artemis campaign. SpaceX, the commercial Human Landing System (HLS) provider for Artemis III and Artemis IV, recently tested a 1.2% scale model of the Super Heavy rocket, or booster, in the transonic Unitary Plan Wind Tunnel at NASA’s Ames Research Center. The Super Heavy rocket will launch the Starship human landing system to the Moon as part of Artemis.

A 1.2% scale model of the Super Heavy rocket that will launch the Starship human landing system to the Moon for future crewed Artemis missions was recently tested at NASA’s Ames Research Center’s transonic wind tunnel, providing valuable information on vehicle stability when re-entering Earth’s atmosphere.NASA

During the tests, the wind tunnel forced an air stream at the Super Heavy scale model at high speeds, mimicking the air resistance and flow the booster experiences during flight. The wind tunnel subjected the Super Heavy model, affixed with pressure-measuring sensors, to wind speeds ranging from Mach .7, or about 537 miles per hour, to Mach 1.4, or about 1,074 miles per hour. Mach 1 is the speed that sound waves travel, or 761 miles per hour, at sea level.

Engineers then measured how Super Heavy model responded to the simulated flight conditions, observing its stability, aerodynamic performance, and more. Engineers used the data to update flight software for flight 3 of Super Heavy and Starship and to refine the exterior design of future versions of the booster. The testing lasted about two weeks and took place earlier in 2024.

Four grid fins on the Super Heavy rocket help stabilize and control the rocket as it re-enters Earth’s atmosphere after launching Starship to a lunar trajectory. Engineers tested the effects of various aerodynamic conditions on several grid fin configurations during wind tunnel testing.NASA

After Super Heavy completes its ascent and separation from Starship HLS on its journey to the Moon, SpaceX plans to have the booster return to the launch site for catch and reuse. The Starship HLS will continue on a trajectory to the Moon.

To get to the Moon for the Artemis missions, astronauts will launch in NASA’s Orion spacecraft aboard the SLS (Space Launch System) rocket from the agency’s Kennedy Space Center. Once in lunar orbit, Orion will dock with the Starship HLS or with Gateway. Once the spacecraft are docked, the astronauts will move from Orion or Gateway to the Starship HLS, which will bring them to the surface of the Moon. After surface activities are complete, Starship will return the astronauts to Orion or Gateway waiting in lunar orbit. The astronauts will transfer to Orion for the return trip to Earth. 

Wind tunnel testing at Ames helped engineers better understand the aerodynamic forces the SpaceX Super Heavy rocket, with its 33 Raptor engines, experiences during various stages of flight. As a result of the testing, engineers updated flight control algorithms and modified the exterior design of the rocket.NASA

With Artemis, NASA will explore more of the Moon than ever before, learn how to live and work away from home, and prepare for future human exploration of the Red Planet. NASA’s SLS, exploration ground systems, and Orion spacecraft, along with the human landing system, next-generation spacesuits, Gateway lunar space station, and future rovers are NASA’s foundation for deep space exploration.

NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center manages the HLS and SLS programs.

For more information about Artemis, visit here.

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NASA, Boeing Welcome Starliner Spacecraft to Earth, Close Mission

NASA and Boeing safely returned the uncrewed Starliner spacecraft following its landing at 9:01 p.m. CDT Sept. 6 at White Sands Space Harbor in New Mexico, concluding a three-month flight test to the International Space Station.

“I am extremely proud of the work our collective team put into this entire flight test, and we are pleased to see Starliner’s safe return,” said Ken Bowersox, associate administrator, Space Operations Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters. “Even though it was necessary to return the spacecraft uncrewed, NASA and Boeing learned an incredible amount about Starliner in the most extreme environment possible. NASA looks forward to our continued work with the Boeing team to proceed toward certification of Starliner for crew rotation missions to the space station.”

NASA and Boeing welcomed Starliner back to Earth following the uncrewed spacecraft’s successful landing at 9:01 p.m. CDT Sept. 6 at the White Sands Space Harbor in New Mexico. NASA

The flight on June 5 was the first time astronauts launched aboard the Starliner. It was the third orbital flight of the spacecraft, and its second return from the orbiting laboratory. Starliner now will ship to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center for inspection and processing.

NASA’s Commercial Crew Program requires a spacecraft to fly a crewed test flight to prove the system is ready for regular flights to and from the orbiting laboratory. Following Starliner’s return, the agency will review all mission-related data.

