AceBreakingNews – US military’s secretive spaceplane launched on possible higher-orbit mission
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Ace Press News From Cutting Room Floor: Published: Dec.29: 2023: AP News Agency & Reuters News Agency: TELEGRAM Ace Daily News Link https://t.me/+PuI36tlDsM7GpOJe
The U.S. military’s secretive X-37B robot spaceplane blasted off from Florida on Thursday night on its seventh mission, the first launched atop a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket capable of delivering it to a higher orbit than ever before.
The Falcon Heavy, composed of three liquid-fueled rocket cores strapped together, roared off its launch pad from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral in a spectacular liftoff carried live on a SpaceX webcast.: https://t.me/Reuters/1151Reuters: World, [Dec 29, 2023 at 07:45]
The US military’s X-37B space plane has blasted off on another secretive mission that is expected to last at least a couple of years.
Like previous missions, the reusable plane resembling a mini space shuttle is carrying classified experiments.
There is no-one on board.
The space plane took off aboard SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center on Thursday night, more than two weeks late because of technical issues.
It marked the seventh flight of an X-37B, which has logged more than 10 years in orbit since its debut in 2010.
The last flight, the longest one yet, lasted two and a half years before ending on a runway at Kennedy a year ago.
Space Force officials would not say how long this orbital test vehicle would remain aloft or what was on board other than a NASA experiment to gauge the effects of radiation on materials.
Built by Boeing, the X-37B resembles NASA’s retired space shuttles.
But they are just one-fourth the size at 9 metres long.
No astronauts are needed; the X-37B has an autonomous landing system.
They take off vertically like rockets but land horizontally like planes, and are designed to orbit between 240 kilometres and 800 kilometres high.
There are two X-37Bs based in a former shuttle hangar at Kennedy.
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AceNewsDesk – The owner of an orange tabby cat called Taters is “celebrating his spotlight with him, but making sure he keeps his paws on the carpet”, after the feline starred in the first video transmitted to Earth by laser from deep space.
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Ace Press News From Cutting Room Floor: Published: Dec.22: 2023: NASA News: TELEGRAM Ace Daily News Link https://t.me/+PuI36tlDsM7GpOJe
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The 15-second video — beamed to Earth from NASA’s Psyche spacecraft 31 million kilometres away (that’s about 80 times the distance between the Earth and the Moon) — showed three-year-old Taters chasing a red laser beam on a couch.
Some graphics were overlaid onto the video, including Taters’s heart rate, colour and breed, as well as the spacecraft’s orbital path and technical information about its laser.
Taters’s owner, Joby Harris, an art director at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), told the Associated Press that he couldn’t be prouder, but didn’t want his cat’s new-found celebrity to go to its head.
“My cat Taters appeared in the first HD video ever beamed to Earth from outer space!” Mr Harris wrote on Instagram.
“This opens the door to next level comms streaming HD video from spacecraft and astronauts in the future.”
Taters’s Instagram biography now describes him as a “Laser Beam Motion Analyst”.
Video sent faster than most internet connections on Earth
The video of Taters was sent to Earth using something called a flight laser transceiver, which can send and receive near-infrared laser beams.
The clip had been loaded into the Psyche spacecraft before it was sent into space in October.
The ultra high-definition video was sent at the system’s maximum rate of 267 megabits per second (Mbps). For context, most NBN connections for homes in Australia are between 20Mbps and 100Mbps.
It took the video less than two minutes to reach the Hale Telescope at The California Institute of Technology’s Palomar Observatory on December 11, NASA said.
“Despite transmitting from millions of miles away, it was able to send the video faster than most broadband internet connections,” said Ryan Rogalin, the project’s receiver electronics lead at JPL.
“Everyone loves Taters,” he added.NASA says its team managed to receive the video in less than two minutes when it was sent by laser.(Supplied: NASA/JPL-Caltech)
The historic link to a classic cat video
Aside from just being cute, there’s a historical link to NASA’s decision to allow Taters to star in their test video.
In 1928 when television was still in its experimental stages, engineers in the US used a small statue of the cartoon character Felix the Cat as a test pattern, which remained on screen for hours.
Of course, cat videos would later become extremely popular online.
NASA says its laser demonstration is meant to transmit data at rates up to 100 times faster than radio systems which are currently used by spacecraft far from Earth.
The administration hopes the technology will help it improve communications from deep space, especially as it prepares to return astronauts to the Moon — and eventually get them to Mars.
NASA Deputy Administrator Pam Melroy said improving communications was “a key element to meeting our future data transmission needs”.
“Increasing our bandwidth is essential to achieving our future exploration and science goals, and we look forward to the continued advancement of this technology and the transformation of how we communicate during future interplanetary missions,” she said.
More test transmissions are planned as Psyche heads toward the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. But Taters won’t be making anymore appearances, according to JPL.
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AceBreakingNews – NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope recently trained its sights on unusual and enigmatic Uranus, an ice giant that spins on its side. Webb captured this dynamic world with rings, moons, storms, and other atmospheric features – including a seasonal polar cap.
The image expands upon a two-color version released earlier this year, adding additional wavelength coverage for a more detailed look
Ace Press News From Cutting Room Floor: Published: Dec.19: 2023: NASA News: TELEGRAM Ace Daily News Link https://t.me/+PuI36tlDsM7GpOJe
This image of Uranus from NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) on NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope exquisitely captures Uranus’s seasonal north polar cap and dim inner and outer rings. This Webb image also shows 9 of the planet’s 27 moons – clockwise starting at 2 o’clock, they are: Rosalind, Puck, Belinda, Desdemona, Cressida, Bianca, Portia, Juliet, and Perdita: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI
Image: Uranus and its rings
With its exquisite sensitivity, Webb captured Uranus’ dim inner and outer rings, including the elusive Zeta ring – the extremely faint and diffuse ring closest to the planet. It also imaged many of the planet’s 27 known moons, even seeing some small moons within the rings.
In visible wavelengths as seen by Voyager 2 in the 1980s, Uranus appeared as a placid, solid blue ball. In infrared wavelengths, Webb is revealing a strange and dynamic ice world filled with exciting atmospheric features.
One of the most striking of these is the planet’s seasonal north polar cloud cap. Compared to the Webb image from earlier this year, some details of the cap are easier to see in these newer images. These include the bright, white, inner cap and the dark lane in the bottom of the polar cap, toward the lower latitudes.
Several bright storms can also be seen near and below the southern border of the polar cap. The number of these storms, and how frequently and where they appear in Uranus’s atmosphere, might be due to a combination of seasonal and meteorological effects.
The polar cap appears to become more prominent when the planet’s pole begins to point toward the Sun, as it approaches solstice and receives more sunlight. Uranus reaches its next solstice in 2028, and astronomers are eager to watch any possible changes in the structure of these features. Webb will help disentangle the seasonal and meteorological effects that influence Uranus’s storms, which is critical to help astronomers understand the planet’s complex atmosphere.
