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By NASA
3 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
NASA’s Lucy spacecraft has its next flyby target, the small main belt asteroid Donaldjohanson, in its sights. By blinking between images captured by Lucy on Feb. 20 and 22, this animation shows the perceived motion of Donaldjohanson relative to the background stars as the spacecraft rapidly approaches the asteroid.
NASA’s Lucy spacecraft’s first views of the asteroid Donaldjohanson. The asteroid is circled on the left to guide the eye.NASA/Goddard/SwRI/Johns Hopkins APL Lucy will pass within 596 miles (960 km) of the 2-mile-wide asteroid on April 20. This second asteroid encounter for the Lucy spacecraft will serve as a dress-rehearsal for the spacecraft’s main targets, the never-before-explored Jupiter Trojan asteroids. Lucy already successfully observed the tiny main belt asteroid Dinkinesh and its contact-binary moon, Selam, in November 2023. Lucy will continue to image Donaldjohanson over the next two months as part of its optical navigation program, which uses the asteroid’s apparent position against the star background to ensure an accurate flyby.
Donaldjohanson will remain an unresolved point of light during the spacecraft’s long approach and won’t start to show surface detail until the day of the encounter.
From a distance of 45 million miles (70 million km), Donaldjohanson is still dim, though it stands out clearly in this field of relatively faint stars in the constellation of Sextans. Celestial north is to the right of the frame, and the 0.11-degree field of view would correspond to 85,500 miles (140,000 km) at the distance of the asteroid. In the first of the two images, another dim asteroid can be seen photobombing in the lower right quadrant of the image. However, just as the headlights of an approaching car often appear relatively stationary, Donaldjohanson’s apparent motion between these two images is much smaller than that of this interloper, which has moved out of the field of view in the second image.
These observations were made by Lucy’s high-resolution camera, the L’LORRI instrument — short for Lucy LOng Range Reconnaissance Imager — provided by the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland.
Asteroid Donaldjohanson is named for anthropologist Donald Johanson, who discovered the fossilized skeleton — called “Lucy” — of a human ancestor. NASA’s Lucy mission is named for the fossil.
Lucy’s principal investigator, Hal Levison, is based out of the Boulder, Colorado, branch of Southwest Research Institute, headquartered in San Antonio. NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, provides overall mission management, systems engineering, and safety and mission assurance. Lockheed Martin Space in Littleton, Colorado, built the spacecraft. Lucy is the 13th mission in NASA’s Discovery Program. NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, manages the Discovery Program for the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington.
For more information about NASA’s Lucy mission, visit: https://www.nasa.gov/lucy
By Katherine Kretke
Southwest Research Institute
Media Contact:
Nancy N. Jones
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
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Last Updated Feb 25, 2025 Related Terms
Lucy General Goddard Space Flight Center Planetary Science The Solar System Trojan Asteroids View the full article
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By NASA
6 Min Read NASA Marshall Reflects on 65 Years of Ingenuity, Teamwork
NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, is celebrating its 65-year legacy of ingenuity and service to the U.S. space program – and the expansion of its science, engineering, propulsion, and human spaceflight portfolio with each new decade since the NASA field center opened its doors on July 1, 1960.
What many Americans likely call to mind are the “days of smoke and fire,” said Marshall Director Joseph Pelfrey, referring to the work conducted at Marshall to enable NASA’s launch of the first Mercury-Redstone rocket and the Saturn V which lifted Americans to the Moon, the inaugural space shuttle mission, and the shuttle flights that carried the Hubble Space Telescope, Chandra X-ray Observatory, and elements of the International Space Station to orbit. Most recently, he said they’re likely to recall the thunder of NASA’s SLS (Space Launch System), rising into the sky during Artemis I.
NASA’s Space Launch System, carrying the Orion spacecraft, launches on the Artemis I flight test on Nov. 16, 2022. NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, led development and oversees all work on the new flagship rocket, building on its storied history of propulsion and launch vehicle design dating back to the Redstone and Saturn rockets. The most powerful rocket ever built, SLS is the backbone of NASA’s Artemis program, set to carry explorers back to the Moon in 2026, help establish a permanent outpost there, and make possible new, crewed journeys to Mars in the years to come.NASA/Bill Ingalls Yet all the other days are equally meaningful, Pelfrey said, highlighting a steady stream of milestones reflecting the work of Marshall civil service employees, contractors, and industry partners through the years – as celebrated in a new “65 Years of Marshall” timeline.
