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By NASA
3 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
NAACP Board Chair Leon Russell, left, and NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, right, sign a Space Act Agreement between NASA and the NAACP during a 5th Annual Hidden Figures Street Naming Anniversary event Thursday, Sept. 19, 2024, at the Mary W. Jackson NASA Headquarters building in Washington. NASA/Keegan Barber During an event Thursday, NASA and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) signed a Space Act Agreement to increase engagement and equity for underrepresented students pursuing science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields and to improve access to agency activities and opportunities.
“NASA and the NAACP share a longstanding commitment to attracting more diverse students to STEM education and ultimately careers,” said Shahra Lambert, senior advisor for engagement and equity, NASA headquarters. “This agreement reaffirms that commitment and solidifies a partnership that will enable us to expand opportunities for more students of color to build their STEM identity and gain real-world experience through NASA STEM education, mentorship, and career awareness. With the NAACP’s help we’ll be able to truly impact young minds who will be our future scientists, engineers, explorers and more.”
As part of the agreement, the NAACP will incorporate NASA STEM lessons, content, and themes into its Afro-Academic, Cultural, Technological and Scientific Olympics (ACT-SO) achievement program, which is a series of competitions where students compete for scholarships and other incentives in areas ranging from performing and culinary arts to business and STEM. In turn, NASA will provide guidance on programming, participate in information sharing, provide mentorship, and facilitate tours of NASA facilities when appropriate.
“Much like NASA, brave, brilliant, Black women were critical to the success of the NAACP,” said Leon W. Russell, Chairman of the NAACP Board of Directors. “For years, we’ve worked to increase the number of diverse STEM students by providing scholarships and establishing key initiatives. Through our ACT-SO program and this new partnership with NASA, both organizations will make even greater progress to help pave the way for more Katherine Johnsons and Mary Jacksons. By enacting today’s agreement, we hope to increase the number of Black and underrepresented students in the STEM fields and help them reach for the stars.”
While initial efforts will be led by NASA’s Office of STEM Engagement, the umbrella agreement also allows for further collaboration and partnership in the future. Specifically, the agency and the NAACP will look to support certain areas of NASA’s Equity Action Plan.
NASA works to explore the secrets of the universe and solve the world’s most complex problems, which requires creating space for all people to participate in and learn from its work in space. Providing access to opportunities where young minds can be curious and see themselves potentially at NASA and beyond is how the agency will continue to inspire the next generation of STEM innovators.
For more information on how NASA inspires students to pursue STEM visit:
https://www.nasa.gov/learning-resources
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By NASA
The Roscosmos Soyuz MS-25 spacecraft is pictured docked to the International Space Station’s Prichal module in this long-duration photograph as it orbited 258 miles above Nigeria.Credit: NASA NASA astronaut Tracy C. Dyson, accompanied by Roscosmos cosmonauts Nikolai Chub and Oleg Kononenko, will depart from the International Space Station aboard the Soyuz MS-25 spacecraft, and return to Earth.
Dyson, Chub, and Kononenko will undock from the orbiting laboratory’s Prichal module at 4:37 a.m. EDT Monday, Sept. 23, heading for a parachute-assisted landing at 8 a.m. (5 p.m. Kazakhstan time) on the steppe of Kazakhstan, southeast of the town of Dzhezkazgan.
NASA’s live coverage of return and related activities will stream on NASA+ and the agency’s website. Learn how to stream NASA content through a variety of platforms, including social media.
A change of command ceremony also will stream on NASA platforms at 10:15 a.m. Sunday, Sept. 22. Kononenko will hand over station command to NASA astronaut Suni Williams for Expedition 72, which begins at the time of undocking.
Spanning 184 days in space, Dyson’s mission includes covering 2,944 orbits of the Earth and a journey of 78 million miles. The Soyuz MS-25 spacecraft launched March 23, and arrived at the station March 25, with Dyson, Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Novitskiy, and spaceflight participant Marina Vasilevskaya of Belarus. Novitskiy and Vasilevskaya were aboard the station for 12 days before returning home with NASA astronaut Loral O’Hara on April 6.