Image: Uranus Wide-Field
This wide-field image of Uranus from NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) on NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope shows the planet amid a smattering of distant background galaxies. This image also includes 14 of the planet’s 27 moons: Oberon, Titania, Umbriel, Juliet, Perdita, Rosalind, Puck, Belinda, Desdemona, Cressida, Ariel, Miranda, Bianca, and Portia: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI
Because Uranus spins on its side at a tilt of about 98 degrees, it has the most extreme seasons in the solar system. For nearly a quarter of each Uranian year, the Sun shines over one pole, plunging the other half of the planet into a dark, 21-year-long winter.
With Webb’s unparalleled infrared resolution and sensitivity, astronomers now see Uranus and its unique features with groundbreaking new clarity. These details, especially of the close-in Zeta ring, will be invaluable to planning any future missions to Uranus.
Uranus can also serve as a proxy for studying the nearly 2,000 similarly sized exoplanets that have been discovered in the last few decades. This “exoplanet in our backyard” can help astronomers understand how planets of this size work, what their meteorology is like, and how they formed. This can in turn help us understand our own solar system as a whole by placing it in a larger context.
Image: Uranus’ Moons Labelled
Annotated wide-field compass image of Uranus with some of its 27 moons and a few prominent stars (with characteristic diffraction spikes) labelled: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI
The James Webb Space Telescope is the world’s premier space science observatory. Webb is solving mysteries in our solar system, looking beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probing the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it. Webb is an international program led by NASA with its partners, ESA (European Space Agency) and the Canadian Space Agency.
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The new observations are unseeable because no light escapes the black hole, but astronomers detected telltale signatures of its accretion disk, the halo of gas and dust that swirls rapidly around it. Photograph: X-ray: Nasa/CXC/SAO/Ákos Bogdán; Infrared: NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/L. Frattare & K. Arcand
Astronomers have detected the oldest black hole ever observed, dating back more than 13bn years to the dawn of the universe.
The observations, by the James Webb space telescope (JWST), reveal it to be at the heart of a galaxy 440m years after the big bang. At around a million times the mass of the sun, it is surprisingly big for a baby black hole, raising the question of how it grew so big so quickly.
Prof Roberto Maiolino, an astrophysicist at the University of Cambridge, who led the observations, said: “The surprise is in it being so very massive. That was the most unexpected thing.”
The observations, published on the preprint website Arxiv, do not take a direct image, which is unseeable because no light can escape its grip. But astronomers detected telltale signatures of its accretion disk, the halo of gas and dust that swirls rapidly around the cosmic sinkhole.
Astronomers believe the earliest black holes could help unlock a puzzle of how their gargantuan counterparts at the centre of galaxies such as the Milky Way grew to billions the times the mass of the sun. Until recently, they were assumed to have simply snowballed over nearly 14bn years, steadily growing through mergers and by gobbling up stars and other objects. But this snowball scenario cannot fully account for the epic proportions of present-day supermassive black holes.
The latest observations, of the galaxy called GN-z11, push the origins of this mystery back to black holes’ infancy and suggest that they were either born big or ballooned extremely rapidly early on.
A Hubble space telescope image of galaxy GN-z11 (shown in the inset) as it was 13.4bn years in the past, 400m years after the big bang. Photograph: HST/Nasa
“ Understanding where the black holes came from in the first place has always been a puzzle, but now that puzzle seems to be deepening,” said Prof Andrew Pontzen, a cosmologist at University College London, who was not involved in the research.
“ These results, using the power of JWST to peer back through time, suggest that some black holes instead grew at a tremendous rate in the young universe, far faster than we expected.”
One explanation, known as the heavy seeds scenario, is that an early generation of black holes was born from the direct collapse of vast clouds of gas, rather than from burnt-out stars that collapsed under their own gravity at the end of their life. Another possibility is that compact clusters of stars and black holes merged very rapidly in the early universe.
A third, more speculative, hypothesis is the existence of so-called primordial black holes that came into existence during cosmic inflation, the period of faster-than-light expansion of the universe that occurred a fraction of a second after the big bang.
This would flip on its head the presumed order of play, in which galaxies came first and then black holes start growing within them. Primordial black holes would be effectively woven into the fabric of the cosmos from the outset.
“If that were true, it would have deep implications for the opening fraction of a second of our universe,” said Pontzen. “Either way, the story of how black holes and galaxies grew up together is a riveting one that we are only just starting to piece together.”
The findings are the latest in a series of stunning discoveries by Nasa’s space observatory just two years after its launch. JWST is about 100 times more sensitive than previous telescopes, such as Hubble, at detecting infrared light, the part of the spectrum used to see the most distant objects. “It is essentially equivalent to upgrading Galileo’s telescope to modern telescope. It’s 400 years of discoveries potentially compressed in the time span of JWST operations,” said Maiolino.
He said that before the telescope’s launch there had been a possibility that a new window would open up on to “a boring extension of what we know”. “That’s not what we’re seeing,” said Maiolino. “The universe has been quite generous. We’re really finding things that we were not expecting.”
What is a black hole?
Black holes are among the universe’s weirdest and most ominous objects. They have such intense gravity that neither matter nor light can escape their grip. A black hole’s threshold is traced out by its event horizon, the point of no return. Anything that strays across this boundary is gone for good.
This artist’s concept shows a galaxy with a brilliant quasar, a very bright, distant and active supermassive black hole that is millions to billions of times the mass of the Sun, at its centre Photograph: Nasa, ESA and J Olmsted/Reuters
They are challenging to study because they are fundamentally unseeable, but applying the laws of physics offers some bizarre insights.
On the approach to a black hole, the gravitational gradient can be so extreme that objects would be stretched out in a process known as spaghettification. At the event horizon, gravity is so fierce that light is bent in a perfect loop around the black hole, meaning that if you stood there you would be able to see the back of your own head.
What lies beyond the event horizon is unknown. Einstein’s theory of general relativity suggests that at the centre of a black hole density would become infinite, creating a gravitational singularity. This rupture in space-time would have no “where” or “when” and would sit beyond the realm of the conventional laws of physics. But it is not clear whether such singularities actually exist.
Black holes come in a range of sizes. Stellar black holes, formed from the remnants of massive stars, can be up to 20 times more massive than our sun. Supermassive black holes, like Sagittarius A* at the centre of the Milky Way, can have masses equivalent to millions or billions of suns and play a crucial role in galactic evolution.
Astronomers have made significant advances in observations of black holes in the past decade, with the first image of one’s halo captured by the Event Horizon telescope in 2019, and observations of cataclysmic black hole mergers through the detection of gravitational waves sent rippling across space-time. The latest observations, and even more distant James Webb targets, will start to piece together the origins of these enigmatic objects.
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NASA says the sun spat out a huge flare, resulting in 2 hours of radio interference in the US and other sunlit parts of the world.(NASA via AP)none
AceBreakingNews – A NASA telescope has captured the biggest solar flare in years, which temporarily knocked out radio communication on parts of Earth.