“The total sum of hours, contributed by tens of thousands of men and women across Marshall’s history, is incalculable,” Pelfrey said. “Together they’ve blended legacy with innovation – advancing space exploration and scientific discovery through collaboration, engineering excellence, and technical solutions. They’ve invented and refined technologies that make it possible to safely live and work in space, to explore other worlds, and to help safeguard our own.
The total sum of hours, contributed by tens of thousands of men and women across Marshall’s history, is incalculable.
Joseph Pelfrey
Marshall Space Flight Center Director
“Days of smoke and fire may be the most visible signs, but it’s the months and years of preparation and the weeks of post-launch scientific discovery that mark the true dedication, sacrifice, and monumental achievements of this team.”
Reflecting on Marshall history
Marshall’s primary task in the 1960s was the development and testing of the rockets that carried the first American astronaut to space, and the much larger and more technically complex Saturn rocket series, culminating in the mighty Saturn V, which carried the first human explorers to the Moon’s surface in 1969.
“Test, retest, and then fly – that’s what we did here at the start,” said retired engineer Harry Craft, who was part of the original U.S. Army rocket development team that moved from Fort Bliss, Texas, to Huntsville to begin NASA’s work at Marshall. “And we did it all without benefit of computers, working out the math with slide rules and pads of paper.”
The 138-foot-long first stage of the Saturn V rocket is lowered to the ground following a successful static test firing in fall 1966 at the S-1C test stand at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. The Saturn V, developed and managed at Marshall, was a multi-stage, multi-engine launch vehicle that stood taller than the Statue of Liberty and lofted the first Americans to the Moon. Its success helped position Marshall as an aerospace leader in propulsion, space systems, and launch vehicle development.NASA “Those were exciting times,” retired test engineer Parker Counts agreed. He joined Marshall in 1963 to conduct testing of the fully assembled and integrated Saturn first stages. It wasn’t uncommon for work weeks to last 10 hours a day, plus weekend shifts when deadlines were looming.
Counts said Dr. Wernher von Braun, Marshall’s first director, insisted staff in the design and testing organizations be matched with an equal number of engineers in Marshall’s Quality and Reliability Assurance Laboratory.
“That checks-and-balances engineering approach led to mission success for all 32 of the Saturn family of rockets,” said Counts, who went on to support numerous other propulsion programs before retiring from NASA in 2003.
“We worked with the best minds and best equipment available, pushing the technology every day to deliver the greatest engineering achievement of the 20th century,” said instrumentation and electronics test engineer Willie Weaver, who worked at Marshall from 1960 to 1988 – and remains a tour guide at its visitor center, the U.S. Space & Rocket Center.
We worked with the best minds and best equipment available, pushing the technology every day to deliver the greatest engineering achievement of the 20th century.
Willie Weaver
Former Marshall Space Flight Center Employee
The 1970s at Marshall were a period of transition and expanded scientific study, as NASA ended the Apollo Program and launched the next phase of space exploration. Marshall provided critical work on the first U.S. space station, Skylab, and led propulsion element development and testing for NASA’s Space Shuttle Program.
Marshall retiree Jim Odom, a founding engineer who got his start launching NASA satellites in the run-up to Apollo, managed the Space Shuttle External Tank project. The role called for weekly trips to NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans, which has been managed by Marshall since NASA acquired the government facility in 1961. The shuttle external tanks were manufactured in the same bays there where NASA and its contractors built the Saturn rockets.
This photograph shows the liquid hydrogen tank and liquid oxygen tank for the Space Shuttle external tank (ET) being assembled in the weld assembly area of the Michoud Assembly Facility (MAF). The ET provides liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen to the Shuttle’s three main engines during the first eight 8.5 minutes of flight. At 154-feet long and more than 27-feet in diameter, the ET is the largest component of the Space Shuttle, the structural backbone of the entire Shuttle system, and the only part of the vehicle that is not reusable. The ET is manufactured at the Michoud Assembly Facility near New Orleans, Louisiana, by the Martin Marietta Corporation under management of the Marshall Space Flight Center.NASA “We didn’t have cellphones or telecon capabilities yet,” Odom recalled. “I probably spent more time with the pilot of the twin-engine plane in those days than I did with my wife.”
