Yearly Archives: 2020

Safety panel concludes May launch of commercial crew test flight is feasible

A NASA safety panel, Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel (ASAP, believes the agency’s plan to launch a SpaceX commercial crew test flight in late May is feasible, although some issues still need to be resolved before the launch.

Sanders, the panel’s chair said the panel has been kept up to date by NASA about commercial crew activities, including plans for SpaceX’s Demo-2 crewed test flight scheduled for May 27. “We are aware of a few technical items that remain to be more fully understood,” she said, “but the path forward appears feasible.”

Our friends at NASA JPL!

A new high-pressure ventilator developed by NASA engineers and tailored to treat coronavirus (COVID-19) patients passed a critical test Tuesday at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York, an epicenter of COVID-19 in the United States.

The Value of Experience in Education

Not all education can or should take place in the classroom. Some of the most educational, engaging and memorable experiences that students will ever have can be those that occur on excursions, camps, and study trips. The challenge for many schools is funding and resourcing such opportunities. With so many competing priorities, the focus for

An Out-of-this-World Problem to Solve

How would you like to be part of a team representing Australia in a robotics competition against teams from at least 11 other countries, with the finals being conducted in real time on the International Space Station (ISS)? This is the latest in STEM outreach experiences being provided for Australia’s student population to advance team

News from Virgin Galactic

We’ll be running weekly Live Spacechats on the Virgin Galactic YouTube channel. The first will take place this Thursday and will feature our Chief Astronaut Trainer, Beth Moses, talking through her flight to space.

In 2 days – get up early and listen to Beth!

Coronavirus pauses work on JWST

NASA has suspended work on the James Webb Space Telescope as it prioritizes what agency missions require people to be on site during the coronavirus pandemic.

In a statement March 20, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said NASA had completed an assessment of work across the agency, deciding which projects are essential enough to require people to go to NASA centers or other facilities to work on them.

“We are going to take care of our people. That’s our first priority,” said Bridenstine. “Technology allows us to do a lot of what we need to do remotely, but, where hands-on work is required, it is difficult or impossible to comply with [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] guidelines while processing spaceflight hardware, and where we can’t safely do that we’re going to have to suspend work and focus on the mission-critical activities.”

Watch how the only woman in space today celebrated International Women’s Day

The only woman in space right now made a special presentation for International Women’s Day this Monday (March 9).

Floating in the Kibo module of the International Space Station NASA astronaut Jessica Meir spoke in a video posted to Twitter Monday about why we need diverse perspectives to accomplish big goals in space exploration. “It takes all sorts of people from diverse backgrounds to explore the unknown and to make things that are seemingly impossible, possible,” said Meir, an astronaut on the three-person Expedition 62. “When we all work together, there is no limit to what we can accomplish.”

SpaceX Dragon cargo ship, the last to be caught by robot arm, arrives at space station

SpaceX’s Dragon cargo capsule arrived at the International Space Station early in the morning of March 9, delivering more than 4,300 lbs. (1,950 kgs) of supplies to the orbiting lab.

NASA astronaut Jessica Meir used the station’s huge Canadarm robotic arm to capture Dragon at 6:25 a.m. EDT (1025 GMT).

It was the last-ever capture of a Dragon by the station’s robotic arm. The current mission, the 20th SpaceX has flown under a cargo deal with NASA, is the last for this first version of the SpaceX resupply vehicle. The new iteration will dock directly to the International Space Station (ISS), no arm required, just like SpaceX’s astronaut-carrying Crew Dragon capsule.

“The SpaceX 20 mission is a milestone for several reasons,” Meir said this morning. “It is of course the 20th SpaceX cargo mission, but it is also the last SpaceX cargo vehicle captured by the Canadarm, as future vehicles will automatically dock to the space station. It is also the last cargo vehicle that will visit during our current crew’s time on the space station.”

This gas-giant exoplanet has water-rich clouds. Here’s why it thrills astronomers

Three teams of astronomers have been fascinated by an alien world known as K2-18b, which is 110 light-years away, in the constellation Leo. But what’s all the fuss about?

In September, two teams announced that they had found signs of liquid water in the planet’s atmosphere — a landmark discovery in the search for potentially habitable alien worlds. But the mere presence of water isn’t the only condition necessary for life. Other conditions, like temperature and pressure, can also affect a planet’s habitability. Now, a third team reports that the pressures of liquid water on the same world may be good for life to evolve — another intriguing development for scientists.

NASA’s Mars 2020 rover has a new name: Perseverance

NASA’s next Mars rover is officially called Perseverance. The new name suits the car-size rover and its ground-breaking mission nicely, NASA officials said. “There has never been exploration — never, never been making history — without perseverance,” Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, said during a name-unveiling ceremony. “Perseverance is a strong word,” he added. “It’s about making progress despite obstacles.”

Perseverance will land inside Mars’ Jezero Crater in February 2021, kicking off a $2.5 billion mission to search for signs of ancient life on the Red Planet — the first time a NASA surface craft has actively hunted for possible Martians since the twin Viking landers did so from the mid-1970s through the early 1980s. Perseverance will also collect and cache several dozen samples of pristine, promising Mars material for future return to Earth, where scientists can continue the hunt using advanced equipment in labs around the world.

Parachute problems could delay Europe’s ExoMars rover launch to 2022: Report

Launching the ExoMars rover to the Red Planet this year may be delayed due to critical issues found during testing of the landing parachutes. Heads of two main partners of this mission: the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Russian Space Agency, Roscosmos, are due to meet on March 12 to discuss mission progress. If

Astronomers spot hundreds of baby stars and planet-forming disks

While imaging more than 300 new born stars, which lie in a dense star-forming region known as the Orion Molecular Cloud Complex, astronomers have revealed new clues about the early stages of star formation and the birth of planets. Young stars, also called protostars, are surrounded by a ring of dust and gas, known as a protoplanetary disk, which supports the birth of new planets.