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Ace Press News From Cutting Room Floor: Published: Dec.16: 2023: AP News Agency & ABC News with NASA News: TELEGRAM Ace Daily News Link https://t.me/+PuI36tlDsM7GpOJe
NASA says the sun spat out a huge flare, resulting in 2 hours of radio interference in the US and other sunlit parts of the world.(NASA via AP)none
The Sun spat out the huge flare along with a massive radio burst on Thursday, causing two hours of radio interference in parts of the US and other sunlit parts of the world.
Scientists at America’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said the “amazing event” was the biggest flare since 2017, and the radio burst was extensive, affecting even the higher frequencies.
The combination resulted in one of the largest solar radio events ever recorded, Shawn Dahl of NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center said on Friday.
One of America’s Center Weather Service Units, which provide weather forecasts for aviation, said it had “never seen anything like this”.
America’s Space Weather Prediction Center says the flare “is likely one of the largest solar radio events ever recorded”.(NOAA)
Multiple pilots reported communication disruptions and the impact was felt across the US according to that country’s space weather forecasting centre.
The eruption occurred in the far-north-west section of the Sun.
NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory caught the action in extreme ultraviolet light, recording the powerful surge of energy as a huge, bright flash.
Launched in 2010, the spacecraft is in an extremely high orbit around Earth to constantly monitor the Sun.
Scientists are now monitoring this sunspot region and analysing for a possible outburst of plasma from the Sun, also known as a coronal mass ejection, that might be directed at Earth.
A large ejection could result in a geomagnetic storm which in turn could disrupt high-frequency radio signals at the higher latitudes and trigger northern lights, or auroras, in the coming days, said Mr Dahl.
The Sun is nearing the peak of its approximately 11-year solar cycle, with maximum sunspot activity predicted for 2025.
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Local students participate in an Earth Information Center (EIC) student engagement event, Friday, June 23, 2023, at the Mary W. Jackson NASA Headquarters building in Washington. The EIC is a new immersive experience that combines live data sets with cutting-edge data visualization and storytelling to allow visitors to see how our planet is changing.NASA/Keegan Barber
AceNewsIn 2023, as NASA pushed the limits of exploration for the benefit of humanity, the agency celebrated astronaut Frank Rubio becoming the first American astronaut to spend more than one year in space; delivered samples from an asteroid to Earth; sent a spacecraft to study a metal-rich asteroid for the first time; launched multiple initiatives to share climate data; advanced developments in sustainable aircraft; all while continuing preparations to send the first Artemis astronauts to the Moon.
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Ace Press News From Cutting Room Floor: Published: Dec.14: 2023: NASA News: TELEGRAM Ace Daily News Link https://t.me/+PuI36tlDsM7GpOJe
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This year, NASA continued to make the impossible, possible while sharing our story of discovery with the world,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson.
“ We’ve launched missions that are helping tell the oldest stories of our solar system; continued to safely transport astronauts to the International Space Station to conduct groundbreaking science; our Earth satellites are providing critical climate data to all people; we’re making great strides to make aviation more dependable and sustainable; and we’re growing our commercial and international partnerships as we venture back to the Moon and on to Mars. NASA is home to the world’s finest workforce, and there is no limit to what we can achieve when we work together.”
In support of the Biden-Harris Administration’s efforts to address climate change, NASA is leading the development of U.S. government-wide initiatives focused on bringing Earth science information to the public. The Earth Information Center, a new interactive exhibit at NASA Headquarters in Washington, also includes an online experience that invites visitors to see Earth as NASA sees it from space while providing critical data needed by researchers and policymakers.
Among other notable mentions, the agency’s James Webb Space Telescope – the largest, most powerful telescope humanity has ever put in space – celebrated one year of science. NASA and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) announced the two organizations will partner on DRACO (Demonstration Rocket for Agile Cislunar Operations) to test a nuclear-powered rocket in space as soon as 2027.
This year NASA celebrated 25 years of International Space Station operations as the agency continued to foster the growth of the commercial space economy, supporting the development of commercial space station partnerships. It also marks the 65th anniversary of the agency. While celebrating these achievements, NASA also unveiled its NASA 2040 vision for the agency to ensure it remains a global leader in aerospace for decades to come.
Understanding Our Changing Planet
Below are additional highlights of NASA’s endeavors in 2023 to explore the unknown in air and space, innovate for the benefit of humanity, and inspire the world through discovery.
NASA has used its unique vantage point of space to better understand our changing planet since launching its first Earth science satellites in the 1960s. In 2023, NASA’s Office of the Chief Scientist established a cross-agency working group and released a climate strategy. Other agency efforts to share scientific data on Earth.gov and other areas include:
Working with its partners, NASA launched the U.S. Greenhouse Gas Center, opening access to trusted data on greenhouse gases.
Data from NASA’s Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source Investigation (EMIT) instrument aboard the International Space Station is part of the gas center. EMIT identifies point-source emissions of greenhouse gases with a proficiency greater than expected.
NASA’s tracking of greenhouse gases includes both global and focused estimates.
Building on the month-by-month worldwide temperature data collected and released by NASA and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration both agencies are expected to announce soon 2023 was the warmest year in recorded history.
A NASA airborne campaign helped show that methane ‘hot spots’ in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta are more likely to be found where recent wildfires burned into the tundra, altering carbon emissions from the land.
After successfully launching to space earlier this year, NASA’s TEMPO(Tropospheric Emissions: Monitoring of Pollution) mission to study air quality now is successfully transmitting information about major air pollutants over North America.
NASA’s SWOT (Surface Water and Ocean Topography) mission offered the its first detailed perspectives of Earth’s surface water.
Among natural hazards, NASA data was put to use in monitoring the heavy rains occurring in the drought-stricken areas, heat waves, wildfires, and subsequent health affects worldwide, as well as expansion of NASA landslide data.
Local students participate in an Earth Information Center (EIC) student engagement event, Friday, June 23, 2023, at the Mary W. Jackson NASA Headquarters building in Washington. The EIC is a new immersive experience that combines live data sets with cutting-edge data visualization and storytelling to allow visitors to see how our planet is changing.NASA/Keegan Barber
Advancing Moon to Mars Exploration
This year, NASA shared results of its first Moon to Mars Architecture Concept Review as it builds a blueprint for human exploration throughout the solar system for the benefit of humanity. The agency also continues to take significant steps toward landing the first woman and first person of color on the Moon as part of Artemis. Notably in 2023, NASA announced crew for the Artemis II mission, the first Artemis mission with astronauts around the Moon and back to Earth. The crew completed fundamentals training, and is now focusing on training for mission operations. Additional highlights for human deep space exploration include:
All major elements for the SLS (Space Launch System) rocket for Artemis II are complete or nearing completion including booster segments delivered to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida and final core state assembly testing at NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans.
