OrbitalHub

Wikipedia dicit:

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is a space telescope designed primarily to conduct infrared astronomy. As the largest optical telescope in space, its greatly improved infrared resolution and sensitivity allow it to view objects too early, distant, or faint for the Hubble Space Telescope. This is expected to enable a broad range of investigations across the fields of astronomy and cosmology, such as observation of the first stars and the formation of the first galaxies, and detailed atmospheric characterization of potentially habitable exoplanets.

The U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) led JWST’s development in collaboration with the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA). The NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) in Maryland managed telescope development, the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore on the Homewood Campus of Johns Hopkins University operates JWST, and the prime contractor was Northrop Grumman. The telescope is named after James E. Webb, who was the administrator of NASA from 1961 to 1968 during the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs.

The James Webb Space Telescope was launched on 25 December 2021 on an Ariane 5 rocket from Kourou, French Guiana, and arrived at the Sun–Earth L2 Lagrange point in January 2022. The first image from JWST was released to the public via a press conference on 11 July 2022. The telescope is the successor of the Hubble as NASA’s flagship mission in astrophysics.

Credit: Lockheed Martin

NASA dicit:

NASA must place more emphasis on protecting both the crew and the exploration surface systems if they hope to achieve long-duration sustainability on the lunar surface. It is now reasonably achievable with excavation, construction, and autonomy technologies to achieve a significant level of protection that architectures have been unable to achieve to date. The Lunar Safe Haven (LSH) was proposed to protect astronauts, electronics, and other surface exploration systems from the hazards of the lunar environment, including radiation, micrometeoroid strikes, lunar dust, thermal vacuum, and more.

Credit: NASA Langley Research Center

Wikipedia dicit:

SpaceX CRS-25, also known as SpX-25, is a Commercial Resupply Service mission to the International Space Station (ISS) that was launched on 15 July 2022. The mission is contracted by NASA and is flown by SpaceX using a Cargo Dragon. This is the fifth flight for SpaceX under NASA’s CRS Phase 2 contract awarded in January 2016.

The launch of CRS-25 was previously delayed to 11 July to investigate a possible leak in the Dragon’s Draco thruster propulsion system detected during pre-launch testing. The previously scheduled launch date was June 10.

SpaceX plans to reuse the Cargo Dragons up to five times. The Cargo Dragon will launch without SuperDraco abort engines, without seats, cockpit controls and the life support system required to sustain astronauts in space. This newer design comes with some benefits, like a faster process to recover, and refurbish and re-fly versus the earlier Dragon CRS design used for ISS cargo missions.

Credit: SpaceX/NASA’s Kennedy Space Center

NASA dicit:

Near-Earth asteroid Bennu is a rubble pile of rocks and boulders left over from the formation of the solar system. On October 20, 2020, NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft briefly touched down on Bennu and collected a sample for return to Earth. During this “TAG event,” the spacecraft’s arm sank far deeper into the asteroid than expected, confirming that Bennu’s surface is incredibly weak. Now, scientists have used data from OSIRIS-REx to revisit the TAG event and better understand how Bennu’s loose upper layers are held together.

Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/CI Lab/SVS/Dan Gallagher (KBRwyle): Producer/Jonathan North (KBRwyle): Lead Animator/Kel Elkins (USRA): Lead Data Visualizer/Alexander Bodnar (AIMM): Animator/Adriana Manrique Gutierrez (KBRwyle): Animator/Walt Feimer (KBRwyle): Animator/Lisa Poje (Freelance): Animator/Dan Gallagher (KBRwyle): Narrator/Dante Lauretta (The University of Arizona): Lead Scientist/Kevin Walsh (SwRI): Scientist/Ronald Ballouz (JHUAPL): Scientist/Olivier Barnouin (JHUAPL): Scientist/Rani Gran (NASA/GSFC): Public Affairs Officer/Nancy Neal-Jones (NASA/GSFC): Public Affairs Officer/James Tralie (ADNET): Support/Ernie Wright (USRA): Support/Aaron E. Lepsch (ADNET): Technical Support

NASA dicit:

This year, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) celebrates its 13th anniversary orbiting the Moon. This mission has given scientists the largest volume of data ever collected by a planetary science mission at NASA. Considering that success and the continuing functionality of the spacecraft and its instruments, NASA has awarded the mission an extended mission phase to continue operations. This is LRO’s 5th extended science mission (ESM5), and during this time there will be 4 major areas of focus.

Video Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/Produced and Edited by: David Ladd (AIMM)/Data Visualizations by: Ernie Wright (USRA)/Spacecraft Animations by: Adriana Manrique Gutierrez (KBRwyle)

NASA dicit:

A star’s death throes have so violently disrupted its planetary system that the dead star left behind, called a white dwarf, is siphoning off debris from both the system’s inner and outer reaches. This is the first time astronomers have observed a white dwarf star that is consuming both rocky-metallic and icy material, the ingredients of planets.

Archival data from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and other NASA observatories were essential in diagnosing this case of cosmic cannibalism. The findings help describe the violent nature of evolved planetary systems and can tell astronomers about the makeup of newly forming systems.

Video credit: NASA Goddard