“We are excited to have Starliner home safely. This was an important test flight for NASA in setting us up for future missions on the Starliner system,” said Steve Stich, manager of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program. “There was a lot of valuable learning that will enable our long-term success. I want to commend the entire team for their hard work and dedication over the past three months.”

NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams launched June 5 aboard Starliner for the agency’s Boeing Crewed Flight Test from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. On June 6, as Starliner approached the space station, NASA and Boeing identified helium leaks and experienced issues with the spacecraft’s reaction control thrusters. Following weeks of in-space and ground testing, technical interchange meetings, and agency reviews, NASA made the decision to prioritize safety and return Starliner without its crew. Wilmore and Williams will continue their work aboard station as part of the Expedition 71/72 crew, returning in February 2025 with the agency’s SpaceX Crew-9 mission.

The crew flight test is part of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program. The goal of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program is safe, reliable, and cost-effective transportation to and from the International Space Station and low Earth orbit. This already is providing additional research time and has increased the opportunity for discovery aboard humanity’s microgravity testbed, including helping NASA prepare for human exploration of the Moon and Mars.

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Artemis IV: Gateway Gadget Fuels Deep Space Dining

NASA engineers are working hard to ensure no astronaut goes hungry on the Artemis IV mission.

A prototype of the Mini Potable Water Dispenser, currently in development at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, is displayed alongside various food pouches during a demonstration at NASA’s Johnson Space Center.NASA/David DeHoyos

When international teams of astronauts live on Gateway, humanity’s first space station to orbit the Moon, they’ll need innovative gadgets like the Mini Potable Water Dispenser. Vaguely resembling a toy water soaker, it manually dispenses water for hygiene bags, to rehydrate food, or simply to drink. It is designed to be compact, lightweight, portable and manual, making it ideal for Gateway’s relatively small size and remote location compared to the International Space Station closer to Earth.

Matt Rowell, left, an engineer at Marshall, demonstrates the Mini Portable Water Dispenser to NASA food scientists during a testing session.NASA/David DeHoyos

The team at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center leading the development of the dispenser understands that when it comes to deep space cuisine, the food astronauts eat is so much more than just fuel to keep them alive.

“Food doesn’t just provide body nourishment but also soul nourishment,” said Shaun Glasgow, project manager at Marshall. “So ultimately this device will help provide that little piece of soul nourishment. After a long day, the crew can float back and enjoy some pasta or scrambled eggs, a small sense of normalcy in a place far from home.”

Shaun Glasgow, right, project manager at Marshall, demonstrates the Mini Potable Water Dispenser.NASA/David DeHoyos

As NASA continues to innovate and push the boundaries of deep space exploration, devices like the compact, lightweight dispenser demonstrate a blend of practicality and ingenuity that will help humanity chart its path to the Moon, Mars, and beyond.

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NASA to host International Observe the Moon Night 2024

The public is invited to join fellow sky-watchers Sept. 14 for International Observe the Moon Night – a worldwide public event encouraging observation, appreciation, and understanding of the Moon and its connection to NASA exploration and discovery. This celebration of the Moon has been held annually since 2010, and this year NASA’s Planetary Missions Program Office will host an event at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville. The Planetary Missions Program Office is located at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center.

International Observe the Moon Night is Sept. 14.NASA

The free event will be from 5:30 to 8 p.m. CDT at the Davidson Center at the rocket center. Attractions will include hands-on STEM activities, telescope viewing from the Von Braun Astronomical Society, music, face painting, a photo booth, a science trivia show, and much more.

Headline entertainment will be provided by the Science Wizard, David Hagerman. The Science Wizard has appeared on national television and will perform two different science-based stage shows at the event.

NASA’s Planetary Missions Program Office will host an event as part of International Observe the Moon Night at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville on Sept. 14. NASA

It’s the perfect time to universally celebrate the Moon as excitement grows about NASA returning to our nearest celestial neighbor with the Artemis missions. Artemis will land the first woman and first person of color on the Moon, using innovative technologies to explore areas of the lunar surface that have never been discovered before.

Learn more and find other events here. Happy International Observe the Moon Night!

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New Hardware for Future Artemis Moon Missions Arrives at Kennedy

From across the Atlantic Ocean and through the Gulf of Mexico, two ships converged, delivering key spacecraft and rocket components of NASA’s Artemis campaign to the agency’s Kennedy Space Center.