NASA made progress on Artemis III, which will send the first humans to explore the region near the lunar South Pole, building on the previous flight tests and adding a human landing system and advanced spacesuits for moonwalks.
The solid rocket booster segments and the four RS-25 engines are complete for the Artemis III SLS, as well as three of the five major core stage elements. Teams are integrating elements of Orion’s crew module, and the European Service Module.
NASA selected the geology team to develop a lunar surface science plan for Artemis III.
Beyond Artemis III, teams completed welding the primary structure for Gateway’s HALO (Habitation and Logistics Outpost), where astronauts will live and work in lunar orbit. Fabrication is complete on the primary structure of the Power and Propulsion Element that will provide power, communications, and maintain Gateway’s orbit.
In addition to other hardware assembly and certification work for later missions, Artemis V will include a lunar terrain vehicle. NASA asked SpaceX to further develop Starship for Artemis IV, and also selected Blue Origin to develop a human lunar lander for Artemis V.
Experiments aboard the International Space Station focused on helping astronauts go farther and stay longer in space. This research included growing sustainable crops such as dwarf tomatoes, understanding how microbes adapt to space to protect crew health, and developing innovative materials that can weather the harsh environments of the Moon and Mars.
To support future NASA Moon missions with crew, the agency’s CLPS(Commercial Lunar Payload Services) initiative is in the final phases of preparations for the first two launches and landings to deliver NASA science and technology demonstrations to the lunar surface.
Five NASA payloads are aboard Astrobotic’s Peregrine Mission 1lander, which is set to launch no earlier than Monday, Jan. 8. Soon after, another six NASA payloads will launch no earlier than Friday, Jan. 12, aboard Intuitive Machine’s Nova-C spacecraft.
Since launching CLPS, NASA has contracted with five companies for eight deliveries to the lunar surface. Most recently in 2023, NASA selected Firefly Aerospace for a delivery.
Among future CLPS payloads is NASA’s first robotic lunar rover, VIPER– short for the Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover. The rover will trek into permanently shadowed areas to unravel the mysteries of the Moon’s water and better understand the environment. In preparation for a landing in late 2024, scientists named VIPER’s mission area in honor of NASA mathematician Melba Roy Mouton. Development, assembly and testing also continues for the rover’s solar and battery systems.
Maintaining Low Earth Orbit Operations
While NASA is leading Artemis, international partnerships are a key part of advancing Moon to Mars exploration. In 2023, 10 additional countries signed the Artemis Accords, which lay out a common set of principles governing the civil exploration and use of outer space. So far, 33 countries have signed the Artemis Accords.
Closer to Earth, the International Space Station – humanity’s home in space – passed 25 years of operations. NASA and its partners officially extended operations plans for the microgravity science laboratory for the benefit of humanity. Other space station milestones in 2023 include:
NASA and SpaceX continued regular crew rotation flights to and from station, helping maximize science in space, including:
NASA astronauts Frank Rubio, Nicole Mann, Josh Cassada, Stephen Bowen, Woody Hoburg, Loral O’Hara, and Jasmin Moghbeli lived and worked aboard the station.
Rubio spent a U.S. record-breaking 371 days in space, contributing to a better understanding of long-duration spaceflight as we explore beyond our home planet.
Crew-5 returned to Earth with Mann and Cassada, as well as JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Koichi Wakata, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Anna Kikina. Crew members tested hydroponic and aeroponic techniques to grow plants without using soil, released Uganda and Zimbabwe’s first satellites, studied how liquids move in a container in simulated lunar gravity to generate data to improve Moon rover designs, and reinstalled the station’s bioprinting facility.
Crew-6 included Bowen and Hoburg, as well as UAE (United Arab Emirates) astronaut Sultan Alneyadi and Roscosmos cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev. The crew assisted a student robotic challenge, studying plant genetic adaptations to space, and monitoring human health in microgravity. The crew also released Saskatchewan’s first satellite, which tests a new radiation detection and protection system.
NASA and Boeing continued to make progress on the company’s CST-100 Starliner spacecraft. Starliner and its crew of NASA astronauts Barry Wilmore and Sunita Williams are preparing for the first flight with astronauts in 2024, the final demonstration prior to regular flights to the microgravity complex.
Space station crew members completed 12 spacewalks to upgrade and conduct maintenance at the orbiting laboratory before the year’s end. NASA astronauts continued work to install the International Space Station Rollout Solar Arrays (IROSA), which will increase power generation capability by up to 30% when fully complete.
Six commercial cargo missions and international partner missions delivered about 28,000 pounds of science investigations, tools, and critical supplies to the space station. By year’s end about 12,500 pounds of investigations and equipment are planned to be returned researchers on Earth.
Space station crew members welcomed the second NASA-enabled private astronaut mission, Axiom Mission 2, to the orbital complex advancing the agency’s goal of commercializing low-Earth orbit. NASA also selected Axiom Space for the third private astronaut mission and signed an order for the fourth mission with the company.
Some additional key investigations launched, and operating, on station included NASA and ISS National Lab releasing a joint solicitation to address the goals of the Biden-Harris Administration’s Cancer Moonshotinitiative, which aims to conduct science in space to help cure disease on Earth; NASA’s ILLUMA-T (Integrated Laser Communications Relay Demonstration Low-Earth-Orbit User Modem and Amplifier Terminal) is now on station, which aims to test high data rate laser communications via the agency’s LCRD (Laser Communications Relay Demonstration); upgraded NASA’s Cold Atom Laboratory to continue pioneering quantum discovery in space; and launched and installed its Atmospheric Wave Experiment on station to provide insight into how terrestrial weather impacts space weather, which may affect satellite communications and tracking in orbit.
Also on the commercial front, NASA partnered with seven U.S. companies with unfunded Space Act Agreements, and released its third Request for Information for commercials space station services, while working toward a formal call for proposals to provide the agency with low Earth orbit services after the space station’s retirement. Commercial space station partners met major design and engineering milestones, and are on track to serve as potential replacements for the agency’s microgravity research needs. Two companies also are combining efforts, which will allow NASA to apply funding to the other stations to accelerate development.
As part of its first year of operations, NASA’s Webb telescope pulled back the curtain on some of the farthest galaxies, stars, and black holes ever observed; solved a longstanding mystery about the early universe; found methane and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of a planet outside our solar system; and offered new views and insights into our own cosmic backyard. Additional achievements beyond the solar system included:
Reaching Farther into Solar System, Beyond
NASA made important contributions to two missions that international partners launched this year: ESA’s Euclid mission to study dark energy and dark matter, as well as JAXA’s XRISM mission, a powerful new satellite that will revolutionize how we understand the hot, X-ray universe.
The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, NASA’s next flagship observatory, finished camera assembly, and its coronagraph instrument passed its first big optics test.
Autumn was host to mission milestone events that showcased the importance of our solar system’s smaller bodies.
NASA’s OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, and Security-Regolith Explorer) spacecraft capped its seven-year journey with the successful deposit of a pristine sample of surface material from the asteroid Bennu in the Utah desert.
