Members Can Post Anonymously On This Site
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson | Answering Climate Change from Above
-
Similar Topics
-
By NASA
NASA’s SpaceX Crew-9 members pose together for a portrait inside the vestibule between the International Space Station and the SpaceX Dragon crew spacecraft. Clockwise from left, are NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore, Nick Hague, and Suni Williams, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov.NASA NASA will provide live coverage of the agency’s SpaceX Crew-9 return to Earth from the International Space Station, beginning with Dragon spacecraft hatch closure preparations at 10:45 p.m. EDT Monday, March 17.
NASA and SpaceX met on Sunday to assess weather and splashdown conditions off Florida’s coast for the return of the agency’s Crew-9 mission from the International Space Station. Mission managers are targeting an earlier Crew-9 return opportunity based on favorable conditions forecasted for the evening of Tuesday, March 18. The updated return target continues to allow the space station crew members time to complete handover duties while providing operational flexibility ahead of less favorable weather conditions expected for later in the week.
NASA astronauts Nick Hague, Suni Williams, and Butch Wilmore, as well as Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov, are completing a long-duration science expedition aboard the orbiting laboratory and will return time-sensitive research to Earth.
Mission managers will continue monitoring weather conditions in the area, as Dragon’s undocking depends on various factors, including spacecraft readiness, recovery team readiness, weather, sea states, and other factors. NASA and SpaceX will confirm the specific splashdown location closer to the Crew-9 return.
Watch Crew-9 return activities on NASA+. Learn how to watch NASA content through a variety of additional platforms, including social media. For schedule information, visit:
https://www.nasa.gov/live
For Crew-9 return, NASA’s live operations coverage is as follows (all times Eastern and subject to change based on real-time operations):
Monday, March 17
10:45 p.m. – Hatch closing coverage begins on NASA+
Tuesday, March 18
12:45 a.m. – Undocking coverage begins on NASA+
1:05 a.m. – Undocking
Following the conclusion of undocking coverage, NASA will switch to audio only.
Pending weather conditions at the splashdown sites, continuous coverage will resume on March 18 on NASA+ prior to the start of deorbit burn.
4:45 p.m. – Return coverage begins on NASA+
5:11 p.m. – Deorbit burn (time is approximate)
5:57 p.m. – Splashdown (time is approximate)
7:30 p.m. – Return-to-Earth media conference on NASA+, with the following participants:
Joel Montalbano, deputy associate administrator, NASA’ Space Operations Mission Directorate Steve Stich, manager, NASA’s Commercial Crew Program Jeff Arend, manager for systems engineering and integration, NASA’s International Space Station, NASA’s International Space Station Office Sarah Walker, director, Dragon Mission Management, SpaceX To participate in the briefing media must contact the newsroom at NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston by 5 p.m., March 17, at: jsccommu@mail.nasa.gov or 281-483-5111. To ask questions, media must dial in no later than 10 minutes before the start of the call. The agency’s media credentialing policy is available online.
Find full mission coverage, NASA’s commercial crew blog, and more information about the Crew-9 mission at:
https://www.nasa.gov/commercialcrew
-end-
Joshua Finch / Jimi Russell
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1100
joshua.a.finch@nasa.gov / james.j.russell@nasa.gov
Kenna Pell / Sandra Jones
Johnson Space Center, Houston
281-483-5111
kenna.m.pell@nasa.gov / sandra.p.jones@nasa.gov
Steve Siceloff / Stephanie Plucinsky
Kennedy Space Center, Florida
321-867-2468
steven.p.siceloff@nasa.gov / stephanie.n.plucinsky@nasa.gov
Share
Details
Last Updated Mar 16, 2025 EditorJennifer M. DoorenLocationNASA Headquarters View the full article
-
By NASA
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifts off from Vandenberg Space Force Base, carrying NASA’s EZIE spacecraft into orbit. SpaceX Under the nighttime California sky, NASA’s EZIE (Electrojet Zeeman Imaging Explorer) mission launched aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket at 11:43 p.m. PDT on March 14.
Taking off from Vandenberg Space Force Base near Santa Barbara, the EZIE mission’s trio of small satellites will fly in a pearls-on-a-string configuration approximately 260 to 370 miles above Earth’s surface to map the auroral electrojets, powerful electric currents that flow through our upper atmosphere in the polar regions where auroras glow in the sky.
At approximately 2 a.m. PDT on March 15, the EZIE satellites were successfully deployed. Within the next 10 days, the spacecraft will send signals to verify they are in good health and ready to embark on their 18-month mission.