On Sept. 3, ESA (European Space Agency) marked a milestone in the Artemis III mission as its European-built service module for NASA’s Orion spacecraft completed a transatlantic journey from Bremen, Germany, to Port Canaveral, Florida, where technicians moved it to nearby Kennedy. Transported aboard the Canopée cargo ship, the European Service Module – assembled by Airbus with components from 10 European countries and the U.S. – provides propulsion, thermal control, electrical power, and water and oxygen for its crews.

On the left, the Canopée transport carrier containing the European Service Module for NASA’s Artemis III mission arrives at Port Canaveral in Florida on Sept. 3 before completing the last leg of its journey to the agency’s Kennedy Space Center’s Neil A. Armstrong Operations and Checkout via truck. On the right, NASA’s Pegasus barge, carrying several pieces of hardware for Artemis II, III, and IV arrives at Kennedy’s Launch Complex 39 turn basin wharf Sept. 5.NASA

“Seeing multi-mission hardware arrive at the same time demonstrates the progress we are making on our Artemis missions,” said Amit Kshatriya, deputy associate administrator, Moon to Mars Program, at NASA Headquarters. “We are going to the Moon together with our industry and international partners and we are manufacturing, assembling, building, and integrating elements for Artemis flights.”

NASA’s Pegasus barge, the agency’s waterway workhorse for transporting large hardware by sea, ferried multi-mission hardware for the agency’s SLS (Space Launch System) rocket, the Artemis II launch vehicle stage adapter, the “boat-tail” of the core stage for Artemis III, the core stage engine section for Artemis IV, along with ground support equipment needed to move and assemble the large components. The barge pulled into NASA Kennedy’s Launch Complex 39B Turn Basin on Sept. 5.

The spacecraft factory inside Kennedy’s Neil Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building is set to buzz with additional activity in the coming months. With the Artemis II Orion crew and service modules stacked together and undergoing testing, and engineers outfitting the Artemis III and IV crew modules, engineers soon will connect the newly arrived European Service Module to the crew module adapter, which houses electronic equipment for communications, power, and control, and includes an umbilical connector that bridges the electrical, data, and fluid systems between the crew and service modules.

The SLS rocket’s cone-shaped launch vehicle stage adapter connects the core stage to the upper stage and protects the rocket’s flight computers, avionics, and electrical devices in the upper stage system during launch and ascent. The adapter will be taken to Kennedy’s Vehicle Assembly Building in preparation for Artemis II rocket stacking operations.

The boat-tail, which will be used during the assembly of the SLS core stage for Artemis III, is a fairing-like structure that protects the bottom end of the core stage and RS-25 engines. This hardware, picked up at NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility, will join the Artemis III core stage engine section housed in the spaceport’s Space Systems Processing Facility.

The Artemis IV SLS core stage engine section arrived from Michoud and also will transfer to the center’s processing facility ahead of final assembly.

Pegasus also transported the launch vehicle stage adapter for Artemis II, which was moved onto the barge at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center on Aug. 21. 

Under the Artemis campaign, NASA will land the first woman, first person of color, and its first international partner astronaut on the lunar surface, establishing long-term exploration for scientific discovery and preparing for human missions to Mars. The agency’s SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft, and supporting ground systems, along with the human landing system, next-generation spacesuits and rovers, and Gateway, serve as NASA’s foundation for deep space exploration.

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Hubble, Chandra Find Supermassive Black Hole Duo

Like two Sumo wrestlers squaring off, the closest confirmed pair of supermassive black holes have been observed in tight proximity. These are located approximately 300 light-years apart and were detected using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and the Chandra X-ray Observatory. These black holes, buried deep within a pair of colliding galaxies, are fueled by infalling gas and dust, causing them to shine brightly as active galactic nuclei (AGN).

This is an artist’s depiction of a pair of active black holes at the heart of two merging galaxies. They are both surrounded by an accretion disk of hot gas. Some of the material is ejected along the spin axis of each black hole. Confined by powerful magnetic fields, the jets blaze across space at nearly the speed of light as devastating beams of energy.NASA

This AGN pair is the closest one detected in the local universe using multiwavelength (visible and X-ray light) observations. While several dozen “dual” black holes have been found before, their separations are typically much greater than what was discovered in the gas-rich galaxy MCG-03-34-64. Astronomers using radio telescopes have observed one pair of binary black holes in even closer proximity than in MCG-03-34-64, but without confirmation in other wavelengths.

