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Payload Adapter Testing: A Key Step for Artemis IV Rocket’s Success
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By NASA
Teams with NASA and Lockheed Martin prepare to conduct testing on NASA’s Orion spacecraft on Thursday, Nov. 7, 2024, in the altitude chamber inside the Neil A. Armstrong Operations and Checkout building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Lockheed Martin/David Wellendorf Teams lifted NASA’s Orion spacecraft for the Artemis II test flight out of the Final Assembly and System Testing cell and moved it to the altitude chamber to complete further testing on Nov. 6 inside the Neil A. Armstrong Operations and Checkout building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Engineers returned the spacecraft to the altitude chamber, which simulates deep space vacuum conditions, to complete the remaining test requirements and provide additional data to augment data gained during testing earlier this summer.
The Artemis II test flight will be NASA’s first mission with crew under the Artemis campaign, sending NASA astronauts Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Reid Wiseman, as well as CSA (Canadian Space Agency) astronaut Jeremy Hansen, on a 10-day journey around the Moon and back.
Image credit: Lockheed Martin/David Wellendorf
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By NASA
NASA HLS (Human Landing System) Program strategic communicator and U.S. Navy Reservist Public Affairs Officer Joe Vermette brings a wealth of public service to Artemis communication activities. NASA/Ken Hall Coming from a Navy family, Vermette was inspired to military service by the example of his brother, uncles and father, who admired President John Kennedy’s call to land on the Moon and for citizens to do what they can for our country. Photo courtesy Joe Vermette While some stand on the sidelines and witness history, others are destined to play a part in it. And then there are those who document it, bringing the people, the action, the images, the words, and the personalities to the world. U. S. Navy Reservist Public Affairs Officer and program strategic communicator for NASA’s HLS (Human Landing System) Joe Vermette stands at the nexus of all three.
Spurred to action to serve his country by the events of September 11, 2001; veteran of numerous overseas deployments with the Navy, and responsible for communicating NASA’s return to the Moon through the Artemis campaign, Vermette has played a part in history while he communicates humanity’s greatest endeavors to the world.
Vermette joined NASA in August 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, coming from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), where he was a regional communications director. Right off the bat, he rose to the challenge of learning about space exploration, Artemis, and communicating the new way the HLS Program would work with commercial providers for Moon landing services, rather than specifying spacecraft to be built.
“I was used to being right in the middle of the action,” Vermette said. “The pandemic challenged me to work in a new way. At the same time, NASA and HLS were working in a new way, having just brought on our first commercial provider, SpaceX,” he said. In May 2023, the HLS Program brought on a second commercial provider, Blue Origin, for human landing services.
After earning a degree in military history with a minor in communications from Florida State University, Vermette worked as a video journalist and spot writer for CNN. But it was the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, that really shaped his career in government service. “Three weeks later, I went down to the recruiting office and began the process of joining the military. I saw an opportunity to help the country in the best capacity I could,” Vermette said.
Since then, his career has been dotted by active deployments, from the Middle East to Europe to stateside; onboard Navy ships, at U.S. Central Command, at U. S. Special Operations Command, and more.
NASA’s HLS Program and Artemis have benefitted from Vermette’s experience and steady hand helping guide strategic communications since 2020. He recently answered the call to active duty again but intends to return to NASA once his military obligations are fulfilled.
“NASA is a different world than the military or disaster response. But I’ve been fortunate enough to see – and communicate about – government success stories in all three arenas, Vermette said. “Seeing NASA put astronauts on the Moon again will be the best ‘mission complete’ I could have.”
With Artemis, NASA will explore more of the Moon than ever before, learn how to live and work away from home, and prepare for future human exploration of the Red Planet. NASA’s SLS (Space Launch System) rocket, exploration ground systems, and Orion spacecraft, along with the human landing system, next-generation spacesuits, Gateway lunar space station, and future rovers are NASA’s foundation for deep space exploration.
For more on HLS, visit:
https://www.nasa.gov/humans-in-space/human-landing-system
Corinne Beckinger
Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala.
256.544.0034
corinne.m.beckinger@nasa.gov
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By NASA
NASA/Carla Thomas NASA’s X-59 quiet supersonic research aircraft sits in its run stall at Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works facility in Palmdale, California, in this image from Oct. 30, 2024.
The engine-run tests, which began Oct. 30, allow the X-59 team to verify the aircraft’s systems are working together while powered by its own engine. In previous tests, the X-59 used external sources for power. The engine-run tests set the stage for the next phase of the experimental aircraft’s progress toward flight.
After the engine runs, the X-59 team will move to aluminum bird testing, where data will be fed to the aircraft under both normal and failure conditions. The team will then proceed with a series of taxi tests, where the aircraft will be put in motion on the ground. These tests will be followed by final preparations for first flight.