“NASA has leaned into small missions that can provide compelling science while accepting more risk. EZIE represents excellent science being executed by an excellent team, and it is delivering exactly what NASA is looking for,” said Jared Leisner, program executive for EZIE at NASA Headquarters in Washington.
The electrojets — and their visible counterparts, theauroras — are generated duringsolar storms when tremendous amounts of energy get transferred into Earth’s upper atmosphere from the solar wind. Each of the EZIE spacecraft will map the electrojets, advancing our understanding of the physics of how Earth interacts with its surrounding space. This understanding will apply not only to our own planet but also to any magnetized planet in our solar system and beyond. The mission will also help scientists create models for predicting space weather to mitigate its disruptive impacts on our society.
“It is truly incredible to see our spacecraft flying and making critical measurements, marking the start of an exciting new chapter for the EZIE mission,” said Nelli Mosavi-Hoyer, project manager for EZIE at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland. “I am very proud of the dedication and hard work of our team. This achievement is a testament to the team’s perseverance and expertise, and I look forward to the valuable insights EZIE will bring to our understanding of Earth’s electrojets and space weather.”
Instead of using propulsion to control their polar orbit, the spacecraft will actively use drag experienced while flying through the upper atmosphere to individually tune their spacing. Each successive spacecraft will fly over the same region 2 to 10 minutes after the former.
“Missions have studied these currents before, but typically either at the very large or very small scales,” said Larry Kepko, EZIE mission scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “EZIE will help us understand how these currents form and evolve, at scales we’ve never probed.”
The mission team is also working to distribute magnetometer kits called EZIE-Mag, which are available to teachers, students, and science enthusiasts who want to take their own measurements of the Earth-space electrical current system. EZIE-Mag data will be combined with EZIE measurements made from space to assemble a clear picture of this vast electrical current circuit.
The EZIE mission is funded by the Heliophysics Division within NASA’s Science Mission Directorate and is managed by the Explorers Program Office at NASA Goddard. The Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory leads the mission for NASA. Blue Canyon Technologies in Boulder, Colorado, built the CubeSats, and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California built the Microwave Electrojet Magnetogram, which will map the electrojets, for each of the three satellites.
For the latest mission updates, follow NASA’s EZIE blog.
By Brett Molina
Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory
Share
Details
Last Updated Mar 15, 2025 Editor Vanessa Thomas Contact Sarah Frazier sarah.frazier@nasa.gov Location Goddard Space Flight Center Related Terms
Heliophysics Auroras CubeSats EZIE (Electrojet Zeeman Imaging Explorer) Goddard Space Flight Center Heliophysics Division Missions Small Satellite Missions The Sun Explore More
5 min read NASA’s EZIE Launching to Study Magnetic Fingerprints of Earth’s Aurora
Article
3 weeks ago
5 min read NASA Rockets to Fly Through Flickering, Vanishing Auroras
Article
2 months ago
5 min read How NASA Tracked the Most Intense Solar Storm in Decades
Article
10 months ago
View the full article
-
By NASA
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket propelled the Dragon spacecraft into orbit carrying NASA astronauts Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Takuya Onishi, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Kirill Peskov. (Credit: NASA) Four crew members of NASA’s SpaceX Crew-10 mission launched at 7:03 p.m. EDT Friday from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida for a science expedition aboard the International Space Station.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket propelled the Dragon spacecraft into orbit carrying NASA astronauts Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Takuya Onishi, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Kirill Peskov. The spacecraft will dock autonomously to the forward-facing port of the station’s Harmony module at approximately 11:30 p.m. on Saturday, March 15. Shortly after docking, the crew will join Expedition 72/73 for a long-duration stay aboard the orbiting laboratory.
“Congratulations to our NASA and SpaceX teams on the 10th crew rotation mission under our commercial crew partnership. This milestone demonstrates NASA’s continued commitment to advancing American leadership in space and driving growth in our national space economy,” said NASA acting Administrator Janet Petro. “Through these missions, we are laying the foundation for future exploration, from low Earth orbit to the Moon and Mars. Our international crew will contribute to innovative science research and technology development, delivering benefits to all humanity.”
During Dragon’s flight, SpaceX will monitor a series of automatic spacecraft maneuvers from its mission control center in Hawthorne, California. NASA will monitor space station operations throughout the flight from the Mission Control Center at the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.