AGN binaries like this were likely more common in the early universe when galaxy mergers were more frequent. This discovery provides a unique close-up look at a nearby example, located about 800 million light-years away.

The discovery was serendipitous. Hubble’s high-resolution imaging revealed three optical diffraction spikes nested inside the host galaxy, indicating a large concentration of glowing oxygen gas within a very small area. “We were not expecting to see something like this,” said Anna Trindade Falcão of the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian in Cambridge, Massachusetts, lead author of the paper published Sept. 9 in The Astrophysical Journal. “This view is not a common occurrence in the nearby universe, and told us there’s something else going on inside the galaxy.”

Diffraction spikes are imaging artifacts caused when light from a very small region in space bends around the mirror inside telescopes.

A Hubble Space Telescope visible-light image of the galaxy MCG-03-34-064. Hubble’s sharp view reveals three distinct bright spots embedded in a white ellipse at the galaxy’s center (expanded in an inset image at upper right). Two of these bright spots are the source of strong X-ray emission, a telltale sign that they are supermassive black holes. The black holes shine brightly because they are converting infalling matter into energy, and blaze across space as active galactic nuclei. Their separation is about 300 light-years. The third spot is a blob of bright gas. The blue streak pointing to the 5 o’clock position may be a jet fired from one of the black holes. The black hole pair is a result of a merger between two galaxies that will eventually collide. NASA, ESA, Anna Trindade Falcão (CfA); Image Processing: Joseph DePasquale (STScI)

Falcão’s team then examined the same galaxy in X-rays light using the Chandra observatory to drill into what’s going on. “When we looked at MCG-03-34-64 in the X-ray band, we saw two separated, powerful sources of high-energy emission coincident with the bright optical points of light seen with Hubble. We put these pieces together and concluded that we were likely looking at two closely spaced supermassive black holes,” Falcão said.

To support their interpretation, the researchers used archival radio data from the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array near Socorro, New Mexico. The energetic black hole duo also emits powerful radio waves. “When you see bright light in optical, X-rays, and radio wavelengths, a lot of things can be ruled out, leaving the conclusion these can only be explained as close black holes. When you put all the pieces together it gives you the picture of the AGN duo,” said Falcão.

The third source of bright light seen by Hubble is of unknown origin, and more data is needed to understand it. That might be gas that is shocked by energy from a jet of ultra high-speed plasma fired from one of the black holes, like a stream of water from a garden hose blasting into a pile of sand.

“We wouldn’t be able to see all of these intricacies without Hubble’s amazing resolution,” Falcão said.

Astronomers using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope have discovered that the jet from a supermassive black hole at the core of M87, a huge galaxy 54 million light years away, seems to cause stars to erupt along its trajectory. The stars, called novae, are not caught inside the jet, but in a dangerous area near it. (NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center; lead producer: Paul Morris)

The two supermassive black holes were once at the core of their respective host galaxies. A merger between the galaxies brought the black holes into close proximity. They will continue to spiral closer together until they eventually merge – in perhaps 100 million years – rattling the fabric of space and time as gravitational waves.

The National Science Foundation’s Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) has detected gravitational waves from dozens of mergers between stellar-mass black holes. But the longer wavelengths resulting from a supermassive black hole merger are beyond LIGO’s capabilities. The next-generation gravitational wave detector, called the LISA (Laser Interferometer Space Antenna) mission, will consist of three detectors in space, separated by millions of miles, to capture these longer wavelength gravitational waves from deep space. ESA (European Space Agency) is leading this mission, partnering with NASA and other participating institutions, with a planned launch in the mid-2030s.

NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center manages the Chandra program. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory’s Chandra X-ray Center controls science from Cambridge, Massachusetts and flight operations from Burlington, Massachusetts. Northrop Grumman Space Technologies in Redondo Beach, California was the prime contractor for the spacecraft.

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 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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Betelgeuse! Betelgeuse! Betelgeuse! Stargazers Won’t See Ghosts but Supergiant Star for Spooky Season

Stargazers seeking familiar points of interest in the night sky are likely to point out Betelgeuse, the red supergiant star sometimes identified as “the shoulder of Orion.” Even some 400-600 light-years distant, it’s typically one of the brightest stars visible in the night sky, and the brightest of all in the infrared spectrum.

