nairobi-blue

Guy Bluford Changed the Course of Space History

On Aug. 30, 1983, Guion Bluford, better known as Guy, became the first African American to fly to space. An accomplished jet pilot and aerospace engineer, Bluford became part of NASA’s 1978 astronaut class that included the first African American, the first Asian American, and the first women astronauts.

When our Space Launch System (SLS) rocket launches the Artemis missions to the Moon, it can have a top speed of more than six miles per second. Rockets and racecars are designed with speed in mind to accomplish their missions—but there’s more to speed than just engines and fuel. Learn more about the physics of going fast:

Take a look under the hood, so to speak, of our SLS mega Moon rocket and you’ll find that each of its four RS-25 engines have high-pressure turbopumps that generate a combined 94,400 horsepower per engine. All that horsepower creates more than 2 million pounds of thrust to help launch our four Artemis astronauts inside the Orion spacecraft beyond Earth orbit and onward to the Moon. How does that horsepower compare to a racecar? World champion racecars can generate more than 1,000 horsepower as they speed around the track.

As these vehicles start their engines, a series of special machinery is moving and grooving inside those engines. Turbo engines in racecars work at up to 15,000 rotations per minute, aka rpm. The turbopumps on the RS-25 engines rotate at a staggering 37,000 rpm. SLS’s RS-25 engines will burn for approximately eight minutes, while racecar engines generally run for 1 ½-3 hours during a race.

To use that power effectively, both rockets and racecars are designed to slice through the air as efficiently as possible.

While rockets want to eliminate as much drag as possible, racecars carefully use the air they’re slicing through to keep them pinned to the track and speed around corners faster. This phenomenon is called downforce.

Steering these mighty machines is a delicate process that involves complex mechanics.

Most racecars use a rack-and-pinion system to convert the turn of a steering wheel to precisely point the front tires in the right direction. While SLS doesn’t have a steering wheel, its powerful engines and solid rocket boosters do have nozzles that gimbal, or move, to better direct the force of the thrust during launch and flight.

Racecar drivers and astronauts are laser focused, keeping their sights set on the destination. Pit crews and launch control teams both analyze data from numerous sensors and computers to guide them to the finish line. In the case of our mighty SLS rocket, its 212-foot-tall core stage has nearly 1,000 sensors to help fly, track, and guide the rocket on the right trajectory and at the right speed. That same data is relayed to launch teams on the ground in real time. Like SLS, world-champion racecars use hundreds of sensors to help drivers and teams manage the race and perform at peak levels.

Knowing how to best use, manage, and battle the physics of going fast, is critical in that final lap. You can learn more about rockets and racecars here.

This all-sky mosaic was constructed from 912 Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) images. Prominent features include the Milky Way, a glowing arc that represents the bright central plane of our galaxy, and the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds – satellite galaxies of our own located, respectively, 160,000 and 200,000 light-years away. In the northern sky, look for the small, oblong shape of the Andromeda galaxy (M 31), the closest big spiral galaxy, located 2.5 million light-years away. The black regions are areas of sky that TESS didn’t image. Credit: NASA/MIT/TESS and Ethan Kruse (University of Maryland College Park)

On April 18, 2018, we launched the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, better known as TESS. It was designed to search for planets beyond our solar system – exoplanets – and to discover worlds for our James Webb Space Telescope, which launched three years later, to further explore. TESS images sections of sky, one hemisphere at a time. When we put all the images together, we get a great look at Earth’s sky!

In its five years in space, TESS has discovered 326 planets and more than 4,300 planet candidates. Along the way, the spacecraft has observed a plethora of other objects in space, including watching as a black hole devoured a star and seeing six stars dancing in space. Here are some notable results from TESS so far:

During its first five years in space, our Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite has discovered exoplanets and identified worlds that can be further explored by the James Webb Space Telescope. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

1. TESS’ first discovery was a world called Pi Mensae c. It orbits the star Pi Mensae, about 60 light-years away from Earth and visible to the unaided eye in the Southern Hemisphere. This discovery kicked off NASA's new era of planet hunting.

2. Studying planets often helps us learn about stars too! Data from TESS & Spitzer helped scientists detect a planet around the young, flaring star AU Mic, providing a unique way to study how planets form, evolve, and interact with active stars.

Located less than 32 light-years from Earth, AU Microscopii is among the youngest planetary systems ever observed by astronomers, and its star throws vicious temper tantrums. This devilish young system holds planet AU Mic b captive inside a looming disk of ghostly dust and ceaselessly torments it with deadly blasts of X-rays and other radiation, thwarting any chance of life… as we know it! Beware! There is no escaping the stellar fury of this system. The monstrous flares of AU Mic will have you begging for eternal darkness. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

3. In addition to finding exoplanets on its own, TESS serves as a pathfinder for the James Webb Space Telescope. TESS discovered the rocky world LHS 3844 b, but Webb will tell us more about its composition. Our telescopes, much like our scientists, work together.