NASA’s live coverage resumes at 9:45 p.m., March 15, on NASA+ with rendezvous, docking, and hatching opening. After docking, the crew will change out of their spacesuits and prepare cargo for offload before opening the hatch between Dragon and the space station’s Harmony module around 1:05 a.m., Sunday, March 16. Once the new crew is aboard the orbital outpost, NASA will broadcast welcome remarks from Crew-10 and farewell remarks from the agency’s SpaceX Crew-9 crew, beginning at about 1:40 a.m.
Learn how to watch NASA content through a variety of platforms, including social media.
The number of crew aboard the space station will increase to 11 for a short time as Crew-10 joins NASA astronauts Nick Hague, Suni Williams, Butch Wilmore, and Don Pettit, as well as Roscosmos cosmonauts Aleksandr Gorbunov, Alexey Ovchinin, and Ivan Vagner. Following a brief handover period, Hague, Williams, Wilmore, and Gorbunov will return to Earth no earlier than Wednesday, March 19.Ahead of Crew-9’s departure from station, mission teams will review weather conditions at the splashdown sites off the coast of Florida.
During their mission, Crew-10 is scheduled to conduct material flammability tests to contribute to future spacecraft and facility designs. The crew will engage with students worldwide via the ISS Ham Radio program and use the program’s existing hardware to test a backup lunar navigation solution. The astronauts also will serve as test subjects, with one crew member conducting an integrated study to better understand physiological and psychological changes to the human body to provide valuable insights for future deep space missions.
With this mission, NASA continues to maximize the use of the orbiting laboratory, where people have lived and worked continuously for more than 24 years, testing technologies, performing science, and developing the skills needed to operate future commercial destinations in low Earth orbit and explore farther from our home planet. Research conducted at the space station benefits people on Earth and paves the way for future long-duration missions to the Moon under NASA’s Artemis campaign and beyond.
More about Crew-10
McClain is the commander of Crew-10 and is making her second trip to the orbital outpost since her selection as an astronaut in 2013. She will serve as a flight engineer during Expeditions 72/73 aboard the space station. Follow McClain on X.
Ayers is the pilot of Crew-10 and is flying her first mission. Selected as an astronaut in 2021, Ayers will serve as a flight engineer during Expeditions 72/73. Follow Ayers on X and Instagram.
Onishi is a mission specialist for Crew-10 and is making his second flight to the space station. He will serve as a flight engineer during Expeditions 72/73. Follow Onishi on X.
Peskov is a mission specialist for Crew-10 and is making his first flight to the space station. Peskov will serve as a flight engineer during Expeditions 72/73.
Learn more about NASA’s SpaceX Crew-10 mission and the agency’s Commercial Crew Program at:
https://www.nasa.gov/commercialcrew
-end-
Josh Finch / Jimi Russell
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1100
joshua.a.finch@nasa.gov / james.j.russell@nasa.gov
Steven Siceloff / Stephanie Plucinsky
Kennedy Space Center, Florida
321-867-2468
steven.p.siceloff@nasa.gov / stephanie.n.plucinsky@nasa.gov
Kenna Pell / Sandra Jones
Johnson Space Center, Houston
281-483-5111
kenna.m.pell@nasa.gov / sandra.p.jones@nasa.gov
Share
Details
Last Updated Mar 14, 2025 LocationNASA Headquarters Related Terms
Humans in Space International Space Station (ISS) View the full article
-
By NASA
5 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
A super pressure balloon with the EUSO-2 payload is prepared for launch from Wānaka, New Zealand, during NASA’s campaign in 2023.NASA/Bill Rodman NASA’s Scientific Balloon Program has returned to Wānaka, New Zealand, for two scheduled flights to test and qualify the agency’s super pressure balloon technology. These stadium-sized, heavy-lift balloons will travel the Southern Hemisphere’s mid-latitudes for planned missions of 100 days or more.
Launch operations are scheduled to begin in late March from Wānaka Airport, NASA’s dedicated launch site for mid-latitude, ultra long-duration balloon missions.
“We are very excited to return to New Zealand for this campaign to officially flight qualify the balloon vehicle for future science investigations,” said Gabriel Garde, chief of NASA’s Balloon Program Office at the agency’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. “Our dedicated team both in the field and at home has spent years in preparation for this opportunity, and it has been through their hard work, fortitude, and passion that we are back and fully ready for the upcoming campaign.”
