#NASA Astronauts

[theofficialastronomy101]

One of the clearest sharpest images of our moon ever taken! 5000 megapixels

[astronotmovie]

The view ain’t all that bad. Apollo 9 astronaut David Scott takes it all in in this epic photograph by crewmate Rusty Schweickart, March 1969. The 10-day mission commanded by James McDivitt saw the first crewed flight of the Lunar Module.

[head-post]

NASA launches probe to explore possible life on Jupiter’s icy moon

NASA’s Europa Clipper probe rocketed from Florida to Jupiter’s icy moon to find out if conditions to sustain life existed there.

The launch aboard a powerful SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket took place shortly after noon (16:00 GMT) on Monday, 14 October. The probe is expected to reach Jupiter’s moon Europa in five and a half years.

NASA later confirmed that it had successfully received a signal from the probe, with its massive solar panels, designed to capture the faint light reaching Jupiter, fully unfolded. The mission will allow the US space agency to discover new details about Europa, which NASA official Gina DiBraccio believes may harbour an ocean beneath its icy surface.

With Europa Clipper, we’re not searching for life on Europa, but we’re trying to see if this ocean world is habitable, and that means we’re looking for the water. We’re looking for energy sources, and we’re really looking for the chemistry there, so that we can understand what habitable environments might be throughout our whole universe.

The 30-metre-wide probe, with its solar panels fully extended, is the largest NASA has ever built for interplanetary exploration. Europa Clipper programme scientist Curt Niebur said the journey could reveal “a world that could be habitable today, right now.”

Europa has been known to exist since 1610, but the first close-up images were taken by the Voyager probes in 1979. The next probe to reach Jupiter’s icy moon was NASA’s Galileo in the 1990s, which found that the moon was likely to have an ocean.

Purpose of the mission

The mission will try to determine the structure and composition of Europa’s surface, its depth and even the salinity of the ocean. The goal is to see if the three ingredients necessary for life are present: water, energy and certain chemical compounds.

Bonnie Buratti, the mission’s deputy project scientist, explained that life could be found in the ocean in the form of primitive bacteria. However, the bacteria may be too deep to be detected by the Europa Clipper.

During its journey, the probe will cover 2.9 billion kilometres. It is expected to arrive in April 2030. The main mission will last another four years. Europa Clipper will make 49 flybys over the satellite, getting as close as 25 kilometres to its surface.

NASA says the $5.2bn mission over about a decade is justified by the importance of the data that will be collected. About 4,000 people worked on the project.

Europa Clipper will operate simultaneously with the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Juice probe, which will study two other moons of Jupiter, Ganymede and Callisto.

Read more HERE

[anumberofhobbies]

fut-lnr_v_bw_o_n (ca. 1961, unnumbered press photo) by Mike Acs Via Flickr: “Wonders of the Universe: Scientists ‘Tailoring…?’ Within the next 12 months, either a Project Mercury astronaut or his Russian counterpart will be orbiting the earth. Yet, even at this late date, no suitable space suit has been developed which would permit the astronaut to move freely into the hostile environment of space outside the satellite or around on the lunar surface. While in the past, the problem of designing an acceptable space suit was not considered difficult, as the time approaches when the suit should become operational it no longer appears an easy task. To point up the difficulty of this problem, at least three companies are engaged actively in trying to design a suit to cope with space conditions.” At this point, unfortunately, the affixed newspaper caption has been cut off…aaargh. I would’ve loved to have read the rest of it! I I wish there was a repository of Dr. Levitt’s “Wonders of the Universe” articles. And if there is, I haven’t found it. There are too many wonderful, quirky, impeccable, amusing, implausible, etc., etc. things going on here to enumerate. John Gorsuch…’nuff said. Enjoy.

[gone2soon-rip]

WILLIAM ANDERS (1933-Died June 7th 2024,at 90.Plane crash).American United States Air Force (USAF) major general, electrical engineer, nuclear engineer, NASA astronaut, and businessman. In December 1968, he was a member of the crew of Apollo 8, the first three people to leave low Earth orbit and travel to the Moon. Along with fellow astronauts Frank Borman and Jim Lovell, he circled the Moon ten times, and broadcast live images and commentary back to Earth, including the Christmas Eve Genesis reading. During one of the mission's lunar orbits with Apollo 11, he took the iconic Earthrise photograph,on Christmas Eve 1968.Earthrise - Wikipedia

[gemini-enthusiast]

Hilariously funny that the guy known for wandering off without warning to look at birds was allowed to do this

[michaelgabrill]