Image credit: NASA/Carla Thomas
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By NASA
Curiosity Navigation Curiosity Home Mission Overview Where is Curiosity? Mission Updates Science Overview Instruments Highlights Exploration Goals News and Features Multimedia Curiosity Raw Images Images Videos Audio Mosaics More Resources Mars Missions Mars Sample Return Mars Perseverance Rover Mars Curiosity Rover MAVEN Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Mars Odyssey More Mars Missions The Solar System The Sun Mercury Venus Earth The Moon Mars Jupiter Saturn Uranus Neptune Pluto & Dwarf Planets Asteroids, Comets & Meteors The Kuiper Belt The Oort Cloud 3 min read
Sols 4355-4356: Weekend Success Brings Monday Best
NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity acquired this image of the contact science target “Black Bear Lake” from about 7 centimeters away (about 3 inches), using its Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI). The MAHLI, located on the turret at the end of the rover’s robotic arm, used an onboard focusing process to merge multiple images of the same target into a composite image, on Nov. 3, 2024 – sol 4353, or Martian day 4,353 of the Mars Science Laboratory Mission – at 21:36:01 UTC. NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS Earth planning date: Monday, Nov. 4, 2024
After a spooky week last week, it’s great to see all our weekend plans succeed as planned! We don’t take success for granted as a rover going on 13 years. With all of the science at our fingertips and all the battery power we could need, the team took right advantage of this two-sol touch-and-go Monday plan. We have a bedrock DRT target for APXS and MAHLI named “Epidote Peak” and a MAHLI-only target of a crushed rock we drove over named “Milly’s Foot Path.”
APXS data is better when it’s cold, so we’ve planned the DRT brushing and APXS to start our first sol about 11:14 local Gale time. MAHLI images are usually better in the afternoon lighting, so we’ll leave the arm unstowed and spend some remote science time beforehand, about 12:15 local time. ChemCam starts that off with a LIBS raster over a bedrock block with some interesting light and dark layering, named “Albanita Meadows” and seen here in the the upper-right-ish of this Navcam workspace frame. ChemCam will then take a long-distance RMI mosaic of a portion of the upper Gediz Vallis ridge to the north. Mastcam continues the remote science with an Albanita Meadows documentation image, a 21-frame stereo mosaic of some dark-toned upturned blocks about 5 meters away (about 16 feet), a four-frame stereo mosaic of some polygonal fracture patterns about 20 meters away (about 66 feet), and a mega 44-frame stereo mosaic of Wilkerson butte, upper Gediz Vallis ridge, “Fascination Turret,” and “Pinnacle Ridge” in the distance. That’s a total of 138 Mastcam images! With remote sensing complete, the RSM will stow itself about 14:00 local time to make time for MAHLI imaging.
Between about 14:15 and 14:30 local time, MAHLI will take approximately 64 images of Epidote Peak and Milly’s Foot Path. Most of the images are being acquired in full shadow, so there is uniform lighting and saturation in the images. We’ll stow the arm at about 14:50 and begin our drive! This time we have an approximately 34-meter drive to the northwest (about 112 feet), bringing us almost all the way to the next dark-toned band in the sulfate unit. But no matter what happens with the drive, we’ll still do some remote science on the second sol including a Mastcam tau observation, a ChemCam LIBS in-the-blind (a.k.a AEGIS: Autonomous Exploration for Gathering Increased Science), and some Navcam movies of the sky and terrain.
Written by Natalie Moore, Mission Operations Specialist at Malin Space Science Systems
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Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
NASA employees plant an Artemis Moon Tree at NASA’s Stennis Space Center on Oct. 29 to celebrate NASA’s successful Artemis I mission as the agency prepares for a return around the Moon with astronauts on Artemis II. NASA/Danny Nowlin A tree-planting ceremony at NASA’s Stennis Space Center on Oct. 29 celebrated NASA’s successful Artemis I mission as the agency prepares for a return around the Moon with astronauts on Artemis II.
“We already have a thriving Moon Tree from the Apollo years onsite,” NASA Stennis Director John Bailey said. “It is exciting to add trees for our new Artemis Generation as it continues the next great era of human space exploration.”
NASA’s Office of STEM Engagement Next Gen STEM Project partnered with U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Forest Service to fly five species of tree seeds aboard the Orion spacecraft during the successful uncrewed Artemis I test flight in 2022 as part of a national STEM Engagement and conservation education initiative.
The Artemis Moon Tree species included sweetgums, loblolly pines, sycamores, Douglas-firs, and giant sequoias. The seeds from the first Artemis mission have been nurtured by the USDA into seedlings to be a source of inspiration for the Artemis Generation.
The Moon Tree education initiative is rooted in the legacy of Apollo 14 Moon Tree seeds flown in lunar orbit over 50 years ago by the late Stuart Roosa, a NASA astronaut and Mississippi Coast resident.
NASA Stennis and the NASA Shared Services Center (NSSC), located at the site, planted companion trees during the Oct. 29 ceremony. Bailey and NSSC Executive Director Anita Harrell participated in a joint planting ceremony attended by a number of employees from each entity.
The American sweetgum trees are the second and third Moon Trees at the south Mississippi site. In 2004, ASTRO CAMP participants planted a sycamore Moon Tree to honor the 35th anniversary of Apollo 11 and the first lunar landing on July 20, 1969.
The road to space for both Apollo 14 and Artemis I went through Mississippi. Until 1970, NASA Stennis test fired first, and second stages of the Saturn V rockets used for Apollo.
NASA Stennis now tests all the RS-25 engines powering Artemis missions to the Moon and beyond. Prior to Artemis I, NASA Stennis tested the SLS (Space Launch System) core stage and its four RS-25 engines.
The Artemis Moon Trees have found new homes in over 150 communities and counting since last spring, and each of the 10 NASA centers also will plant one.
As the tree grows at NASA Stennis, so, too, does anticipation for the first crewed mission with Artemis II. Four astronauts will venture around the Moon on NASA’s path to establishing a long-term presence at the Moon for science and exploration.
The flight will test NASA’s foundational human deep space exploration capabilities – the SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft – for the first time with astronauts.
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