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.
And here's another article:
NASA’s new Moon-bound spacesuit is safer, smarter and much more comfortable –
The next Americans to set foot on the Moon will do so in a brand new spacesuit that’s based on, but hugely improved from, the original Apollo suits that last went up there in the ’70s. With easier entry, better mobility and improved communications, these won’t be nearly as clumsy or restrictive — though you still wouldn’t want to wear one around the house.
The new spacesuit, known as the Exploration Extravehicular Mobility Unit or xEMU, is still deep in development, but its features have been more or less finalized! After Sparring, NASA and SpaceX Declare a Shared Mission ...shared-mission After Sparring , NASA and SpaceX Declare a Shared Mission A visit by the NASA administrator to a rocket factory is usually a predictable ...tell of the latest gadgets destined for outer space.!! It’s already being tested underwater, and orbital testing is scheduled for 2023.
In NASA’s words, a spacesuit is “a personalized spaceship that mimics all of the protections from the harsh environment of space and the basic resources that Earth and its atmosphere provide.” There’s only so much wiggle room there.
Gender equality: All-women Delta crew flies 120 girls to NASA space center to
"From nose to tail, the flight was planned and orchestrated exclusively by women — including the pilots flying the plane, ramp agents working on the ground, gate agents boarding the flight and women in the tower guiding the aircraft on its way out," Delta wrote in a statement .
"I never would have thought I would have had this experience. I'm really grateful for my parents who have made this possible and inspired my love of aviation," said 16-year-old Karyanna H., an 11th grader at Jordan Technical Institute. "It's such an exciting time to be in STEM. There's so much left for us to discover."
"It didn't seem realistic to go after a career in aviation, but today I realized, 'Hey, I can do this too,'" said 17-year-old Katelyn J., a 12th grader from Advanced Learning Center.
According to Women in Aviation International , 20,000 attendees participated in International Girls in Aviation Day this year. Seventeen countries participated to introduce girls to careers in aviation and aerospace.
After years of delays, NASA is finally poised to launch a satellite to better understand space
NASA is slated to launch a long-awaited satellite from Florida on Thursday night that's designed to help scientists better predict how space weather events will behave high above Earth. But to get to space, the rocket launching this satellite won't take off from the ground like most others do. Instead, it'll launch from underneath a giant airplane, climbing to space from midair.
The mission is named ICON — for Ionospheric Connection Explorer — and it was originally supposed to launch in the summer of 2017. However, technical issues with the rocket, called Pegasus, forced the launch to be put on hold for the last two years! Flipboard: After Sparring, NASA and SpaceX Declare a ...shared...After Sparring, NASA and SpaceX Declare a Shared Mission The New York Times - Kenneth Chang A visit by the NASA administrator to a rocket factory is usually a predictable ...tell of the latest gadgets destined for outer space.!! Now, Northrop Grumman, which operates the Pegasus system, says the rocket is ready to fly after making a few modifications to the vehicle and performing a variety of qualification tests.
If ICON finally gets off the ground this week, scientists are particularly eager about what the satellite might tell us about Earth's mysterious ionosphere — a huge layer of our planet's atmosphere that begins 30 miles up and spans all the way to 600 miles high. This part of our planet's atmosphere overlaps with the boundary of space and is responsible for what is known as space weather! SpaceX and NASA declare shared mission after sparring - SFGate ...SpaceX and NASA declare shared mission after sparring - SFGate SFGate : A visit by the NASA administrator to a rocket factory is usually a predictable ...tell of the latest gadgets destined for outer space.!! It's here where charged particles streaming from the Sun interact with particles in our atmosphere, charging them up and creating strange phenomena such as the aurora and geomagnetic storms.
Not to change the topic here:
NASA Uses a Plane to Launch a Craft to the Very Edge of Space | Digital Trends
NASA has launched a new spacecraft, the Ionospheric Connection Explorer (ICON), for exploring the radiation-filled and inhospitable border between our planet’s atmosphere and space! Elon Musk and NASA chief Jim Bridenstine make amends after ...www.cnn.com ...spacex - nasa ...After spending the day with CEO Elon Musk at the company's California headquarters, NASA chief Jim Bridenstine says he's now "very confident" in SpaceX 's Crew Dragon spacecraft , indicating the ...!! On Thursday, the ICON spacecraft was carried aboard a Northrop Grumman Stargazer L-1011 aircraft that took it to an altitude of 39,000 feet before being deployed on a Northrop Grumman Pegasus XL rocket, whose automated systems launched it into space.
The combination of plane and rocket was used to place ICON in a region of the upper atmosphere called the ionosphere, at an altitude of about 360 miles! spacetoday.net: older news articles ...After Sparring, NASA and SpaceX Declare a Shared Mission New York Times — 7:11 am ET (1111 GMT) NASA chief says SpaceX properly focused on Crew Dragon Spaceflight Now — 7:10 am ET (1110 GMT) Rockets purchased by Stratolaunch back under Northrop Grumman control!! This region marks the inner edge of the magnetosphere, where there is heavy radiation creating space weather . This radiation is important to study because it not only affects machinery but can also have deleterious effects on the health of astronauts .
It has traditionally been difficult to research the ionosphere as it is too low for spacecraft to study and too high for balloons. The ICON craft is designed to withstand this harsh environment.
NASA official hints first SLS launch could slip to mid-2021 - SpaceNews.com
LAS CRUCES, N.M. — While NASA continues to wait to set a new official date for the first launch of its Space Launch System, an agency official said Oct. 10 that the launch could slip as late as the middle of 2021.
NASA's formal estimate of the first launch of SLS, a mission called Artemis 1, remains late 2020. That date, though, assumes that everything will go exactly as planned for the remainder of the vehicle's development and testing.
"The schedule that we're managing to is very, very aggressive," said Ken Bowersox, acting associate administrator for human exploration and operations at NASA, during a presentation at the International Symposium for Personal and Commercial Spaceflight (ISPCS) here.
That schedule calls for finishing the core stage of the vehicle at the end of this year and shipping it to the Stennis Space Center in Mississippi for a static-fire test known as the Green Run. "In the best case, it's going to be five or six months" of testing there, he said.
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