Kononenko and Chub, who launched with O’Hara to the station on the Soyuz MS-24 spacecraft last September, will return after 374 days in space and a trip of 158.6 million miles, spanning 5,984 orbits.
Dyson spent her fourth spaceflight aboard the station as an Expedition 70 and 71 flight engineer, and departs with Kononenko, completing his fifth flight into space and accruing an all-time record 1,111 days in orbit, and Chub, who completed his first spaceflight.
After returning to Earth, the three crew members will fly on a helicopter from the landing site to the recovery staging city of Karaganda, Kazakhstan. Dyson will board a NASA plane and return to Houston, while Kononenko and Chub will depart for a training base in Star City, Russia.
NASA’s coverage is as follows (all times Eastern and subject to change based on real-time operations):
Sunday, Sept. 22
10:15 a.m. – Expedition 71/72 change of command ceremony begins on NASA+ and the agency’s website.
Monday, Sept. 23
12:45 a.m. – Hatch closing coverage begins on NASA+ and the agency’s website.
1:05 a.m. – Hatch closing
4 a.m. – Undocking coverage begins on NASA+ and the agency’s website.
4:37 a.m. – Undocking
6:45 a.m. – Coverage begins for deorbit burn, entry, and landing on NASA+ and the agency’s website.
7:05 a.m. – Deorbit burn
8 a.m. – Landing
For more than two decades, people have lived and worked continuously aboard the International Space Station, advancing scientific knowledge, and making research breakthroughs that are not possible on Earth. The station is a critical testbed for NASA to understand and overcome the challenges of long-duration spaceflight and to expand commercial opportunities in low Earth orbit. As commercial companies focus on providing human space transportation services and destinations as part of a robust low Earth orbit economy, NASA is focusing more resources on deep space missions to the Moon as part of Artemis in preparation for future human missions to Mars.
Learn more about International Space Station research and operations at:
https://www.nasa.gov/station
-end-
Josh Finch / Claire O’Shea
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joshua.a.finch@nasa.gov / claire.a.o’shea@nasa.gov
Sandra Jones
Johnson Space Center, Houston
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sandra.p.jones@nasa.gov
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By NASA
4 Min Read NASA’s Hidden Figures Honored with Congressional Gold Medals
Sen. Shelly Moore Capito (R-WV), delivers remarks during a Congressional Gold Medal ceremony recognizing NASA’s Hidden Figures, Wednesday, Sept. 18, 2024, in Emancipation Hall at the U.S. Capitol in Washington. Credits: NASA/Joel Kowsky A simple turn of phrase was all it took for U.S. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito of Katherine Johnson’s home state of West Virginia to capture the feeling in Emancipation Hall at the U.S. Capitol in Washington.
“It’s been said that Katherine Johnson counted everything,” she said. “But today we’re here to celebrate the one thing even she couldn’t count, and that’s the impact that she and her colleagues have had on the lives of students, teachers, and explorers.”
That sense of admiration and awe toward the legacy and impact of NASA’s Hidden Figures was palpable Wednesday during a Congressional Gold Medal Ceremony to honor the women’s work and achievements during the space race.
The Congressional Gold Medal in recognition of Katherine Johnson in recognition of her service to the United States as a Mathematician is seen during a ceremony recognizing NASA’s Hidden Figures, Wednesday, Sept. 18, 2024, in Emancipation Hall at the U.S. Capitol in Washington. Katherine Johnson’s family accepted this gold medal on her behalf.NASA/Joel Kowsky The ceremony, hosted by House Speaker Mike Johnson, honored Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan, Mary Jackson, and Dr. Christine Darden of NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, along with all the other women who served at the agency and its precursor, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, or the NACA, as computers, mathematicians, and engineers.
“The pioneers we honor today, these Hidden Figures — their courage and imagination brought us to the Moon. And their lessons, their legacy, will send us back to the Moon,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson.
Margot Lee Shetterly, whose 2016 nonfiction book “Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Who Helped Win the Space Race,” brought awareness to the stories of NASA’s human computers, spoke at the event.NASA/Joel Kowsky Author Margot Lee Shetterly detailed the stories of the women from NASA Langley in her 2016 nonfiction book “Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Who Helped Win the Space Race.” Though the book focused on NASA Langley, where Shetterly’s father worked, it helped raise awareness of similar stories around NASA.