Fewer space enthusiasts may know that Betelgeuse’s nickname may have been mistranslated from the Arabic phrase Ibṭ al-Jauzā’ in the 13th century. Depending on the nuances of pronunciation, Betelgeuse actually might be “the armpit of Orion.”

Betelgeuse is part of the Orion constellation. NASA

What may come as a surprise is that the star that inspired the naming of a ghostly movie menace is doing some hurtling of its own. Betelgeuse is actually a runaway star in the process of bidding a big galactic adios to its birthplace – the hot star association that includes Orion’s Belt – and speeding away at approximately 18.6 miles per second.

That’s an awesome prospect, said Dr. Debra Wallace, deputy branch chief of Astrophysics at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center. Betelgeuse is a pulsating star with an uncertain distance of roughly 548 light-years and changing luminosity. We estimate its radius is approximately 724 times larger than our Sun. If it sat at the center of our solar system, it would swallow the orbits of Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars. Its bow shock – the “wave” generated by its passage through the interstellar medium – is roughly four light-years across.

What cosmic force caused Betelgeuse to go on the interstellar lam from its point of origin?

“Typically, stars don’t become runaways without receiving a big kick,” Wallace said. “What’s most likely is that the competing gravity of other nearby stars ejected it outward or something else blew up in its proximity. There was a change in the dynamic interactions of the star grouping, and Betelgeuse was sent packing.”

Betelgeuse is only 10 million years old, but already in the twilight of its life. Given that our own small star is nearly 5 billion years, roughly halfway through its own estimated lifespan, why is Betelgeuse expected to be here today and gone tomorrow – give or take 100,000 years?

“Think about setting a fire in your back yard,” Wallace said. “The more fuel you throw on it, the faster and hotter it burns. It’s visually impressive – but gone in a flash.”

That’s because stars ignite a powerful chain of nuclear fusion reactions to counter their own intense gravity, which is always striving to collapse the star in on itself. For supergiants such as Betelgeuse, that delicate balance requires it to burn extremely hot and bright – but that also means it consumes its fuel supply far faster than our own modest young star.

Wallace said Betelgeuse likely started its life at least 20 times the mass of Earth’s Sun. It’s been visible to us for millennia. Ancient Chinese astronomers would have identified it as a yellow star which has since evolved to the right, per the Hertzsprung-Russell stellar evolution diagram and a 2022 study of the star’s color evolution. When the Egyptian astronomer Ptolemy saw Betelgeuse some 300 years after the earliest Chinese observations, it had gone orange. Today, the star has taken on a fierce red color that makes it easy to find in the night sky.

This four-panel illustration reveals how the southern region of the red supergiant Betelgeuse suddenly may have become fainter for several months in late 2019 and early 2020. In the first two panels, as seen in ultraviolet light by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, a bright, hot blob of plasma is ejected from a convection cell on the star’s surface. In panel three, the expelled gas rapidly expands outward, cooling to form an enormous cloud of obscuring dust grains. The final panel reveals the huge dust cloud blocking the light from a quarter of Betelgeuse’s surface, as seen from Earth.

“Betelgeuse likely will burn for another 100,000 years or so, depending on its mass loss rate, then could end up a blue supergiant – like Rigel, the star that serves as Orion’s right knee – before it explodes,” Wallace said. That supernova event, she noted, will release as much energy in a split-second as our Sun generates in its entire lifetime, though Betelgeuse is far too distant to have any effect on our solar system.

Which isn’t to say the red supergiant doesn’t have any surprises left. In October 2019, Betelgeuse abruptly darkened, as much as half of its luminosity draining away in an event astronomers dubbed “the Great Dimming.”

Researchers began speculating about an early supernova, but by early 2020, Betelgeuse had brightened once more. Studies using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope suggested a slightly less explosive cause. An upwelling of a large convection cell on Betelgeuse – perhaps in honor of its flatulent namesake – had expelled a titanic outburst of superhot plasma, yielding a dust cloud that dramatically blocked the star’s light for months.

“We’re still figuring out the mechanisms which cause massive star evolution, and the advent of new telescopes has been tremendously helpful,” Wallace said. “We’ve only realized in the last 20 or 30 years that most massive stars are products of binary evolution.”