NASA showed off material from the asteroid Bennu for the first time. Initial studies of the 4.5-billion-year-old asteroid Bennu sample collected in space and brought to Earth show evidence of high-carbon content and water, which together could indicate the building blocks of life on Earth may be found in the rock.
The Psyche spacecraft launched from NASA Kennedy toward the asteroid Psyche.
NASA’s Lucy spacecraft conducted its first target asteroid flyby of asteroid Dinkinesh at the inner edge of the main asteroid belt, and the first images now are online.
An annular eclipse occurred on Oct. 14, visible in parts of the United States, Mexico, and many countries in South and Central America. NASA supported the event with engagement activities, as well as science research. Three Black Brant IX sounding rockets were launched to study the ionosphere – an electrically charged layer of the atmosphere – before, during, and after the peak eclipse.
Technology Innovations to Benefit All
NASA also kicked off Heliophysics Big Year, a public engagement campaign to make science and information accessible to all and showcase heliophysics-related efforts.
NASA’s Deep Space Optical Communications experiment launched aboard the Psyche spacecraft and achieved first light, beaming back a laser encoded with test data from nearly 10 million miles away. NASA will demonstrate data transmission rates 10 to 100 times greater than current radio frequency systems. The following are additional space technology advancements:
Partnered with Aerojet Rocketdyne for qualification testing on the Advanced Electric Propulsion System, a cutting-edge solar electric propulsion thruster that will propel Gateway.
NASA provided two navigation systems to Astrobotic for use on its CLPS flight: a Navigation Doppler Lidar to provide enhanced guidance and navigation capabilities, and the Terrain Relative Navigation to increase landing accuracy and help avoid hazards near the surface.
NASA selected 11 U.S. companies to develop technologies in support of long-term space exploration. The agency also selected 12 companies to use subject matter expertise and facilities to advance capabilities related to NASA’s Moon to Mars Objectives.
Launched the Starling swarm of small satellites to prove the agency’s ability to coordinate and cooperate satellites without real-time input from mission control.
In 2023, NASA advanced aviation and aeronautics technologies to improve passenger experiences, stimulate U.S. economic growth, and create a future of cleaner, quieter, safer skies. Through its Sustainable Flight National Partnership and other efforts, NASA supported the U.S. goal of reaching net-zero aviation greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, and the agency released a new strategic implementation plan to guide research for the next 20 years and beyond. NASA also:
Worked with Boeing on the Sustainable Flight Demonstrator project to produce and test the X-66A, a full-sized, experimental transonic truss brace wing aircraft that will inform a new generation of sustainable airliners.
Enhanced transonic truss braced wing research for sustainable aircraft designs using wind tunnel tests for model wings and supercomputing to look at aircraft concepts.
Used NASA’s DC-8 flying lab to test emissions from Boeing’s ecoDemonstrator Explorer aircraft to evaluate sustainable aviation fuels’ effects on contrails..
Progressed its Electrified Powertrain Flight Demonstration project, which works to create hybrid powertrains for regional and single-aisle aircraft, with GE Aerospace and magniX testing power systems and demonstrator aircraft
Entered into an agreement with the U.S. Air Force AFWERX Agility Prime program that will allow NASA to test a new air taxi from the manufacturer Joby Aviation to see how such vehicles could fit into the national airspace
Demonstrated a breakthrough, 3D-printable, high-temperature-resistant alloy called GRX-810 that could be used for applications like components of aircraft and rocket engines.
Aeronautics efforts led to advancements in construction of the Flight Dynamics Research Facility, the agency’s first major wind tunnel in more than 40 years. NASA used simulators to collect data on how operating electric air taxis could affect pilots and passengers, and gathered data on new ways to use aviation including autonomous air cargo delivery and air taxi operations. Finally, research from the X-57 Maxwell provided aviation researchers with hundreds of lessons learned, as well as revolutionary development in areas ranging from battery technology to cruise motor control design.
Maintaining Focus on Advancing DEIA, Reaching Diverse Communities
NASA remained committed to advancing diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA) at NASA and the STEM industry in 2023. NASA also took its “The Color of Space” documentary on a road tour, providing free in-person screenings at historically Black colleges and universities, conferences, and festivals nationwide. And, the agency made its Spot the Station app available for download in multiple languages.
As part of its plans to reach more audiences, NASA continued to focus on developing Spanish-language content. This year, the agency digitally released its second issue of the “First Woman: Expanding Our Universe,” graphic novel series in English and Spanish. NASA also:
Produced a live broadcast in Spanish for the arrival of the OSIRIS-RExsamples, as well as co-streamed another broadcast in Spanish for the annular eclipse produced by the NASA-funded Exploratorium Museum.
With the launch of NASA’s streaming platform NASA+, the agency debuted Spanish content also available for streaming, and developed Spanish-language content for Europa Clipper’s Message in a Bottle, among other activities.
Inspiring New Generation of STEM Students
Through a variety of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) outreach activities, NASA continues to inspire the Artemis Generation of students and encourage them to become the next scientists, engineers, and astronauts. NASA conducts its STEM work through partnering with key organizations, awarding a variety of grants, and more. Many of these efforts tie closely to NASA’s DEIA activities. Other STEM highlights in 2023 include:
Awarded $11.7 million to eight Historically Black Colleges and Universities through the new Data Science Equity, Access, and Priority in Research and Education opportunity. These awards will enable students and faculty to conduct innovative data science research that contributes to NASA’s missions.
Partnered with the U.S. Department of Education to strengthen the collaboration between the two agencies, including efforts to increase access to high-quality STEM and space education to students and schools across the nation; and partnered with U.S. Forest Service to bring Artemis Moon Trees to schools and education institutions through NASA’s Artifact Module. NASA received more than 1,200 requests.
NASA announced its first women’s universities and college awards, as part of a Biden-Harris Administration initiative. The awards provided more than $5 million in funding to seven women’s colleges and universities to research and develop strategies that increase retention of women in STEM degree programs and careers.
Among Earth to space calls, Louisiana, Wyoming and Rhode Islandhosted their first downlinks with the space station crew and students.
NASA’s Human Rover Exploration Challenge hosted student competitors in-person for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic. More than 500 students from around the world participated.
Issued the NASA Space Tech Catalyst Prize to expand the agency’s network of proposers and foster effective engagement approaches within NASA’s Early-Stage Innovations and Partnerships portfolio.
Invited teams to participate in NASA’s TechRise Student Challenge to design, build, and launch science and technology experiments on commercial suborbital rockets and high-altitude balloons. Summer 2023 marked a series of flight tests that successfully flew 80 student payloads on high-altitude balloons with Aerostar and World View.
By partnering with Minecraft to inspire students in a game-based learning platform, children were encouraged to build and launch rockets on Moon adventures in the Minecraft universe.
NASA’s Space Technology Research Grants program, which supports academic researchers, surpassed a significant milestone, having funded more than 1,000 grants pursuing exciting space technology research since.