NASA Astronauts Leadership Visit Childrens Hospital Cancer Moonshot Event

NASA astronauts, scientists, and researchers, and leadership from the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) met with cancer patients and gathered in a discussion about potential research opportunities and collaborations as part of President Biden and First Lady Jill Biden’s Cancer Moonshot initiative on Oct. 4. Roundtable discussions centered conversation around the five hazards of […] from NASA https://ift.tt/TEHbS6z

[newsepick]

SpaceX Crew-9, Sunita Williams' new ride home, arrives at space station

The SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule successfully docked at the International Space Station (ISS) to rescue stranded NASA astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore, who have been on the ISS since June due to issues with their Boeing Starliner. Launched from Florida, the Crew-9 mission carried NASA’s Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Alexander Gorbunov. Williams, now ISS commander, welcomed the new crew. The astronauts adaptively engaged in maintenance and experiments. Wilmore and Williams are now scheduled to return to Earth in late February after an extended mission of over eight months, far exceeding their initial week-long plan.

[rodspurethoughts]

Upcoming Live from the ISS: NASA Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams to Discuss Their Mission

Space enthusiasts and media around the world are gearing up for an exciting Earth-to-space call scheduled with NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams. This news conference is set to take place aboard the International Space Station (ISS) on Friday, September 13, at 2:15 p.m. EDT. The astronauts, who are currently part of Expedition 71/72, will share insights from their experiences in low…

[nasa]

Nora AlMatrooshi

Nora AlMatrooshi, the first Emirati woman astronaut, worked as a piping engineer before becoming an astronaut candidate for the United Arab Emirates. https://mbrsc.ae/team/nora/

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[theofficialastronomy101]

[astronotmovie]

Stepping out on the front porch. Astronaut David Scott opens the hatch to check out the view during Apollo 9, March 1969. In this pic taken by fellow astronaut Rusty Schweickart, ‘Gumdrop’, the Command Service Module is docked with ‘Spider’, the Lunar Module. A9 was the 1st flight incorporating all Apollo spacecraft components. The 10 day mission was the 2nd launched by a Saturn V rocket.

[head-post]

Hera spacecraft launched to investigate asteroid hit by NASA

The European Space Agency (ESA) has successfully launched Hera, its first planetary defence mission designed to assess whether future asteroids can be deflected from a collision course with earth.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifted off on Monday from the Space Force Station at Cape Canaveral, Florida, sending the European interplanetary station Hera on a departure trajectory.

The spacecraft will visit the twin asteroid system of Didymos and Dimorphos to assess the impact of the DART kamikaze probe, which will help deflect dangerous asteroids away from earth in the future.

The DART mission ended in October 2022 when the 750-kg probe slammed into asteroid Dimorphos, which is about 160 metres in size. Dimorphos orbits the noticeably larger, 780-metre asteroid Didymus. The impact altered Dimorphos’s orbit, shortening the duration of one revolution by about 32 min to 11 h 23 min. If it was possible to do this with a test asteroid, it may work in the event of a deadly threat to earth from another asteroid. However, scientists lack the data to make accurate calculations and ESA’s Hera probe should fill that gap.

Hera was originally scheduled to fly with DART and take video of the collision. EU authorities delayed the adoption of the mission’s budget, and it will now take place years after the impact. However, this does not cancel its exceptional value. At the moment, scientists do not have data on the exact structure and even the topography of both asteroids. All they have are muddy images from the Italian cubesat, which was dropped from the DART probe minutes before its demise, as well as observations from telescopes.

In March 2025, the Hera probe will circle Mars for a gravity manoeuvre and take close up images of one of its satellites, Deimos. The station will reach the target asteroid system in October 2026. This will be the start of Hera’s six-month mission to study Dimorphos and Didymus. The greatest convergence of the station and Didymos should be about 1 kilometre. Some anxiety in scientists cause debris from the asteroid, which could linger in the system after the impact of the probe DART. But previous probe missions to the comet and other asteroids suggest that a serious threat is not expected.

Read more HERE

[renecarpenters]

This is an absolute moron replying to comments on this YouTube video insisting that the Apollo 1 disaster didn't happen.

What is this stupid obsession?? This is almost as moronic and vile as people who deny 9/11 or the Holocaust! 🙄

[usnatarchives]

Dr. Mae Jemison was the first African American woman to travel in space. Born on October 17, 1956, in Decatur, Alabama, and raised in Chicago, Illinois, Jemison’s journey into the stars is a testament to the power of dreams and determination. 🚀

[puffle-fuzz]

So I was thinking about this crew bc my friend Peter (and I on Peter’s live stream) got to talk to Mike Barratt today. Iirc Mike Barratt is the second oldest person to go into LEO. Barratt is like 64-65. Yes William Shatner was in Blue Origin at age 90 but that wasn’t to LEO.