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Giant Webb Space Telescope Model to "Land" in Baltimore
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By Space Force
Avalon is the Southern Hemisphere’s largest airshow and aerospace and defense exposition. During the 2025 event, multiple industry exhibits, keynote speakers and engagements focused on current priorities and future development of space concerns.
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By NASA
NASA astronaut Christopher Williams poses for a portrait at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.Credit: NASA NASA astronaut Chris Williams will embark on his first mission to the International Space Station, serving as a flight engineer and Expedition 74 crew member.
Williams will launch aboard the Roscosmos Soyuz MS-28 spacecraft in November, accompanied by Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and Sergei Mikaev. After launching from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, the trio will spend approximately eight months aboard the orbiting laboratory.
During his expedition, Williams will conduct scientific investigations and technology demonstrations that help prepare humans for future space missions and benefit humanity.
Selected as a NASA astronaut in 2021, Williams graduated with the 23rd astronaut class in 2024. He began training for his first space station flight assignment immediately after completing initial astronaut candidate training.
Williams was born in New York City, and considers Potomac, Maryland, his hometown. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Physics from Stanford University in California and a doctorate in Physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, where his research focused on astrophysics. Williams completed Medical Physics Residency training at Harvard Medical School in Boston. He was working as a clinical physicist and researcher at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston when he was selected as an astronaut.
For more than two decades, people have lived and worked continuously aboard the International Space Station, advancing scientific knowledge and making research breakthroughs 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 able to more fully focus its resources on deep space missions to the Moon and Mars.
Learn more about International Space Station research and operations at:
https://www.nasa.gov/station
-end-
Josh Finch / Claire O’Shea
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1100
joshua.a.finch@nasa.gov / claire.a.o’shea@nasa.gov
Chelsey Ballarte
Johnson Space Center, Houston
281-483-5111
chelsey.n.ballarte@nasa.gov
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Last Updated Apr 03, 2025 LocationNASA Headquarters Related Terms
Humans in Space International Space Station (ISS) ISS Research Johnson Space Center View the full article
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By Space Force
Natalia Serna, daughter of Space Launch Delta 30’s senior enlisted leader Chief Master Sgt. Jay Harris and Maria Tapia, wins U.S. Space Force's Military Child of the Year.
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By NASA
2 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
What are the dangers of going to space?
For human spaceflight, the first thing I think about is the astronauts actually strapping themselves to a rocket. And if that isn’t dangerous enough, once they launch and they’re out into space in deep exploration, we have to worry about radiation.
Radiation is coming at them from all directions. From the Sun, we have solar particles. We have galactic cosmic rays that are all over in the universe. And those cause damage to DNA. On Earth here, we use sunscreen to protect us from DNA damage. Our astronauts are protected from the shielding that’s around them in the space vehicles.
We also have to worry about microgravity. So what happens there? We see a lot of bone and muscle loss in our astronauts. And so to prevent this, we actually have the astronauts exercising for hours every day. And of course we don’t want to run out of food on a space exploration mission. So we want to make sure that we have everything that the astronauts need to take with them to make sure that we can sustain them.
There are many risks associated with human space exploration. NASA has been planning for these missions to make our astronauts return home safely.
[END VIDEO TRANSCRIPT]
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Last Updated Apr 02, 2025 Related Terms
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3 min read NASA Continues Support for Private Astronaut Missions to Space Station
Article 3 hours ago 2 min read Citizen Scientists Use NASA Open Science Data to Research Life in Space
How can life thrive in deep space? The Open Science Data Repository Analysis Working Groups invite…
Article 11 hours ago 2 min read NASA Receives 10 Nominations for the 29th Annual Webby Awards
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By European Space Agency
Image: This image shows Webb’s recent observation of the asteroid 2024 YR4 using both its Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) and Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI). Data from NIRCam shows reflected light, while the MIRI observations show thermal light.
On 8 March 2025, the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope turned its watchful eye toward asteroid 2024 YR4, which we now know poses no significant threat to Earth in 2032 and beyond.
This is the smallest object targeted by Webb to date, and one of the smallest objects to have its size directly measured.
Observations were taken to study the thermal properties of 2024 YR4, including how quickly it heats up and cools down and how hot it is at its current distance from the Sun. These measurements indicate that this asteroid does not share properties observed in larger asteroids. This is likely a combination of its fast spin and lack of fine-grained sand on its surface. Further research is needed, however this is considered consistent with a surface dominated by rocks that are roughly fist-sized or larger.
Asteroid 2024 YR4 was recently under close watch by the team at ESA's Near Earth Objects Coordination Centre, located in Italy. Planetary defence experts from the Agency's Space Safety programme worked with NASA and the international asteroid community to closely watch this object and refine its orbit, which was eventually determined to not pose a risk of Earth impact. Read details on this unusual campaign via ESA's Rocket Science blog and in news articles here and here.
Webb’s observations indicate that the asteroid measures roughly 60 meters (comparable to the height of a 15-story building).
The new observations from Webb not only provide unique information about 2024 YR4’s size, but can also complement ground-based observations of the object's position to help improve our understanding of the object’s orbit and future trajectory.
Note: This post highlights data from Webb science in progress, which has not yet been through the peer-review process.
[Image description: A collage of three images showing the black expanse of space. Two-thirds of the collage is taken up by the black background sprinkled with small, blurry galaxies in orange, blue, and white. There are two images in a column at the right side of the collage. On the right side of the main image, not far from the top, a very faint dot is outlined with a white square. At the right, there are two zoomed in views of this area. The top box is labeled NIRCam and shows a fuzzy dot at the center of the inset. The bottom box is labeled MIRI and shows a fuzzy pinkish dot.]
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