NASA’s Growing Public Engagement Efforts
Public Engagement remains a cornerstone of NASA’s mission to share the agency’s work with the world by participating in opportunities to engage the public in a variety of venues, activities, and events. NASA continued to connect with more people than ever before:
Grew the agency’s social media following to 389.5 million so far in 2023 – up 18 percent from 330 million in 2022.
Shares on social media posts across the agency reached 6.36 million in 2023, lower than the 2022 total (8.7 million shares).
NASA accounts reached follower milestones this year, passing 78 million (X), 26 million (Facebook) and 97 million (Instagram). NASA’s flagship YouTube channel passed 11 million.
NASA elevated its digital platforms by revamping its flagship and science websites, adding its first on-demand streaming service, and upgrading the NASA app. With these changes, everyone now has access to a new world of content from the space agency.
NASA’s new streaming service, NASA+, launched on Nov. 8, and as of Nov. 28 had 38,000 hours of content watched. The NASA app had about 34 million lifetime installs across all platforms.
Apple Podcasts Latin America selected “Universo Curioso de la NASA” as a “Show We Loved” in 2023. This is the first time a NASA podcast has received this recognition.
NASA podcasts surpassed 8 million all-time plays on Apple Podcasts this year.
Supported White House events to reach the public in new and engaging ways including participating in the White House Easter Egg Roll, bringing in astronauts and STEM activities we engaged over 30,000 visitors, including students and children, with more than 148,000 mentions on social media across all platforms, as well as participating in Halloween at the White House engaging 6,000 local schoolchildren and military families with STEM activities.
Worked with Elmo to introduce a video greeting from NASA astronauts aboard the space station for the Independence Day celebration and concert.
NASA centers around the country hosted more than 1,289 in-person and virtual events with local, regional, national, and international reach, and engaged with more than 6.3 million people through these efforts.
Participated in one of the largest state fairs in the United States in Columbus, Ohio, reaching an estimated 100,000 of the one million attendees through talks.
Hosted an in-person International Observe the Moon Night, an annual celebration of lunar science and exploration, for the first time since 2019.
NASA’s Arts program curated the first exhibition of work from the NASA art collection titled “Launching the Future: Looking Back to Look Forward” and displayed 16 pieces at the National Academy of Sciences.
Since opening its doors, NASA’s Earth Information Center has received more 3,400 visitors and hosting more than 1,500 guided tours.
More than 100 eligible schools, universities, museums, libraries, and planetariums applied to participate in the NASA Artifacts Module program to receive more than 200 historic NASA objects for their STEM programs.
Snoopy’s zero-gravity indicator rode on NASA’s Artemis I mission and was returned to Peanuts, and now is on public display at the Schulz Museum.
NASA partnered with Google Arts & Culture on a digital artist project titled ‘A Passage of Water’ that incorporated NASA freshwater data from the SWOT mission and GRACE (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment) satellites.
NASA partnered with Crayola Education for its 2023 Creativity Week, reaching 3.5 million kids with Artemis information and creative activities.
The U.S. Postal Service issued an OSIRIS-REx postal stamp in association with the return of the asteroid Bennu sample in September.
NASA approved and collaborated on 96 documentaries, 21 TV, Web and streaming shows, 16 feature films, and five immersive experiences, including the Tom Hanks’ new immersive experience “Moonwalkers” and ARTCHOUSE’s “Beyond the Light,” and an upcoming collaboration with influencer, “Mr. Beast.”
NASA received 4,500 requests for NASA branded merchandise and/or novelty items from notable brands like Adidas, Garmin, Wham-O, LEGO, Prada, Crate + Barrel, Pottery Barn Kids, Odyssey Toys, H+M, Casio Electronics, Smithsonian, GAP, Round 2, Timex, Sprayground and many more.
Collaborated with Amazon Studios on the “A Million Miles Away” film, starring Michael Peña, telling the story of retired NASA astronaut Jose Hernandez. Rubio narrated a special video from space highlighting Hernandez and other Latino pioneers for Hispanic Heritage Month.
Celebrated designer Richard Danne with an agency Exceptional Public Achievement Medal for his outstanding achievement in creating the NASA worm logotype.
Collaborated on more than a dozen Artemis documentaries with outlets ranging from PBS to National Geographic/Disney. The Artemis II crew was featured on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, The Talk, and at the “Guardians of the Galaxy” premiere. Artemis II NASA astronaut Victor Glover participated in the premieres of National Geographic’s “The Space Race” at the Tribeca Film Festival and DC/Dox.
Attracted major talent for various mission-related projects and outreach initiatives, including: Chris Pratt, Harry Styles, Lance Bass for the Annular Solar Eclipse, Aisha Tyler, Adam Driver, Paul Rudd, Scarlett Johansson, Jeffrey Wright, Jason Schwartzmann, and an International Space Station downlink with Post Malone for Earth Day.
NASA also participated in concerts at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts for Earth Day and Wolf Trap for “Star Wars” and Holst’s “The Planets.”
Feature films included “A Million Miles Away” and Disney’s “The Marvels” were uploaded to the International Space Station for the astronauts to enjoy at their leisure.
More than 1 million people around the world joined NASA’s Message in a Bottle campaign, inviting people to sign their names to a special message that will travel 1.8 billion miles on the agency’s Europa Clipper mission to explore Jupiter’s icy moon Europa. The message, a poem titled “In Praise of Mystery: A Poem for Europa,” written by U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón, will be engraved on the robotic spacecraft.
For more about NASA’s missions, research, and discoveries, visit:
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Local students participate in an Earth Information Center (EIC) student engagement event, Friday, June 23, 2023, at the Mary W. Jackson NASA Headquarters building in Washington. The EIC is a new immersive experience that combines live data sets with cutting-edge data visualization and storytelling to allow visitors to see how our planet is changing.NASA/Keegan Barber@acenewsservices
GlobalWarming & ClimateChange News Desk – Such high-tide flooding that inundates roads and buildings along the west coast of the Americas tends to be uncommon outside of El Niño years, but that could change by the 2030s.
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Ace Press News From Cutting Room Floor: Published: Dec.04: 2023: NASA Climate Change News: TELEGRAM Ace Daily News Link https://t.me/+PuI36tlDsM7GpOJe
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In Brief:
An analysis by NASA’s sea level change science team finds that if a strong El Niño develops this winter, cities along the western coasts of the Americas could see an increase in the frequency of high-tide flooding that can swamp roads and spill into low-lying buildings.
El Niño is a periodic climate phenomenon characterized by higher-than-normal sea levels and warmer-than-average ocean temperatures along the equatorial Pacific.
These conditions can spread poleward along the western coasts of the Americas. El Niño, which is still developing this year, can bring more rain than usual to the U.S. Southwest and drought to countries in the western Pacific like Indonesia. These impacts typically occur in January through March.
The NASA analysis finds that a strong El Niño could result in up to five instances of a type of flooding called a 10-year flood event this winter in cities including Seattle and San Diego.