Marshall’s shuttle propulsion leadership led to the successful STS-1 mission in 1981, launching an era of orbital science exemplified by NASA’s Spacelab program.
“Spacelab demonstrated that NASA could continue to achieve things no one had ever done before,” said Craft, who served as mission manager for Spacelab 1 in 1983 – a highlight of his 40-year NASA career. “That combination of science, engineering, and global partnership helped shape our goals in space ever since.”
Engineers in the X-ray Calibration Facility at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, work to integrate elements of the Chandra X-ray Observatory in this March 1997 photo. Chandra was lifted to orbit by space shuttle Columbia on July 23, 1999, the culmination of two decades of telescope optics, mirror, and spacecraft development and testing at Marshall. In the quarter century since, Chandra has delivered nearly 25,000 detailed observations of neutron stars, supernova remnants, black holes, and other high-energy objects, some as far as 13 billion light-years distant. Marshall continues to manage the program for NASA. NASA Bookended by the successful Hubble and Chandra launches, the 1990s also saw Marshall deliver the first U.S. module for the International Space Station, signaling a transformative new era of human spaceflight.
Odom, who retired in 1989 as associate administrator for the space station at NASA Headquarters, reflects on his three-decade agency career with pride.
“It was a great experience, start to finish, working with the teams in Huntsville and New Orleans and our partners nationwide and around the globe, meeting each new challenge, solving the practical, day-to-day engineering and technology problems we only studied about in college,” he said.
Shrouded for transport, a 45-foot segment of the International Space Station’s “backbone” truss rolls out of test facilities at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, in July 2000, ready to be flown to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida for launch. Marshall played a key role in the development, testing, and delivery of the truss and other critical space station modules and structural elements, as well as the station’s air and water recycling systems and science payload hardware. Marshall’s Payload Operations Integration Center also continues to lead round-the-clock space station science. NASA That focus on human spaceflight solutions continued into the 21st century. Marshall delivered additional space station elements and science hardware, refined its air and water recycling systems, and led round-the-clock science from the Payload Operations Integration Center. Marshall scientists also managed the Gravity Probe Band Hinode missions and launched NASA’s SERVIR geospatial observation system. Once primary space stationconstruction – and the 40-year shuttle program – concluded in the 2010s, Marshall took on oversight of NASA’s Space Launch System, led James Webb Space Telescope mirror testing, and delivered the orbiting Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer.
As the 2020s continue, Marshall meets each new challenge with enthusiasm and expertise, preparing for the highly anticipated Artemis II crewed launch and a host of new science and discovery missions – and buoyed by strong industry partners and by the Huntsville community, which takes pride in being home to “Rocket City USA.”
“Humanity is on an upward, outward trajectory,” Pelfrey said. “And day after day, year after year, Marshall is setting the course to explore beyond tomorrow’s horizon.”
Read more about Marshall and its 65-year history:
https://www.nasa.gov/marshall
Hannah Maginot
Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala.
256-544-0034
hannah.l.maginot@nasa.gov
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Last Updated Feb 24, 2025 EditorBeth RidgewayLocationMarshall Space Flight Center Related Terms
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Improving space-based pharmaceutical research
View of the Ice Cubes experiment #6 (Kirara) floating in the Columbus European Laboratory module aboard the International Space Station.UAE (United Arab Emirates)/Sultan Alneyadi Researchers found differences in the stability and degradation of the anti-Covid drug Remdesivir in space and on Earth on its first research flight, but not on a second. This highlights the need for more standardized procedures for pharmaceutical research in space.
Long-term stability of drugs is critical for future space missions. Because multiple characteristics of spaceflight could influence chemical stability, the scientists repeated their experiment under circumstances as nearly identical as possible. This research used Kirara, a temperature-controlled incubator developed by JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) for crystallizing proteins in microgravity. Results also confirmed that a solubility enhancer used in the drug is radiation resistant and its quality was not affected by microgravity and launch conditions.