A film adaptation of the book starring Taraji Henson as Johnson, Octavia Spencer as Vaughan, and Janelle Monáe as Jackson came out later that year and further elevated the topic. NASA participated under a Space Act Agreement with 20th Century Fox in activities around the movie, to provide historical guidance and advice during the filmmaking process.
In her remarks, Shetterly noted that even as the Hidden Figures made such key contributions to NASA and the NACA before it, they remained active in their communities, leading Girl Scout troops and delivering meals to the hungry.
“They spent countless hours tutoring kids so that those kids, too, would see the power and the beauty of numbers they believed in, tending to the small D democracy that binds us to each other as neighbors and as American citizens,” she said.
The medal citations were as follows:
Congressional Gold Medal to Katherine Johnson, in recognition of her service to the United States as a mathematician Congressional Gold Medal to Dr. Christine Darden, for her service to the United States as an aeronautical engineer Congressional Gold Medals in commemoration of the lives of Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson, in recognition of their service to the United States during the space race Congressional Gold Medal in recognition of all the women who served as computers, mathematicians, and engineers at the National Advisory Committee Family members of Johnson, Vaughn, Jackson and Dr. Darden accepted medals on their behalves. Dr. Darden watched the ceremony from home.
House Speaker Mike Johnson and Andrea Mosie, senior Apollo sample processor and lab manager who oversees the 842 pounds of Apollo lunar samples. Mosie accepted the medal awarded in recognition of all the women who served as computers, mathematicians, and engineers at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics and NASA between the 1930s and the 1970s.NASA/Joel Kowsky Andrea Mosie, senior Apollo sample processor and lab manager who oversees the 842 pounds of Apollo lunar samples, accepted the medal awarded to all NASA’s Hidden Figures. She began her career at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston in the 1970s.
Mosie thanked Congress for supporting NASA’s campaign to send the first woman and first person of color to the Moon as part of Artemis and the agency’s efforts to provide “opportunities for people, more representative of the way our country looks, to understand humanity’s place in the universe.”
Several NASA Langley officials attended the event to honor the legacies of the women who worked there.
“I am humbled by the significant contributions and lasting impact of these women to America’s aeronautics and space programs. Their brilliance and perseverance still echo not just through the halls of NASA Langley, but through the entire Agency,” said NASA Langley’s Acting Center Director Dawn Schaible. “They are an inspiration to me and countless others who have benefited from the paths they forged.”
Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson of Texas, who passed away in 2023, introduced H.R. 1396 – Hidden Figures Congressional Gold Medal Act on Feb. 27, 2019. It was signed into law later that year.
In 2015, President Barack Obama presented Katherine Johnson with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor.
Brittny McGraw and Joe Atkinson
NASA Langley Research Center
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By NASA
X-ray: NASA/CXC/Xiamen Univ./C. Ge; Optical: DESI collaboration; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/N. Wolk Astronomers using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory have found a galaxy cluster has two streams of superheated gas crossing one another. This result shows that crossing the streams may lead to the creation of new structure.
Researchers have discovered an enormous, comet-like tail of hot gas — spanning over 1.6 million light-years long — trailing behind a galaxy within the galaxy cluster called Zwicky 8338 (Z8338 for short). This tail, spawned as the galaxy had some of its gas stripped off by the hot gas it is hurtling through, has split into two streams.
This is the second pair of tails trailing behind a galaxy in this system. Previously, astronomers discovered a shorter pair of tails from a different galaxy near this latest one. This newer and longer set of tails was only seen because of a deeper observation with Chandra that revealed the fainter X-rays.
Researchers have discovered a second pair of tails trailing behind a galaxy in this cluster. Previously, astronomers discovered a shorter pair of tails from a different galaxy close to this latest one. This newer and longer set of tails was only seen because of a deeper observation with Chandra that revealed the fainter X-rays that have been shown in the optical data. These tails span for over a million light-years and help determine the evolution of the galaxy cluster.X-ray: NASA/CXC/Xiamen Univ./C. Ge; Optical: DESI collaboration; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/N. Wolk Astronomers now have evidence that these streams trailing behind the speeding galaxies have crossed one another. Z8338 is a chaotic landscape of galaxies, superheated gas, and shock waves (akin to sonic booms created by supersonic jets) in one relatively small region of space. These galaxies are in motion because they were part of two galaxy clusters that collided with each other to create Z8338.