Places like La Libertad and Baltra in Ecuador could get up to three of these 10-year flood events this winter. This type of flooding doesn’t normally occur along the west coast of the Americas outside of El Niño years. The researchers note that by the 2030s, rising seas and climate change could result in these cities experiencing similar numbers of 10-year floods annually, with no El Niño required.
“I’m a little surprised that the analysis found these 10-year events could become commonplace so quickly,” said Phil Thompson, an oceanographer at the University of Hawaii and a member of NASA’s sea level change science team, which performed the analysis. “I would have thought maybe by the 2040s or 2050s.”
Ten-year floods are those that have a one in 10 chance of occurring in any given year.
They’re a measure of how high local sea levels become: The extent of flooding in a particular city or community depends on several factors, including a region’s topography and the location of homes and infrastructure relative to the ocean. Ten-year floods can result in what the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration classifies as moderate flooding, with some inundation of roads and buildings, and the possible need to evacuate people or move belongings to higher ground.
NASA’s coastal flooding analysis finds that by the 2030s, during strong El Niño years, cities on the west coast of the Americas could see up to 10 of these 10-year flood events. By the 2050s, strong El Niños may result in as many as 40 instances of these events in a given year.
Watching Sea Levels Rise
Water expands as it warms, so sea levels tend to be higher in places with warmer water. Researchers and forecasters monitor ocean temperatures as well as water levels to spot the formation and development of an El Niño.
“Climate change is already shifting the baseline sea level along coastlines around the world,” said Ben Hamlington, a sea level researcher at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California and lead for the agency’s sea level change science team.
Sea levels are rising in response to planetary warming, as Earth’s atmosphere and ocean are heating up and ice sheets and shelves melt. This has already increased the number of high-tide, or nuisance, flooding days coastal cities experience throughout the year. Phenomena like El Niños and storm surges, which temporarily boost sea levels, compound these effects.
Missions that monitor sea levels, including the Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) satellite and Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich, help to monitor El Niños in the near term. SWOT in particular, collects data on sea levels right up to the coast, which can help to improve sea level rise projections. That kind of information could aid policymakers and planners in preparing their communities for rising seas in the next decades: SWOT captures sea levels around the globe
“As climate change accelerates, some cities will see flooding five to 10 times more often. SWOT will keep watch on these changes to ensure coastal communities are not caught off guard,” said Nadya Vinogradova Shiffer, SWOT program scientist and director of the ocean physics program at NASA Headquarters in Washington.
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AceNewsDesk – The Thanksgiving holiday typically brings families and friends together in a celebration of common gratitude for all the good things that have happened during the previous year
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Ace Press News From Cutting Room Floor: Published: Nov.23: 2023: NASA News: TELEGRAM Ace Daily News Link https://t.me/+PuI36tlDsM7GpOJe
People celebrate the holiday in various ways, with parades, football marathons, and attending religious services, but food remains the over-arching theme. For astronauts embarked on long-duration space missions, separation from family and friends is inevitable and they rely on fellow crew members to share in the tradition and enjoy the culinary traditions as much as possible. In this most unusual of years when the pandemic may alter typical Thanksgiving gatherings, it seems appropriate to review how astronauts over the years have celebrated the holiday during their time in space. Enjoy the stories and photographs from orbital Thanksgiving celebrations over the years.
@acenewsservices Thanksgiving 1973. Left: Skylab 4 astronauts Gerald P. Carr, Edward G. Gibson, and William R. Pogue, the first crew to celebrate Thanksgiving in space. Right: Gibson, left, Pogue, and Carr demonstrate eating aboard Skylab.
Skylab 4 astronauts Gerald P. Carr, Edward G. Gibson, and William R. Pogue were the first crew to celebrate Thanksgiving in space on Nov. 22, 1973. On that day, their seventh of an 84-day mission, Gibson and Pogue completed a 6-hour and 33-minute spacewalk, while Carr remained in the Multiple Docking Adaptor with no access to food. All three made up for missing lunch by consuming two meals at dinner time, although neither included special items for Thanksgiving.
Thanksgiving 1985. Left: STS-61B payload specialists Charles D. Walker, left, and Rodolfo Neri Vela of Mexico enjoy the first Thanksgiving aboard a space shuttle in Atlantis’ middeck. Middle: The STS-61B crew enjoying their Thanksgiving dinner while floating in Atlantis’ middeck. Right: Mexican payload specialist Neri Vela, who introduced tortillas to space menus.
Twelve years passed before the next orbital Thanksgiving celebration. On Nov. 28, 1985, the seven-member crew of STS-61B, NASA astronauts Brewster H. Shaw, Bryan D. O’Connor, Jerry L. Ross, Mary L. Cleave, and Sherwood C. “Woody” Spring, and payload specialists Charles D. Walker from the United States and Rodolfo Neri Vela from Mexico, feasted on shrimp cocktail, irradiated turkey, and cranberry sauce aboard the space shuttle Atlantis. Neri Vela introduced tortillas to space menus, and they have remained favorites among astronauts ever since. Unlike regular bread, tortillas do not create crumbs, a potential hazard in weightlessness, and have multiple uses for any meal of the day. The crew of STS-33, NASA astronauts Frederick D. Gregory, John E. Blaha, Manley L. “Sonny” Carter, F. Story Musgrave, and Kathryn C. Thornton, celebrated Thanksgiving aboard space shuttle Discovery in 1989. Gregory and Musgrave celebrated their second Thanksgiving in space two years later, joined by fellow STS-44 NASA astronauts Terrence T. “Tom” Henricks, James S. Voss, Mario Runco, and Thomas J. Hennen aboard space shuttle Atlantis.
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Thanksgiving 1996. Left: STS-80 astronauts Tamara E. Jernigan, left, Kent V. Rominger, and Thomas D. Jones enjoy Thanksgiving dinner in Columbia’s middeck. Right: The STS-80 crew during aboard Columbia exchanging Thanksgiving greetings with John E. Blaha aboard the Mir space station.
In 1996, Blaha celebrated his second Thanksgiving in space with Russian cosmonauts Valeri G. Korzun and Aleksandr Y. Kaleri aboard the space station Mir. Blaha watched the beautiful Earth through the Mir windows rather than his usual viewing fare of football. The STS-80 crew of NASA astronauts Kenneth D. Cockrell, Kent V. Rominger, Tamara E. Jernigan, Thomas D. Jones, and Musgrave, now on his third turkey day holiday in orbit, celebrated Thanksgiving aboard space shuttle Columbia. Although the eight crew members were in different spacecraft in different orbits, they exchanged holiday greetings via space-to-space radio. This marked the largest number of people in space on Thanksgiving Day up to that time. One year later, NASA astronaut David A. Wolf celebrated Thanksgiving with his Russian crewmates Anatoli Y. Solovev, who translated the holiday into Russian as den blagodarenia, and Pavel V. Vinogradov aboard Mir. They enjoyed smoked turkey, freeze-dried mashed potatoes, peas, and milk. Also in orbit at the time was the crew of STS-87, NASA astronauts Kevin R. Kregel, Steven W. Lindsey, Kalpana Chawla, and Winston E. Scott, Takao Doi of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, and Leonid K. Kadenyuk of Ukraine, aboard Columbia. The nine crew members aboard the two spacecraft broke the one-year-old record for the largest number of people in space at one time for Thanksgiving, also setting the record for the most nations represented, four.