While the primary flight objective is to test and qualify the super pressure balloon technology, the flights will also host science missions and technology demonstrations. The High-altitude Interferometer Wind Observation (HIWIND), led by High Altitude Observatory, National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, will fly as a mission of opportunity on the first flight. The HIWIND payload will measure neutral wind in the part of Earth’s atmosphere called the thermosphere. Understanding these winds will help scientists predict changes in the ionosphere, which can affect communication and navigation systems. The second flight will support several piggyback missions of opportunity, or smaller payloads, including:
Compact Multichannel Imaging Camera (CoMIC), led by University of Massachusetts Lowell, will study and measure how Earth’s atmosphere scatters light at high altitudes and will measure airglow, specifically the red and green emissions. High-altitude Infrasound from Geophysical Sources (HIGS), led by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratories, will measure atmospheric pressure to collect signals of geophysical events on Earth such as earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. These signals will help NASA as it develops the ability to measure seismic activity on Venus from high-altitude balloons. Measuring Ocean Acoustics North of Antarctica (MOANA), led by Sandia National Laboratories and Swedish Institute of Space Physics, aims to capture sound waves in Earth’s stratosphere with frequencies below the limit of human hearing. NASA’s Balloon Program Office at the agency’s Wallops Flight Facility is leading two technology demonstrations on the flight. The INterim Dynamics Instrumentation for Gondolas (INDIGO) is a data recorder meant to measure the shock of the gondola during the launch, termination, and landing phases of flight. The Sensor Package for Attitude, Rotation, and Relative Observable Winds – 7 (SPARROW-7), will demonstrate relative wind measurements using an ultrasonic device designed for the balloon float environment that measures wind speed and direction. NASA’s 18.8-million-cubic-foot (532,000-cubic-meter) helium-filled super pressure balloon, when fully inflated, is roughly the size of Forsyth-Barr Stadium in Dunedin, New Zealand, which has a seating capacity of more than 35,000. The balloon will float at an altitude of around 110,000 feet (33.5 kilometers), more than twice the altitude of a commercial airplane. Its flight path is determined by the speed and direction of wind at its float altitude.
The balloon is a closed system design to prevent gas release. It offers greater stability at float altitude with minimum altitude fluctuations during the day to night cycle compared to a zero pressure balloon. This capability will enable future missions to affordably access the near-space environment for long-duration science and technology research from the Southern Hemisphere’s mid-latitudes, including nighttime observations.
The public is encouraged to follow real-time tracking of the balloons’ paths as they circle the globe on the agency’s Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility website. Launch and tracking information will be shared across NASA’s social media platforms and the NASA Wallops blog.
NASA’s return to Wānaka marks the sixth super pressure balloon campaign held in New Zealand since the agency began balloon operations there in 2015. The launches are conducted in collaboration with the Queenstown Airport Corporation, Queenstown Lake District Council, New Zealand Space Agency, and Airways New Zealand.
“We are especially grateful to our local hosts, partners, and collaborators who have been with us from the beginning and are critical to the success of these missions and this campaign,” said Garde.
NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia manages the agency’s scientific balloon flight program with 10 to 16 flights each year from launch sites worldwide. Peraton, which operates NASA’s Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility in Palestine, Texas, provides mission planning, sustaining engineering services, and field operations for NASA’s scientific balloon program. The Columbia team has launched more than 1,700 scientific balloons over some 40 years of operations. NASA’s balloons are fabricated by Aerostar. The NASA Scientific Balloon Program is funded by the NASA Headquarters Science Mission Directorate Astrophysics Division.
For more information on NASA’s Scientific Balloon Program, visit:
www.nasa.gov/scientificballoons.
By Olivia Littleton
NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility, Wallops Island, Va.
Share
Details
Last Updated Mar 14, 2025 EditorOlivia F. LittletonContactOlivia F. Littletonolivia.f.littleton@nasa.govLocationWallops Flight Facility Related Terms
Scientific Balloons Astrophysics Astrophysics Division Goddard Space Flight Center Wallops Flight Facility Explore More
7 min read NASA Scientific Balloon Flights to Lift Off From Antarctica
Article 3 months ago 7 min read NASA to Launch 8 Scientific Balloons From New Mexico
Article 7 months ago 5 min read NASA’s EXCITE Mission Prepared for Scientific Balloon Flight
Editor’s note: EXCITE successfully launched at 9:22 a.m. EDT (7:22 a.m. MDT) Saturday, Aug. 31.…
Article 7 months ago View the full article
-
By NASA
4 min read
NASA Atmospheric Wave-Studying Mission Releases Data from First 3,000 Orbits
Following the 3,000th orbit of NASA’s AWE (Atmospheric Waves Experiment) aboard the International Space Station, researchers publicly released the mission’s first trove of scientific data, crucial to investigate how and why subtle changes in Earth’s atmosphere cause disturbances, as well as how these atmospheric disturbances impact technological systems on the ground and in space.