This new composite image shows this spectacle. X-rays from Chandra (represented in purple) outline the multimillion-degree gas that outweighs all of the galaxies in the cluster. The Chandra data also shows where this gas has been jettisoned behind the moving galaxies. Meanwhile an optical image from the Dark Energy Survey from the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile shows the individual galaxies peppered throughout the same field of view.
The original gas tail discovered in Z8338 is about 800,000 light-years long and is seen as vertical in this image (see the labeled version). The researchers think the gas in this tail is being stripped away from a large galaxy as it travels through the galaxy cluster. The head of the tail is a cloud of relatively cool gas about 100,000 light-years away from the galaxy it was stripped from. This tail is also separated into two parts.
The team proposes that the detachment of the tail from the large galaxy may have been caused by the passage of the other, longer tail. Under this scenario, the tail detached from the galaxy because of the crossing of the streams.
The results give useful information about the detachment and destruction of clouds of cooler gas like those seen in the head of the detached tail. This work shows that the cloud can survive for at least 30 million years after it is detached. During that time, a new generation of stars and planets may form within it.
The Z8338 galaxy cluster and its jumble of galactic streams are located about 670 million light-years from Earth. A paper describing these results appeared in the Aug. 8, 2023, issue of the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society and is available online at: https://academic.oup.com/mnras/article/525/1/1365/7239302.
NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center manages the Chandra program. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory’s Chandra X-ray Center controls science operations from Cambridge, Massachusetts, and flight operations from Burlington, Massachusetts.
Read more from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory.
Learn more about the Chandra X-ray Observatory and its mission here:
https://www.nasa.gov/chandra
https://chandra.si.edu
Visual Description:
This release features a composite image of two pairs of hot gas tails found inside a single galaxy cluster. The image is presented both labeled and unlabeled, with color-coded ovals encircling the hot gas tails.
In both the labeled and unlabeled versions of the image, mottled purple gas speckles a region of space dotted with distant flecks of red and white. Also present in this region of space are several glowing golden dots. These dots are individual galaxies that together form the cluster Zwicky 8338.
To our right of center is a glowing golden galaxy with a mottled V shaped cloud of purple above it. Yellow labels identify the two arms of the V as tails trailing behind the hurtling galaxy below.
To our left of center is another golden galaxy, this one surrounded by purple gas. Behind it, opening toward our right in the shape of a widening V lying on its side, are two more mottled purple clouds. Labeled in white, these newly-discovered gas tails are even larger than the previously discovered tails labeled in yellow. These tails, which overlap with the galaxy on our right, are over 1.6 million light-years long.
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Chandra X-ray Center
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Lane Figueroa
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256-544-0034
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By NASA
5 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
SpaceX Crew-9 members (from left) Mission Specialist Aleksandr Gorbunov from Roscosmos and Commander Nick Hague from NASA pose for an official crew portrait at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.NASA/Josh Valcarel NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov are preparing to launch on the agency’s SpaceX Crew-9 mission to the International Space Station.
The flight is the ninth crew rotation mission with SpaceX to the station under NASA’s Commercial Crew Program. The duo will lift off aboard the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft, which previously flew NASA’s SpaceX Crew-4, Axiom Mission 2 and Axiom Mission 3, from Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.
Once aboard the space station, Hague and Gorbunov will become members of the Expedition 72 crew and perform research, technology demonstrations, and maintenance activities. The pair will join NASA astronauts Don Petitt, Butch Wilmore, Suni Williams, as well as Roscosmos cosmonauts Alexey Ovchinin and Ivan Vagner.
Wilmore and Williams, who launched aboard the Starliner spacecraft in June, will fly home with Hague and Gorbunov in February 2025.
Launch preparations are underway, and teams are working to integrate the spacecraft and the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, including checkouts of a second flight rocket booster for the mission. The integrated spacecraft and rocket will then be rolled to the pad and raised to the vertical position for a dry dress rehearsal with the crew and an integrated static fire test prior to launch.