4. Though TESS may be a planet-hunter, it also helps us study black holes! In 2019, TESS saw a ‘‘tidal disruption event,’’ otherwise known as a black hole shredding a star.

When a star strays too close to a black hole, intense tides break it apart into a stream of gas. The tail of the stream escapes the system, while the rest of it swings back around, surrounding the black hole with a disk of debris. Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

5. In 2020, TESS discovered its first Earth-size world in the habitable zone of its star – the distance from a star at which liquid water could exist on a planet’s surface. Earlier this year, a second rocky planet was discovered in the system.

You can see the exoplanets that orbit the star TOI 700 moving within two marked habitable zones, a conservative habitable zone, and an optimistic habitable zone. Planet d orbits within the conservative habitable zone, while planet e moves within an optimistic habitable zone, the range of distances from a star where liquid surface water could be present at some point in a planet’s history. Credit: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

6. Astronomers used TESS to find a six-star system where all stars undergo eclipses. Three binary pairs orbit each other, and, in turn, the pairs are engaged in an elaborate gravitational dance in a cosmic ballroom 1,900 light-years away in the constellation Eridanus.

7. Thanks to TESS, we learned that Delta Scuti stars pulse to the beat of their own drummer. Most seem to oscillate randomly, but we now know HD 31901 taps out a beat that merges 55 pulsation patterns.

Sound waves bouncing around inside a star cause it to expand and contract, which results in detectable brightness changes. This animation depicts one type of Delta Scuti pulsation — called a radial mode — that is driven by waves (blue arrows) traveling between the star's core and surface. In reality, a star may pulsate in many different modes, creating complicated patterns that enable scientists to learn about its interior. Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center

8. Last is a galaxy that flares like clockwork! With TESS and Swift, astronomers identified the most predictably and frequently flaring active galaxy yet. ASASSN-14ko, which is 570 million light-years away, brightens every 114 days!

This rare sight is a super-bright, massive Wolf-Rayet star. Calling forth the ephemeral nature of cherry blossoms, the Wolf-Rayet phase is a fleeting stage that only some stars go through soon before they explode.

The star, WR 124, is 15,000 light-years away in the constellation Sagittarius. It is 30 times the mass of the Sun and has shed 10 Suns worth of material – so far. As the ejected gas moves away from the star and cools, cosmic dust forms and glows in the infrared light detectable by NASA's James Webb Space Telescope.

The origin of cosmic dust that can survive a supernova blast is of great interest to astronomers for multiple reasons. Dust shelters forming stars, gathers together to help form planets, and serves as a platform for molecules to form and clump together, including the building blocks of life on Earth.

Stars like WR 124 also help astronomers understand the early history of the universe. Similar dying stars first seeded the young universe with heavy elements forged in their cores – elements that are now common in the current era, including on Earth.

The James Webb Space Telescope opens up new possibilities for studying details in cosmic dust, which is best observed in infrared wavelengths of light. Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera balances the brightness of WR 124’s stellar core and the knotty details in the fainter surrounding gas. The telescope’s Mid-Infrared Instrument reveals the clumpy structure of the gas and dust nebula of the ejected material now surrounding the star.

Award-winning NASA mathematician and computer programmer Melba Mouton is being honored with the naming of a mountain at the Moon’s South Pole. Mouton joined NASA in 1959, just a year after the space agency was established. She was the leader of a team that coded computer programs to calculate spacecraft trajectories and locations. Her contributions were instrumental to landing the first humans on the Moon.

She also led the group of "human computers," who tracked the Echo satellites. Roy and her team's computations helped produce the orbital element timetables by which millions could view the satellite from Earth as it passed overhead.

The towering lunar landmark now known as “Mons Mouton” stands at a height greater than 19,000 feet. The mountain was created over billions of years by lunar impacts. Huge craters lie around its base—some with cliff-like edges that descend into areas of permanent darkness. Mons Mouton is the future landing site of VIPER, our first robotic Moon rover. The rover will explore the Moon’s surface to help gain a better understanding of the origin of lunar water. Here are things to know:

Mons Mouton is a wide, relatively flat-topped mountain that stretches roughly 2,700 square miles

The mountain is the highest spot at the Moon’s South Pole and can be seen from Earth with a telescope

Our VIPER Moon rover will explore Mons Mouton over the course of its 100-day mission

VIPER will map potential resources which will help inform future landing sites under our Artemis program

The VIPER mission is managed by our Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley. The approximately 1,000-pound rover will be delivered to the Moon by a commercial vendor as part of our Commercial Lunar Payload Services initiative, delivering science and technology payloads to and near the Moon.

