6 min read Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) This artist’s concept depicts the NEOWISE spacecraft in orbit around Earth. Launched in 2009 to survey the entire sky in infrared, the spacecraft took on a more specialized role in 2014 when it was reactivated to study near-Earth asteroids and comets.NASA/JPL-Caltech As the infrared [...]
1 min read Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) The results from a NASA software tool called OVERFLOW, used to model the flow of air around aircraft, are shown in this image.NASA Several air taxi companies are using a NASA-developed computer software tool to predict aircraft noise and aerodynamic performance. This tool allows [...]
2 min read Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) Details DoD-NASA Lidar TIM August 13-15, 2024 MIT Lincoln Laboratory in Arlington, VA (Crystal City) 241 18th St S, Arlington, VA 22202 MIT Lincoln Laboratory is hosting a TIM between NASA and DoD to facilitate the sharing of lidar knowledge between these institutions and [...]
2 min read Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) Princeton University undergraduate Kate Sheldon, doing summer work at Firebird Diagnostics, holds a prototype of the Agnostic Life Finder, or ALF, which was developed to seek life on Mars without making Earth-specific assumptions about molecular biology.Credit: Firebird Diagnostics LLC At first glance, the search [...]
Three Black Brant IX sounding rockets for the Atmospheric Perturbations around Eclipse Path (APEP) mission are scheduled to launch from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility launch range in Virginia. The launch window opens April 8, 2024, at 2:40 p.m. EDT. Launching approximately 45 minutes before, during, and after the peak local eclipse, the APEP sounding rockets [...]
The Structures Technical Discipline Team (TDT) was involved in numerous investigations this past year, but composites, fracture mechanics, and pressure vessels dominate the list. All three of these specialties are important to composite overwrapped pressure vessels (COPV). One of the TDT’s most important findings this year was the exposure of an inherent vulnerability that underpredicts [...]
3 min read Harnessing the 2024 Eclipse for Ionospheric Discovery with HamSCI As the total solar eclipse on April 8, 2024, draws closer, a vibrant community of enthusiastic amateur radio operators, known as “hams,” is gearing up for an exciting project with the Ham Radio Science Citizen Investigation (HamSCI) group. Our goal is clear [...]
Guessing your age might be a popular carnival game, but for astronomers it’s a real challenge to determine the ages of stars. Once a star like our Sun has settled into steady nuclear fusion, or the mature phase of its life, it changes little for billions of years. One exception to that rule is the [...]
4 min read Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) NASA conducted a full-duration RS-25 hot fire April 3 on the Fred Haise Test Stand at NASA’s Stennis Space Center near Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, achieving a major milestone for future Artemis flights of NASA’s SLS (Space Launch System) rocket. It marked the final [...]
On April 8, 2024, North America will witness its last total solar eclipse for more than twenty years. Other parts of the world will experience the rare celestial event in the coming decade. A total solar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes directly between the Sun and the Earth, blocking its disk from view but [...]