The Crew
Nick Hague will serve as crew commander for Crew-9, making this his third launch and second mission to the space station. During his first launch in October 2018, Hague and his crewmate, Roscosmos’ Alexey Ovchinin, experienced a rocket booster failure, resulting in an in-flight, post-launch abort, ballistic re-entry, and safe landing in their Soyuz MS-10 spacecraft. Five months later, Hague launched aboard Soyuz MS-12 and served as a flight engineer aboard the space station during Expeditions 59 and 60. Hague has spent 203 days in space and conducted three spacewalks to upgrade space station power systems and install a docking adapter for commercial spacecraft.
Born in Belleville, Kansas, Hague earned a bachelor’s degree in Astronautical Engineering from the United States Air Force Academy and a master’s degree in Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Hague was selected as an astronaut by NASA in 2013. An active-duty colonel in the U.S. Space Force, Hague completed a developmental rotation at the Defense Department and served as the Space Force’s director of test and evaluation from 2020 to 2022. In August 2022, Hague resumed duties at NASA, working on the Boeing Starliner Program until this flight assignment.
Follow @astrohague on X and Instagram.
Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov will embark on his first trip to the space station as a mission specialist for Crew-9. Born in Zheleznogorsk, Kursk region, Russia, he studied engineering with qualifications in spacecraft and upper stages from the Moscow Aviation Institute. Gorbunov graduated from the military department with a specialty in operating and repairing aircraft, helicopters, and aircraft engines. Before his selection as a cosmonaut in 2018, he worked as an engineer for Rocket Space Corp. Energia and supported cargo spacecraft launches from the Baikonur Cosmodrome. Gorbunov will serve as a flight engineer during Expedition 71/72 aboard the space station.
Mission Overview
After liftoff, Dragon will accelerate to approximately 17,500 mph to dock with the space station.
Once in orbit, flight control teams from NASA’s Mission Control Center at the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston and the SpaceX mission control in Hawthorne, California, will monitor a series of automatic maneuvers that will guide Dragon to the forward-facing port of the station’s Harmony module. The spacecraft is designed to dock autonomously, but the crew can take control and pilot manually if necessary.
After docking, Expedition 71 will welcome Hague and Gorbunov inside the station and conduct several days of handover activities with the departing astronauts of NASA’s SpaceX Crew-8 mission. After a handover period, NASA astronauts Matthew Dominick, Michael Barratt, Jeanette Epps, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexander Grebenkin of Crew-8 will undock from the space station and splash down off the coast of Florida.
Crew-9 will conduct new scientific research to prepare for human exploration beyond low Earth orbit and benefit humanity on Earth. Experiments include the impact of flame behavior on Earth, studying cells and platelets during long-duration spaceflight, and a B vitamin that could reduce Spaceflight-Associated Neuro-ocular Syndrome. They’ll also work on experiments that benefit life on Earth, like studying the physics of supernova explosions and monitoring the effects of different moister treatments on plants grown aboard the station. These are just a few of over 200 scientific experiments and technology demonstrations taking place during their mission.
While aboard the orbiting laboratory, Crew-9 will welcome two Dragon spacecraft, including NASA’s SpaceX’s 31st commercial resupply services mission and NASA’s SpaceX Crew-10, and two Roscosmos-led cargo deliveries on Progress 90 and 91.
In February, Hague, Gorbunov, Wilmore, and Williams will climb aboard Dragon and autonomously undock, depart the space station, and re-enter Earth’s atmosphere. After splashdown off Florida’s coast, a SpaceX recovery vessel will pick up the spacecraft and crew, who then will be helicoptered back to shore.
Commercial crew missions enable NASA to maximize use of the space station, where astronauts have lived and worked continuously for more than 23 years testing technologies, performing research, and developing the skills needed to operate future commercial destinations in low Earth orbit, and explore farther from Earth. Research conducted on the space station provides benefits for people on Earth and paves the way for future long-duration trips to the Moon and beyond through NASA’s Artemis missions.
Get breaking news, images, and features from the space station on Instagram, Facebook, and X.
Learn more about the space station, its research, and crew, at https://www.nasa.gov/station.
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