Copernical Team
NASA rules out April for Artemis I launch, could target May
NASA mission managers updated Artemis I progress ahead of the March rollout of the massive Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft to Kennedy Space Center's Launch Pad 39-B for what the agency calls a wet dress rehearsal.
While it's targeting March 16 at 6 p.m. for the 322-foot-tall rocket to make the 4.2-mile journey to the pad, the agency will need a month or more for testing and a rollback to the Vehicle Assembly Building before NASA signs off on a launch attempt. So an April launch window has been taken off the board.
"April is not a possibility. We're still evaluating the tail end of May," said Tom Whitmeyer, NASA's deputy associate administrator for exploration systems development. "But I want to be really careful once again, being straightforward with you. You know, we really need to get through this next few weeks here, see how we're doing."
The next possible windows for launch are from May 7-21, June 6-16 and June 29-July 12.
The majority of work inside the VAB is done ahead of the wet dress rollout, Whitmeyer said, including the last major hardware testing that involved the installation of the explosives on the vehicle that would be used in the event of an abort launch scenario.
Week in images: 21 - 25 February 2022
Week in images: 21 - 25 February 2022
Discover our week through the lens
100
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Happy 100 days in space to ESA astronaut Matthias Maurer. The first-time space flier marked the milestone on 19 February 2022 and what a busy 100-days it been.
In a Twitter post marking the milestone, Matthias wrote, “100 days may sound like a lot, but it feels like I've only just arrived.”
Even before launching for his Cosmic Kiss mission on a SpaceX Dragon as part of Crew-3, Matthias was on the science, providing researchers with pre-flight measurements for a variety of experiments.
Since arriving, Matthias has continued to be poked and prodded while working, exercising and even sleeping, all in
Cosmic flashes pinpointed to a surprising location in space
Astronomers have been surprised by the closest source of the mysterious flashes in the sky known as fast radio bursts. Precision measurements with radio telescopes reveal that the bursts are made among old stars, and in a way that no one was expecting. The source of the flashes, in nearby spiral galaxy M 81, is the closest of its kind to Earth.?
Fast radio bursts are unpredictable, extreme Ball Aerospace supports CDR of NASA's SPHEREx mission
Ball Aerospace supported completion of critical design review (CDR) for NASA's Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer (SPHEREx) mission. Ball will now move forward with building the telescope and spacecraft.
In addition to designing and building the spacecraft and telescope, Ball Aerospace is responsible for conducting system integration Potential widespread effects of geoengineering on both climate and the carbon cycle
Global warming poses a great threat to our society, and it will continue unless a deep and rapid reduction in greenhouse gas emissions is implemented. One alternative way to counteract some of the undesired effects of global warming is geoengineering, also referred to as solar radiation modification, or climate engineering.
The basic idea of geoengineering is to cool the earth by intention The last day of the dinosaurs
The asteroid which killed nearly all of the dinosaurs struck Earth during springtime. This conclusion was drawn by an international team of researchers after having examined thin sections, high-resolution synchrotron X-ray scans, and carbon isotope records of the bones of fishes that died less than 60 minutes after the asteroid impacted. The team presents its findings in the journal Nature. Space Micro lands Space Development Agency contract for optical communications
Voyager Space and Space Micro has announced an award from the Space Development Agency (SDA) for a 24-month development contract for advanced one-to-many optical communications using Managed Optical Communication Array (MOCA) technology to support Low Earth Orbit (LEO) constellations. Space Micro partnered with BridgeComm Inc., a global leader in optical wireless communications solutions and ser Pentagon and Partners Release Combined Space Operations Vision 2031
The United States joins Australia, Canada, France, Germany, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom in the joint release of the "Combined Space Operations (CSpO) Vision 2031" today.
CSpO is an initiative to address the overarching need to encourage responsible use of space, recognizing challenges to space sustainability, threats presented by technological advances, and the increasingly compreh Earth from Space: Washington, US
To celebrate the recent data release from Landsat 9, this week we take a closer look at a part of Washington state – the northwesternmost state of the US – through the lens of Landsat 9.