Blogs

NASA and the UK Space Agency have agreed to cooperate on NASA's heliophysics mission, the Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP). The agreement, signed Sept. 22, 2021, will allow Imperial College London (ICL) to design and build one of IMAP's 10 instruments – a magnetometer called MAG – as well as provide ground support and personnel necessary to support the instrument and the IMAP science team.

NASA will provide coverage of upcoming prelaunch and launch activities for Lucy, the agency's first mission to explore the Jupiter Trojan asteroids. Lucy is targeted to launch at 5:34 a.m. EDT Saturday, Oct. 16, on a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V 401 rocket from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station …

A mass of solar material that erupted from the Sun on Oct. 9, 2021, reached Earth on Oct. 12. The Earth-directed coronal mass ejection, or CME, elevated the Kp index, a measure of disturbance to Earth's magnetic field, to 6 (moderate level). Kp index levels range from 0 (quiet) to 9 (intense). The CME was …

NASA and United Launch Alliance (ULA) managers completed the Flight Readiness Review (FRR) this morning at Kennedy Space Center in Florida for the agency's Lucy mission. The FRR focuses on the preparedness of NASA, ULA, and the Lucy team to support the flight and the certification of flight readiness. The final step is the Launch …

United Launch Alliance (ULA) has completed encapsulation of the payload fairing around NASA's Lucy spacecraft inside the Astrotech Space Operations Facility in Titusville, Florida. The payload fairing secures and protects the spacecraft during launch and ascent. Up next, the payload fairing will be transported to Space Launch Complex 41 (SLC-41) at Cape Canaveral Space Force …

by Roberto Molar Candanosa Far up in northern Alaska, Logan Berner's legs are burning with pain from trekking over tussocks in grassy valley bottoms and rugged, cloud-choked mountain passes. He's spending a couple of weeks of 2021's summer traversing the mountainous Brook Range, carrying just the essentials to sustain him in the expanse of the …

On Sept. 29, NASA's Parker Solar Probe completed a quick maneuver that positioned the spacecraft for a flyby of Venus next month.

NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) are now targeting Feb. 16, 2022, for the launch of the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite T (GOES-T) mission. The launch was previously planned for Jan. 8, 2022. NASA, NOAA, and United Launch Alliance (ULA) coordinated the new target date to optimize launch schedules for missions flying from Space Launch Complex-41. …

By Jessica Merzdorf Evans //LOMPOC, CALIFORNIA// In early 2021, local artist (and Lompoc Mural Society curator) Ann Thompson competed in and won the call for artists to commemorate Landsat 9's launch and the Landsat program's 50th anniversary. Along with representatives from NASA, the U.S. Geological Survey, United Launch Alliance, and the city of Lompoc, Thompson …

By Jessica Merzdorf Evans //LOMPOC, CALIFORNIA// 11AM, Lompoc Airport Launch day dawned gray and cool, with low-hanging cloud cover and a light drizzle. While the launch crew ran through their final procedures and checks before launch, I went to the public viewing site at Lompoc Airport, where several tents' worth of activities and a "not-quite-life-sized" …