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Wikipedia dicit:

Boeing Crew Flight Test (Boe-CFT) is the first crewed mission of the Boeing Starliner capsule. Launched on 5 June 2024, the mission flew a crew of two NASA astronauts, Barry E. Wilmore and Sunita Williams, from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station to the International Space Station. The crew’s return to Earth, a planned 14 June ground landing in the American Southwest, has been delayed while Boeing works to diagnose various problems with the spacecraft.

The crewed flight test was initially planned to occur in 2017, but various delays pushed back the launch. The spacecraft’s first two uncrewed orbital flight tests of the capsule, Boe-OFT and Boe-OFT 2, took place in 2019 and 2022.

The spacecraft was integrated with the Atlas launch vehicle on 16 April 2024 in preparation for launch. The flight was scheduled for 7 May 2024 but was scrubbed about two hours before liftoff due to an oxygen valve problem on the United Launch Alliance’s (ULA) Atlas V. After the initial scrub, the launch was repeatedly delayed due to a helium leak in the Starliner service module. The second launch attempt was on 1 June, but was scrubbed 3 minutes, 50 seconds before liftoff when the ground launch sequencer computer registered a loss of redundancy due to a faulty power supply. The third launch attempt, on 5 June at 14:52 UTC, was successful.

During the flight to the ISS, additional helium leaks were discovered, though these were still too small to threaten the mission. As Starliner approached the ISS, five reaction control system thrusters failed, likely unrelated to the helium leaks. Resetting and firing the thrusters eventually made four out of five work again, and the Starliner safely docked with the ISS after a delay. The thruster malfunction looks identical to unresolved problems encountered during OFT 2 and will likely have to be fixed before Starliner is certified by NASA.

As of 23 June 2024, the spacecraft remains docked to the ISS. The return to earth flight was originally scheduled for 14 June, but is postponed indefinitely to some time in July, while the problems so far discovered are reviewed for the safety of the return flight.

Video credit: NASA’s Kennedy Space Center

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GOES-U is a weather satellite, the fourth and last of the GOES-R series of satellites operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The GOES-R series will extend the availability of the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES) system until 2036. The satellite is built by Lockheed Martin, based on the A2100 platform.

The satellite is expected to be launched into space atop a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket on June 25, 2024, delayed from April 30 2024, from Kennedy Space Center, Florida, United States. The redesign of the loop heat pipe to prevent an anomaly, as seen in GOES-17, is not expected to delay the launch as it did with GOES-T.

GOES-U will also carry a copy of the Naval Research Laboratory’s Compact CORonagraph (CCOR) instrument which, along with the CCOR planned for Space Weather Follow On-Lagrange 1 (SWFO-L1), will allow continued monitoring of solar wind after the retirement of the NASA-ESA SOHO satellite in 2025.

It will have a dry mass of 2,925 kg (6,449 lb) and a fueled mass of 5,000 kg (11,023 lb).

Video credit: Lockheed Martin

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The Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope (FGST, also FGRST), formerly called the Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope (GLAST), is a space observatory being used to perform gamma-ray astronomy observations from low Earth orbit. Its main instrument is the Large Area Telescope (LAT), with which astronomers mostly intend to perform an all-sky survey studying astrophysical and cosmological phenomena such as active galactic nuclei, pulsars, other high-energy sources and dark matter. Another instrument aboard Fermi, the Gamma-ray Burst Monitor (GBM; formerly GLAST Burst Monitor), is being used to study gamma-ray bursts and solar flares.

Fermi, named for high-energy physics pioneer Enrico Fermi, was launched on 11 June 2008 aboard a Delta II 7920-H rocket. The mission is a joint venture of NASA, the United States Department of Energy, and government agencies in France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and Sweden, becoming the most sensitive gamma-ray telescope on orbit, succeeding INTEGRAL. The project is a recognized CERN experiment (RE7).

Video credit: NASA Goddard

Wikipedia dicit:

The Lunar Terrain Vehicle (LTV) is an unpressurized rover being developed for NASA that astronauts can drive on the Moon while wearing their spacesuits. The development of the LTV is a part of NASA’s Artemis Program, which involves returning astronauts to the Moon, specifically the lunar south pole, by 2026, but the LTV will not fly until Artemis V in 2030 at the earliest. The LTV will be the first crewed lunar rover developed by NASA since the Lunar Roving Vehicle used during the Apollo program.

On February 6, 2020, NASA issued a request, seeking industry feedback on relevant state-of-the-art commercial technologies and acquisition strategies for a new Lunar Terrain Vehicle. NASA also stated in the request that they want the new LTV to draw on recent innovations in electric vehicle energy storage and management, autonomous driving, and extreme environment resistance.”