“We’ve released the first 3,000 orbits of data collected by the AWE instrument in space and transmitted back to Earth,” said Ludger Scherliess, principal investigator for the mission and physics professor at Utah State University. “This is a view of atmospheric gravity waves never captured before.”
Available online, the data release contains more than five million individual images of nighttime airglow and atmospheric gravity wave observations collected by the instrument’s four cameras, as well as derived temperature and airglow intensity swaths of the ambient air and the waves.
This image shows AWE data combined from two of the instrument’s passes over the United States. The red and orange wave-structures show increases in brightness (or radiance) in infrared light produced by airglow in Earth’s atmosphere. NASA/AWE/Ludger Scherliess “AWE is providing incredible images and data to further understand what we only first observed less than a decade ago,” said Esayas Shume, AWE program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “We are thrilled to share this influential data set with the larger scientific community and look forward to what will be discovered.”
Members of the AWE science team gather in the mission control room at Utah State University to view data collected by the mapping instrument mounted on the outside of the International Space Station. SDL/Allison Bills Atmospheric gravity waves occur naturally in Earth’s atmosphere and are formed by Earth’s weather and topography. Scientists have studied the enigmatic phenomena for years, but mainly from a few select sites on Earth’s surface.
“With data from AWE, we can now begin near-global measurements and studies of the waves and their energy and momentum on scales from tens to hundreds and even thousands of kilometers,” Scherliess said. “This opens a whole new chapter in this field of research.”
Data from AWE will also provide insight into how terrestrial and space weather interactions affect satellite communications, and navigation, and tracking.
“We’ve become very dependent on satellites for applications we use every day, including GPS navigation,” Scherliess said. “AWE is an attempt to bring science about atmospheric gravity waves into focus, and to use that information to better predict space weather that can disrupt satellite communications. We will work closely with our collaborators to better understand how these observed gravity waves impact space weather.”
AWE’s principal investigator, Ludger Scherliess, briefs collaborators of initial analysis of early AWE data. Information from the NASA-funded mission is helping scientists better understand how weather on Earth affects weather in space. SDL/Allison Bills The tuba-shaped AWE instrument, known as the Advanced Mesospheric Temperature Mapper or AMTM, consists of four identical telescopes. It is mounted to the exterior of the International Space Station, where it has a view of Earth.
As the space station orbits Earth, the AMTM’s telescopes capture 7,000-mile-long swaths of the planet’s surface, recording images of atmospheric gravity waves as they move from the lower atmosphere into space. The AMTM measures and records the brightness of light at specific wavelengths, which can be used to create air and wave temperature maps. These maps can reveal the energy of these waves and how they are moving through the atmosphere.
To analyze the data and make it publicly available, AWE researchers and students at USU developed new software to tackle challenges that had never been encountered before.
“Reflections from clouds and the ground can obscure some of the images, and we want to make sure the data provide clear, precise images of the power transported by the waves,” Scherliess said. “We also need to make sure the images coming from the four separate AWE telescopes on the mapper are aligned correctly. Further, we need to ensure stray light reflections coming off the solar panels of the space station, along with moonlight and city lights, are not masking the observations.”
As the scientists move forward with the mission, they’ll investigate how gravity wave activity changes with seasons around the globe. Scherliess looks forward to seeing how the global science community will use the AWE observations.
“Data collected through this mission provides unprecedented insight into the role of weather on the ground on space weather,” he said.
AWE is led by Utah State University in Logan, Utah, and it is managed by the Explorers Program Office at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Utah State University’s Space Dynamics Laboratory built the AWE instrument and provides the mission operations center.
By Mary-Ann Muffoletto
Utah State University, Logan, UT
NASA Media Contact: Sarah Frazier
Share
Details
Last Updated Mar 14, 2025 Related Terms
Heliophysics Heliophysics Division Ionosphere Mesosphere Science Mission Directorate The Sun Uncategorized Explore More
2 min read Hubble Sees a Spiral and a Star
Article
7 hours ago
5 min read NASA’s Record-Shattering, Theory-Breaking MMS Mission Turns 10
Article
2 days ago
4 min read Discovery Alert: ‘Super-Earth’ Swings from Super-Heated to Super-Chill
Article
3 days ago
Keep Exploring Discover More Topics From NASA
Missions
Humans in Space
Climate Change
Solar System
View the full article
-
-
Check out these Videos
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.