Was Betelgeuse part of a binary star system, and did its demise – or a cataclysmic split – turn it into a runaway? Is it possible it’s still there, having merged with or still locked in a fatal dance with its fugitive partner? New studies suggest those may be possibilities, though Wallace notes that further intensive study is needed.

Will Betelgeuse ultimately go out with a bang or a whimper? Time will tell. But don’t write off the red giant just yet.

Stargazers in the Northern Hemisphere seeking to spot Betelgeuse should scan the southwestern sky. Those south of the equator should look in the northwestern sky. Find a line of three bright stars clustered together, representing Orion’s belt. Two brighter stars just to the north mark Orion’s shoulders; the very bright left one is Betelgeuse.

Learn more about Betelgeuse here.

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NASA’s Mini BurstCube Mission Detects Mega Blast

The shoebox-sized BurstCube satellite has observed its first gamma-ray burst, the most powerful kind of explosion in the universe, according to a recent analysis of observations collected over the last several months.

“We’re excited to collect science data,” said Sean Semper, BurstCube’s lead engineer at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. “It’s an important milestone for the team and for the many early career engineers and scientists that have been part of the mission.”

BurstCube, trailed by another CubeSat named SNOOPI (Signals of Opportunity P-band Investigation), emerges from the International Space Station on April 18. NASA/Matthew Dominick

The event, called GRB 240629A, occurred June 29 in the southern constellation Microscopium. The team announced the discovery in a GCN (General Coordinates Network) circular on Aug. 29.

BurstCube deployed into orbit April 18 from the International Space Station, following a March 21 launch. The mission was designed to detect, locate, and study short gamma-ray bursts, brief flashes of high-energy light created when superdense objects like neutron stars collide. These collisions also produce heavy elements like gold and iodine, an essential ingredient for life as we know it. 

BurstCube is the first CubeSat to use NASA’s TDRS (Tracking and Data Relay Satellite) system, a constellation of specialized communications spacecraft. Data relayed by TDRS (pronounced “tee-driss”) help coordinate rapid follow-up measurements by other observatories in space and on the ground through NASA’s GCN. BurstCube also regularly beams data back to Earth using the Direct to Earth system – both it and TDRS are part of NASA’s Near Space Network.

After BurstCube deployed from the space station, the team discovered that one of the two solar panels failed to fully extend. It obscures the view of the mission’s star tracker, which hinders orienting the spacecraft in a way that minimizes drag. The team originally hoped to operate BurstCube for 12-18 months, but now estimates the increased drag will cause the satellite to re-enter the atmosphere in September. 

“I’m proud of how the team responded to the situation and is making the best use of the time we have in orbit,” said Jeremy Perkins, BurstCube’s principal investigator at Goddard. “Small missions like BurstCube not only provide an opportunity to do great science and test new technologies, like our mission’s gamma-ray detector, but also important learning opportunities for the up-and-coming members of the astrophysics community.”

BurstCube is led by Goddard. It’s funded by the Science Mission Directorate’s Astrophysics Division at NASA Headquarters. The BurstCube collaboration includes: the University of Alabama in Huntsville; the University of Maryland, College Park; the Universities Space Research Association in Washington; the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington; and NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center.

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Ask any property inspector, and they’ll tell you one of the maxims of their profession – where there’s moisture, there’s mold. That relationship also holds true for the International Space Station. The interior climate on the ISS is carefully controlled, but if thrown out of whack, potentially dangerous mold could sprout overnight. A new paper by researchers at The Ohio State University explains why – and provides some insights into how we might prevent it if it does happen.

The paper’s main finding was that dust collection, when exposed to moisture for only a short time, leads to a massive increase in the microbial population and a fundamental change in the dust itself to make it easier for the microbes to grow. There is plenty of dust on the ISS, so astronauts must be careful.

They already clean the screens covering the air filtration system on board regularly. The dust they collected from those screens formed the basis of the samples provided to Dr. Karen Dannemiller and her team at OSU. They separated the dust samples into different sub-samples and exposed each to a varying amount of moisture. Then, they watched as the microbes already present in the dust did their work.

A picture of mold growing on the ISS.
Credit – NASA

Dust is naturally created in the ISS from dead human skin and, of course, the microbes that live alongside us on a daily basis. However, in closed environments, an outbreak of bacteria would cause even more severe reactions than they do on Earth, including allergies and asthma. It is even possible that the dust and associated bacteria degrade the material structure of the ISS itself.

