NASA’s PACE mission, which will provide a major boost to scientists studying Earth’s atmosphere and ocean health, completed a milestone test in October at the agency’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. The Ocean Color Instrument (OCI) on the Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem (PACE) mission passed thermal vacuum tests Read full post

NASA, the French space agency Centre National d’Études Spatiales, and SpaceX are now targeting 3:46 a.m. PST Thursday, Dec.15, for the launch of the Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) satellite. The new date allows for additional time to complete prelaunch processing and checkouts of the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. SWOT Read full post

Engineers continued with the jet firing development flight test objective that began on flight day 12. Today, teams demonstrated the “low” portion of the reaction control thruster firing time range. This test objective is designed to exercise the reaction control system jets in a different configuration to model how thruster Read full post

New science experiments delivered aboard a U.S. cargo craft are being activated aboard the International Space Station this week. The Expedition 68 crew is also preparing for upcoming spacewalks in December. NASA Flight Engineers Nicole Mann and Frank Rubio worked together on Tuesday unloading research samples from the SpaceX Dragon cargo Read full post

by Anashe Bandari Venus is considered Earth’s twin in many ways, but, thanks to the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA), one difference now seems clearer: Unlike Earth, Venus does not have any obvious phosphine. Phosphine is a gas found in Earth’s atmosphere, but the announcement of phosphine discovered above Venus’s clouds Read full post

NASA’s uncrewed Orion spacecraft reached the farthest distance from Earth it will travel during the Artemis I mission -- 268,563 miles from our home planet -- just after 3 p.m. CST. The spacecraft also captured imagery of Earth and the Moon together throughout the day, including of the Moon appearing Read full post

SpaceX-26 (SpX-26) Launch and Dock: The SpX-26 Dragon spacecraft launched aboard a Falcon 9 rocket at 1:20 PM CT on Saturday, November 26th, and docked to the ISS the following morning at 6:39 AM CT. The spacecraft is carrying more than 7,700 pounds of research, supplies, and hardware to the Read full post

Here at NASA, we do countdowns all the time. Usually, it is towards a new beginning, a launch into space. Mine has been different: I have become accustomed to silently googling “days till 12/31” and seeing this number slowly dwindle as I get closer to the end or my time Read full post

NASA will share a new image or spectrum from the James Webb Space Telescope at least every other week on the mission’s blog. This week, check the blog on Thursday, Dec. 1 at 11 a.m. EST for new images highlighting one of Saturn’s moons. In the meantime, learn more about what to Read full post

The SpaceX Dragon resupply ship is open for business and the Expedition 68 crew has begun unpacking several thousand pounds of cargo. Loaded inside Dragon are new science experiments exploring botany, biology, and physics, and new hardware to augment the International Space Station’s power generation system. NASA Flight Engineer Josh Cassada Read full post