On August 31, 2021, NASA released another request to private companies for additional input on approaches and solutions for a vehicle to transport Artemis astronauts around the lunar south pole. NASA also asked if American companies are interested in providing the LTV as a commercial service, or as a product NASA would purchase and own.

On November 2, 2022, NASA issued a draft request for proposals (RFP) for the LTV as a service (LTVS). The draft was open for feedback until December 1, with a planned final RFP release date of on or about February 8, 2023, a proposals due date approximately 30 days later, and an anticipated contract award date of on or about July 19.

On January 27, 2023, NASA published an update stating that it anticipated that the LTVS final RFP release will be delayed until no later than May 26. On May 26, NASA released its services request for the Lunar Terrain Vehicle, with proposals due on July 10 and a contract award scheduled for November. On October 30, NASA delayed the award of the contract to March 31, 2024, to allow additional time to evaluate proposals.

On April 3, 2024, NASA announced that Intuitive Machines, Lunar Outpost and Venturi Astrolab are the three companies developing the LTV as part of a 12-month feasibility and demo phase. A source selection statement by NASA provided further details on cost and overall feasibility on 9 April, 2024. The Intuitive Machines proposal was for $1.692 billion, Lunar Outpost for $1.727 billion and Astrolab for $1.928 billion to develop the vehicle.

Video credit: NASA

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Solar sails (also known as lightsails, light sails, and photon sails) are a method of spacecraft propulsion using radiation pressure exerted by sunlight on large surfaces. A number of spaceflight missions to test solar propulsion and navigation have been proposed since the 1980s. The first spacecraft to make use of the technology was IKAROS, launched in 2010.

A useful analogy to solar sailing may be a sailing boat: the light exerting a force on the large surface is akin to a sail being blown by the wind. High-energy laser beams could be used as an alternative light source to exert much greater force than would be possible using sunlight, a concept known as beam sailing. Solar sail craft offer the possibility of low-cost operations combined with high speeds (relative to chemical rockets) and long operating lifetimes. Since they have few moving parts and use no propellant, they can potentially be used numerous times for the delivery of payloads.

Solar sails use a phenomenon that has a proven, measured effect on astrodynamics. Solar pressure affects all spacecraft, whether in interplanetary space or in orbit around a planet or small body. A typical spacecraft going to Mars, for example, will be displaced thousands of kilometers by solar pressure, so the effects must be accounted for in trajectory planning, which has been done since the time of the earliest interplanetary spacecraft of the 1960s. Solar pressure also affects the orientation of a spacecraft, a factor that must be included in spacecraft design.

Video credit: NASA’s Ames Research Center

Wikipedia dicit:

Ingenuity, nicknamed Ginny, is an autonomous NASA helicopter that operated on Mars from 2021 to 2024 as part of the Mars 2020 mission. Ingenuity made its first flight on April 19, 2021, demonstrating that flight is possible in the extremely thin atmosphere of Mars, and becoming the first aircraft to conduct a powered and controlled extra-terrestrial flight. It was designed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in collaboration with AeroVironment, NASA’s Ames Research Center and Langley Research Center with some components supplied by Lockheed Martin Space, Qualcomm, and SolAero.

Ingenuity was delivered to Mars on February 18, 2021, attached to the underside of the Perseverance rover, which landed at Octavia E. Butler Landing near the western rim of the 45 km-wide (28 mi) Jezero crater. Because radio signals take between five and 20 minutes to travel between Earth and Mars, depending on the planets’ positions, it could not be controlled directly in real time but flew autonomously to execute flight plans designed and sent to it by JPL.

Originally intended to make only five flights, Ingenuity completed 72 flights in nearly three years. The five planned flights were part of a 30-sol technology demonstration intended to prove its airworthiness with flights of up to 90 seconds at altitudes ranging from 3–5 m (10–16 ft). Following this demonstration, JPL designed a series of operational flights to explore how aerial scouts could help explore Mars and other worlds. In this operational role, Ingenuity scouted areas of interest for the Perseverance rover, improved navigational techniques, and explored the limits of its flight envelope. Ingenuity’s performance and resilience in the harsh Martian environment greatly exceeded expectations, allowing it to perform far more flights than were initially planned. On January 18, 2024, Ingenuity’s rotor blades were damaged while landing on its 72nd flight, permanently grounding the helicopter. NASA announced the end of its mission one week later. Ingenuity had flown for a total of two hours, eight minutes and 48 seconds over 1,004 days, covering more than 17 kilometres (11 mi).

Video credit: NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory