A visit by the NASA administrator to a rocket factory is usually a predictable show-and-tell of the latest gadgets destined for outer space.
But there may have been some tension below the surface on Thursday when the current administrator, Jim Bridenstine, stopped by the headquarters of SpaceX, the private rocket company of the billionaire Elon Musk, in Hawthorne, Calif. SpaceX is a major contractor for NASA.
Mr. Bridenstine and Mr. Musk had been exchanging nettlesome messages for the past two weeks. Thursday's visit might have been as much about smoothing over ruffled feelings as viewing space hardware.
Taking questions from reporters, both men were complimentary toward each other and said they shared the same goals: to launch NASA astronauts to the International Space Station on SpaceX's Crew Dragon capsule as soon as possible, but not before the spacecraft had passed all of the needed tests.
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NASA's Long-Delayed Space Weather Mission Just Got Delayed Again | Space
NASA's long-awaited space weather mission is making scientists wait again — ironically, due to terrestrial weather.
The agency's Ionospheric Connection Explorer , or ICON, spacecraft was meant to launch atop a rocket dropped by a plane this evening! After Sparring, NASA and SpaceX Declare a Shared Mission ...www.nytimes.com /2019/10/10/science/ nasa - ...musk.html After Sparring , NASA and SpaceX Declare a Shared Mission The space agency's administrator , Jim Bridenstine , met Elon Musk at SpaceX headquarters on Thursday to review progress toward launching NASA ...!! But poor weather near Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida has prompted mission personnel to call for a 24-hour delay.
The new launch window will open tomorrow (Oct. 10) at 9:25 p.m. EDT (0125 GMT on Oct. 11) and last for about 90 minutes! NASA and SpaceX: Dragon Crew Extraction Rehearsal | Watts ...wattsupwiththat.com /2019/08/20/ nasa - and-spacex ...On August 13, 2019, NASA at the Trident Basin in Cape Canaveral, Florida, astronauts Doug Hurley, left, and Bob Behnken work with teams from NASA and SpaceX to rehearse crew extraction from SpaceX 's Crew Dragon, which will be used to carry humans to the International Space Station.!! You can watch the launch on Space.com courtesy of NASA TV or directly through NASA's website, with the broadcast beginning at 9:15 p.m. EDT (0115 GMT on Oct. 11).
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Today's scrub was not unexpected: the weather office of the Air Force's 45th Space Wing, which monitors conditions for launches from Cape Canaveral, rated the odds of showers interfering with tonight's attempt at 70%.
NASA Tests Mars 2020 Rover's Sky Crane Landing Tech | Space
NASA's Mars 2020 rover mission has checked off another milestone with a successful separation test of the descent stage that will deliver the six-wheeled robot to the surface of the Red Planet.
The test, which took place at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, on Sept. 28, involved using a crane to lift the large, rocket-powered descent stage away from the rover.
"Firing the pyrotechnic devices that held the rover and descent stage together and then doing the post-test inspection of the two vehicles was an all-day affair," Ryan van Schilifgaarde, a support engineer for Mars 2020 assembly at JPL, said in a statement from NASA.
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Mars 2020, which will get a new name soon , is heavily based on NASA's Curiosity rover, which has been exploring Mars' Gale Crater since August 2012. Like Curiosity, Mars 2020 will be lowered to the Martian surface on cables by a rocket-powered sky crane, which will then fly off to intentionally crash-land a safe distance away.
Milky Way's center will be revealed by NASA's Webb Telescope
"Even one image from Webb will be the highest quality image ever obtained of the galactic center," said Roeland van der Marel of the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI), principal investigator on one planned study that will focus on imaging.
Telescopes on the ground and in space have provided tantalizing glimpses of the residents of the galactic center! NASA to launch safety review of SpaceX and Boeing after ...forum. nasa ...Elon Musk takes one and only one half-puff of some marijuana (while discussing how much he dislikes it) while off work and you declare SpaceX unsafe after dozens and dozens of safe launches. NASA do your job and sign the paperwork and let SpaceX launch. Stop being an impediment and ruining this nation's space program.!! Astronomers have tracked stars orbiting the black hole, some of which approach close enough to provide a test of Einstein's general theory of relativity! The Race to Launch From U.S. Soil Heats Up - The Atlantic www.theatlantic.com ...crew...SpaceX hopes to reach its human-rating certification in January 2019, and Boeing in February 2019. After that, NASA estimates the companies will launch as many as six crews to the space station ...!! However, so far, only the brightest stars are detectable.
"We're only seeing the tip of the iceberg from the ground. Webb will be able to study fainter stars and tell us more about the overall stellar population," said Torsten Böker of the European Space Agency and STScI, a co-investigator on a second planned study of the galactic center that will focus on spectroscopy.
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NASA discovered a black spot on Jupiter 2,200 miles long | Q13 FOX News
(CNN) — A NASA space mission found a large black spot on Jupiter, and it isn’t what you think.
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The shadow is from Jupiter’s volcanically active moon, lo, eclipsing the sun, just like our moon does on Earth. NASA said the spot measured 2,200 miles wide — roughly the distance between New York City and Las Vegas, Nevada.
Jupiter, the largest planet in the solar system, has several moons that frequently eclipse the sun because of Jupiter’s size and the fact that the planet is not “highly tilted” compared to its orbit, according to NASA.
The photo was taken by NASA’s solar-powered spacecraft Juno on September 11 during its 22nd full orbit of Jupiter! Videos for After Sparring , NASA And SpaceX Declare 13:20 PLANET 9 Declared Closer and Larger?! SpaceX ALIEN Ripley Conspiracy @Space Station YouTube!! The spacecraft has been in use since 2011 and entered its initial 53-day orbit around Jupiter on July 4, 2016.
NASA is getting ready for the first all-female spacewalk — again - The Verge
Originally, Koch was slated to do a spacewalk with her then-crewmate, Anne McClain, which would have been the first all-female spacewalk in the history of space travel. The week of the spacewalk, however, NASA announced that McClain would no longer be working with Koch but would be replaced by her male colleague, Nick Hague. NASA cited spacesuit availability as the culprit; McClain realized she needed a medium-sized spacesuit, but only one was available at the time, and that one went to Koch.
But this time around, NASA has the spacesuits ready. Another spacesuit was launched to the ISS this year, this one already in a medium configuration, according to Kirk Shireman, NASA's program manager for the International Space Station. That means there are now two medium-sized spacesuits prepped for the spacewalk.
NASA claims the decision to launch this second medium-sized suit had to do with the number of spacewalks coming up and which crew members will be available in the months ahead. "We don't do it for a specific crew member," Shireman said during a press conference on Friday. "Actually, what we do is we look over the next two years, and look at all the crew members who are [spacewalk] certified, and say, 'Okay, what's the sweet spot?'" Shireman noted that over the next couple of years, a lot of "medium suit people" will be heading to the ISS.
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