Time for some Sun salutations 🧘

Flow through 133 days of the Sun's activity from Aug. 12 to Dec. 22, 2022, as captured by our Solar Dynamics Observatory. From its orbit around Earth, SDO has steadily imaged the Sun in 4K resolution for nearly 13 years.

Video description: Mellow music plays as compiled images taken every 108 seconds condenses 133 days of solar observations into an hour-long video. The video shows bright active regions passing across the face of the Sun as it rotates.

The Artemis I mission was the first integrated test of the Orion spacecraft, the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, and Exploration Ground Systems at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. We’ll use these deep space exploration systems on future Artemis missions to send astronauts to the Moon and prepare for our next giant leap: sending the first humans to Mars.

Take a visual journey through the mission, starting from launch, to lunar orbit, to splashdown.

Liftoff

The SLS rocket carrying the Orion spacecraft launched on Nov. 16, 2022, from Launch Complex 39B at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The world’s most powerful rocket performed with precision, meeting or exceeding all expectations during its debut launch on Artemis I.

"This is Your Moment"

Following the successful launch of Artemis I, Launch Director Charlie Blackwell-Thompson congratulates the launch team.

“The harder the climb, the better the view,” she said. “We showed the space coast tonight what a beautiful view it is.”

That's Us

On Orion’s first day of flight, a camera on the tip of one of Orion’s solar arrays captured this image of Earth.

Inside Orion

On the third day of the mission, Artemis I engineers activated the Callisto payload, a technology demonstration developed by Lockheed Martin, Amazon, and Cisco that tested a digital voice assistant and video conferencing capabilities in a deep space environment. In the image, Commander Moonikin Campos occupies the commander’s seat inside the spacecraft. The Moonikin is wearing an Orion Crew Survival System suit, the same spacesuit that Artemis astronauts will use during launch, entry, and other dynamic phases of their missions. Campos is also equipped with sensors that recorded acceleration and vibration data throughout the mission that will help NASA protect astronauts during Artemis II. The Moonikin was one of three “passengers” that flew aboard Orion. Two female-bodied model human torsos, called phantoms, were aboard. Zohar and Helga, named by the Israel Space Agency (ISA) and the German Aerospace Center (DLR) respectively, supported the Matroshka AstroRad Radiation Experiment (MARE), an experiment to provide data on radiation levels during lunar missions. Snoopy, wearing a mock orange spacesuit, also can be seen floating in the background. The character served as the zero-gravity indicator during the mission, providing a visual signifier that Orion is in space.

Far Side of the Moon

A portion of the far side of the Moon looms large in this image taken by a camera on the tip of one of Orion’s solar arrays on the sixth day of the mission.

First Close Approach

The Orion spacecraft captured some of the closest photos of the Moon from a spacecraft built for humans since the Apollo era — about 80 miles (128 km) above the lunar surface. This photo was taken using Orion’s optical navigational system, which captures black-and-white images of the Earth and Moon in different phases and distances.

Distant Retrograde Orbit

Orion entered a distant retrograde orbit around the Moon almost two weeks into the mission. The orbit is “distant” in the sense that it’s at a high altitude approximately 50,000 miles (80,467 km) from the surface of the Moon. Orion broke the record for farthest distance of a spacecraft designed to carry humans to deep space and safely return them to Earth, reaching a maximum distance of 268,563 miles (432,210 km).

Second Close Approach

On the 20th day of the mission, the spacecraft made its second and final close approach to the Moon flying 79.2 miles (127.5 km) above the lunar surface to harness the Moon’s gravity and accelerate for the journey back to Earth.

Cameras mounted on the crew module of the Orion spacecraft captured these views of the Moon’s surface before its return powered flyby burn.

Heading Home

After passing behind the far side of the Moon on Flight Day 20, Orion powered a flyby burn that lasted approximately 3 minutes and 27 seconds to head home. Shortly after the burn was complete, the Orion spacecraft captured these views of the Moon and Earth, which appears as a distant crescent.

Parachutes Deployed

Prior to entering the Earth’s atmosphere, Orion’s crew module separated from its service module, which is the propulsive powerhouse provided by ESA (European Space Agency). During re-entry, Orion endured temperatures about half as hot as the surface of the Sun at about 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit (2,760 degrees Celsius). Within about 20 minutes, Orion slowed from nearly 25,000 mph (40,236 kph) to about 20 mph (32 kph) for its parachute-assisted splashdown.

Splashdown

On Dec. 11, the Orion spacecraft splashed down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California after traveling 1.4 million miles (2.3 million km) over a total of 25.5 days in space. Teams are in the process of returning Orion to Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Once at Kennedy, teams will open the hatch and unload several payloads, including Commander Moonikin Campos, the space biology experiments, Snoopy, and the official flight kit. Next, the capsule and its heat shield will undergo testing and analysis over the course of several months.

Green with Evil Part 1: Out of Control