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A test subject performing a sensorimotor field test on the ground.NASA/Lauren Harnett Immediately after returning from the International Space Station and for up to one week, astronauts perform functional tasks in ways similar to patients on Earth who have a loss of inner ear function. This finding suggests that comparing data from these patients and astronauts could provide insight into the role of the balance and sensory systems in task performance during critical parts of a mission such as landing on the Moon or Mars.
Spaceflight causes changes to the balance (vestibular) and sensory systems that can lead to symptoms such as disorientation and impaired locomotion. Standard Measures collects a set of data, including tests of sensorimotor function, related to human spaceflight risks from astronauts before, during, and after missions to help characterize how people adapt to living and working in space.
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Week in images: 17-21 February 2025
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By NASA
Before Apollo astronauts set foot upon the Moon, much remained unknown about the lunar surface. While most scientists believed the Moon had a solid surface that would support astronauts and their landing craft, a few believed a deep layer of dust covered it that would swallow any visitors. Until 1964, no closeup photographs of the lunar surface existed, only those obtained by Earth-based telescopes.
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, managed the Ranger program, a series of spacecraft designed to return closeup images before impacting on the Moon’s surface. Ranger 7 first accomplished that goal in July 1964. On Feb. 17, 1965, its successor Ranger 8 launched toward the Moon, and three days later returned images of the Moon. The mission’s success helped the country meet President John F. Kennedy’s goal of a human Moon landing before the end of the decade.
Schematic diagram of the Ranger 8 spacecraft, showing its major components. NASA/JPL The television system aboard Ranger 8 showing its six cameras.NASA/JPL. Launch of Ranger 8. NASA. Ranger 8 lifted off from Cape Kennedy, now Cape Canaveral, Florida, on Feb. 17, 1965. The Atlas-Agena rocket first placed the spacecraft into Earth orbit before sending it on a lunar trajectory. The next day, the spacecraft carried out a mid-course correction, and on Feb. 20, Ranger 8 reached the Moon. The spacecraft’s six cameras turned on as planned, about eight minutes earlier than its predecessor to obtain images comparable in resolution to ground-based photographs for calibration purposes. Ranger 8 took its first photograph at an altitude of 1,560 miles, and during its final 23 minutes of flight, the spacecraft sent back 7,137 images of the lunar surface. The last image, taken at an altitude of 1,600 feet and 0.28 seconds before Ranger 8 impacted at 1.67 miles per second, had a resolution of about five feet. The spacecraft impacted 16 miles from its intended target in the Sea of Tranquility, ending a flight of 248,900 miles. Scientists had an interest in this area of the Moon as a possible landing zone for a future human landing, and indeed Apollo 11 landed 44 miles southeast of the Ranger 8 impact site in July 1969.
Ranger 8’s first image from an altitude of 1,560 miles.NASA/JPL. Ranger 8 image from an altitude of 198 miles, showing craters Ritter and Sabine.NASA/JPL. Ranger 8’s final images, taken at an altitude as low as 1,600 feet. NASA/JPL. One more Ranger mission followed, Ranger 9, in March 1965. Television networks broadcast Ranger 9’s images of the Alphonsus crater and the surrounding area “live” as the spacecraft approached its impact site in the crater – letting millions of Americans see the Moon up-close as it happened. Based on the photographs returned by the last three Rangers, scientists felt confident to move on to the next phase of robotic lunar exploration, the Surveyor series of soft landers. The Ranger photographs provided confidence that the lunar surface could support a soft-landing and that the Sea of Tranquility presented a good site for the first human landing. A little more than four years after the final Ranger images, Apollo 11 landed the first humans on the Moon.
Impact sites of Rangers 7, 8, and 9. NASA/JPL. The Ranger 8 impact crater, marked by the blue circle, photographed by Lunar Orbiter 2 in 1966.NASA/JPL. Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter image of the Ranger 8 impact crater, taken in 2012 at a low sun angle.NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center/Arizona State University. The impacts of the Ranger probes left visible craters on the lunar surface, later photographed by orbiting spacecraft. Lunar Orbiter 2 and Apollo 16 both imaged the Ranger 8 impact site at relatively low resolution in 1966 and 1972, respectively. The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter imaged the crash site in greater detail in 2012.
Watch a brief video about the Ranger 8 impact on the Moon.
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