Running the collected samples through a higher moisture content is designed to mimic a possible failure on the ISS, such as an equipment malfunction. Knocking out an air ventilation fan in one part of the space station could create an environment similar to the one the dust is subjected to back on the ground.

So, what does that mean for our astronauts? For now, it’s best to understand where mold could form and keep up with cleaning schedules that allow them to nip it in the bud. There are several famous pictures of mold growing in a space station, so while generally successful, that has still been a known problem for a long time in space exploration. 

Bacteria were also found growing in the old Mir space station, as discussed in this Science Channel episode.
Credit – Science Channel YouTube Channel

Dr. Dannemiller and her colleagues have developed a model that could track mold growth in a closed environment like the ISS to combat this. They used data collected by analyzing the dust samples as part of their proof of concept for the software, but the eventual end goal is to predict where mold will grow before it begins and give the astronauts time to clean it out before it becomes a hazard. 

There will be plenty of space stations to work on this system in the future. Private spaceflight companies have become increasingly involved in developing space habitats, and NASA is setting up the ambitious Lunar Gateway to help with its Artemis missions to the moon. As more enclosed, sealed environments come online, it will be increasingly important to keep them free of these potentially dangerous microbial infestations. Experimenting with them and modeling that growth is one way to stay ahead of the curve.

Learn More:
Phys.org – Keeping mold out of future space stations
Nastasi et al – Predicting how varying moisture conditions impact the microbiome of dust collected from the International Space Station
UT – How Can Biofilms Help or Hinder Spaceflight?
UT – Earth’s toughest bacteria can survive unprotected in space for at least a year

Lead Image:
Scanning Electron Microscope image of dust from the ISS.
Credit – Microbiome / Nastasi et al.

The post Space Stations Get Pretty Moldy. How Can We Prevent it? appeared first on Universe Today.

The Soyuz rocket launches to the International Space Station with Expedition 72 crew members: NASA astronaut Don Pettit, Roscosmos cosmonauts Alexey Ovchinin, and Ivan Vagner, onboard, Wednesday, Sept. 11, 2024, at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls

NASA astronaut Don Pettit, accompanied by Roscosmos cosmonauts Alexey Ovchinin and Ivan Vagner, arrived at the International Space Station Wednesday, bringing its number of residents to 12 for the 13-day handover period.

After a two-orbit, three-hour journey to the station, the Roscosmos Soyuz MS-26 spacecraft automatically docked to the orbiting laboratory’s Rassvet module at 3:32 p.m. EDT. The spacecraft launched at 12:23 p.m. EDT (9:23 p.m. Baikonur time) from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

NASA’s coverage of hatch opening will stream at 5:30 p.m. on NASA+, the NASA app, YouTube, and the agency’s website. Hatch opening is scheduled to begin at 5:50 p.m. Learn how to stream NASA content through a variety of platforms, including social media.

Once aboard, the trio will join Expedition 71 crew members, including NASA astronauts Tracy C. Dyson, Mike Barratt, Matthew Dominick, Jeanette Epps, Butch Wilmore, and Suni Williams, as well as Roscosmos cosmonauts Nikolai Chub, Alexander Grebenkin, and Oleg Kononenko. Expedition 72 will begin Monday, Sept. 23, upon the departure of Dyson, Chub, and off-going station commander Kononenko, completing a six-month stay for Dyson and a year-long expedition for Chub and Kononenko.

Pettit, Ovchinin, and Vagner will spend approximately six months aboard the orbital outpost advancing scientific research as Expedition 71/72 crew members before returning to Earth in the spring of 2025. This is Pettit and Ovchinin’s fourth spaceflight and Vagner’s second.

During Expedition 72, two new crews will arrive aboard the space station, including NASA’s SpaceX Crew-9 launching in September, followed by Crew-10, scheduled for launch in February 2025.  

Follow Pettit on X throughout his mission and get the latest space station crew news on Instagram, Facebook, and X.

Learn more about International Space Station research and operations at:

https://www.nasa.gov/station

-end-

Joshua Finch / Claire O’Shea
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1100
joshua.a.finch@nasa.gov / claire.a.o’shea@nasa.gov

Leah Cheshier
Johnson Space Center, Houston
281-483-5111
leah.d.cheshier@nasa.gov

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