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Thanksgiving 2001, Expedition 3 crewmembers enjoying Thanksgiving dinner aboard the space station. Left: NASA astronaut Frank L. Culbertson, left, and Vladimir N. Dezhurov of Roscosmos. Middle: Dezhurov, left, and Mikhail V. Tyurin of Roscosmos. Right: Tyurin, left, and Culbertson.
The Expedition 1 crew of NASA astronaut William M. Shepherd, and Yuri P. Gidzenko and Sergei K. Krikalev of Roscosmos celebrated the first Thanksgiving aboard the International Space Station on Nov. 23, 2000, three weeks after their arrival aboard the facility. The crew took time out of their busy schedule to enjoy ham and smoked turkey and send words of thanks to people on the ground who provided excellent support to their flight. Crews have celebrated Thanksgiving in space every November since then. In 2001, Expedition 3 crew members NASA astronaut Frank L. Culbertson, and Vladimir N. Dezhurov and Mikhail V. Tyurin of Roscosmos enjoyed the first real Thanksgiving aboard the space station, complete with a cardboard turkey as decoration. The following year’s orbital Thanksgiving celebration included the largest number of people to that time, the combined 10 crewmembers of Expedition 5, STS-113, and Expedition 6. After a busy day that included the first Thanksgiving Day spacewalk aboard the space station, the crews settled down to a dinner of smoked turkey, mashed potatoes, and green beans with mushrooms. Blueberry-cherry cobbler rounded out the meal.
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Thanksgiving 2008. Left: The Thanksgiving dinner reheating in space shuttle Endeavour’s food warmer. Right: The crews of Expedition 18 and STS-126 share a meal in the space shuttle middeck.
Expedition 18 crew members NASA astronauts E. Michael Fincke and Gregory E. Chamitoff and Yuri V. Lonchakov representing Roscosmos, welcomed the STS-126 crew of NASA astronauts Christopher J. Ferguson, Eric A. Boe, Heidemarie M. Stefanyshyn-Piper, Donald R. Pettit, Stephen G. Bowen, R. Shane Kimbrough, and Sandra H. Magnus during Thanksgiving in 2008. They dined in the space shuttle Endeavour’s middeck on smoked turkey, candied yams, green beans and mushrooms, cornbread dressing and a cranapple dessert.
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Thanksgiving 2009. Left: Crew members from Expedition 21 and STS-129 share an early Thanksgiving meal. Right: The Thanksgiving dinner for the Expedition 21 and STS-129 crews.
The following year saw the largest and an internationally diverse group celebrating Thanksgiving in space. The six Expedition 21 crew members, NASA astronauts Jeffrey N. Williams and Nicole P. Stott, Roman Y. Romanenko and Maksim V. Suraev of Roscosmos, Frank L. DeWinne of the European Space Agency, and Robert B. Thirsk of the Canadian Space Agency hosted the six members of the STS-129 crew, NASA astronauts Charles O. Hobaugh, Barry E. Wilmore, Michael J. Foreman, Robert L. Satcher, Randolph J. Bresnik, and Leland D. Melvin. The twelve assembled crew members represented the United States, Russia, Belgium, and Canada. The celebration took place two days early, since the shuttle undocked from the space station on Thanksgiving Day.
Thanksgiving 2010. Left: Expedition 25 commander and NASA astronaut Scott J. Kelly awaits his crewmates at the Thanksgiving dinner table. Right: The Expedition 25 crew of Oleg I. Skripochka of Roscosmos, left, Kelly, NASA astronaut Douglas H. Wheeler, Aleksandr Y. Kaleri and Fyodor N. Yurchikhin of Roscosmos, and NASA astronaut Shannon Walker sending Thanksgiving greetings to the ground before digging into their dinner.
Thanksgiving 2013. Left: Expedition 38 NASA astronauts Michael S. Hopkins, left, and Richard A. Mastracchio showing off food items destined for the Thanksgiving Day dinner. Right: Close-up of the Thanksgiving dinner items, including turkey, ham, macaroni and cheese, green beans and mushrooms, and dressing.
Thanksgiving 2014. Left: Eager for Thanksgiving, Expedition 42 commander and NASA astronaut Barry E. “Butch” Wilmore sets out his meal several days in advance. Right: Expedition 42 crew members Wilmore, left, Samantha Cristoforetti of the European Space Agency, Aleksandr M. Samokutyayev and Anton N. Shkaplerov of Roscosmos, NASA astronaut Terry W. Virts, and Elena O. Serova of Roscosmos enjoy the Thanksgiving Day dinner.
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Thanksgiving 2015. Left: Expedition 45 crew members Mikhail B. Korniyenko, left, Oleg D. Kononenko, and Sergei A. Volkov of Roscosmos, NASA astronaut Kjell N. Lindgren, Kimiya Yui of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, and NASA astronaut Scott J. Kelly pose before the Thanksgiving dinner table. Right: Kelly, left, and Lindgren show off the Thanksgiving dinner items.
@acenewsservices Thanksgiving 2016. Left: Expedition 50 crew members Oleg V. Novitsky, left, Sergei N. Ryzhikov, and Andrei I. Borisenko of Roscosmos, Thomas G. Pesquet of the European Space Agency, and NASA astronauts R. Shane Kimbrough and Peggy A. Whitson pose before the Thanksgiving dinner table. Right: The Expedition 50 crew tucks into the feast.@acenewsviews @acenewsservices Thanksgiving 2017. Left: The Thanksgiving table is set. Middle: The Expedition 53 crew of Paolo A. Nespoli of the European Space Agency, left, NASA astronauts Joseph M. Acaba and Mark T. Vande Hei, Sergei N. Ryazansky and Aleksandr A. Misurkin of Roscosmos, and NASA astronaut Randolph J. Bresnik patiently awaits the start of the dinner. Right: The Expedition 53 crew digs in.@acenewsservices Thanksgiving 2019. Left: The turkey is in the oven, or more precisely the smoked turkey packages are in the Galley Food Warmer. Right: Expedition 61 crew members NASA astronaut Christina H. Koch, left, Aleksandr A. Skvortsov of Roscosmos, NASA astronaut Jessica U. Meir, Oleg I. Skripochka of Roscosmos, NASA astronaut Andrew R. Morgan, and Luca S. Parmitano of the European Space Agency celebrate Thanksgiving aboard the space station.@acenewsservices Thanksgiving 2020. Left: Expedition 64 NASA astronaut Kathleen H. “Kate” Rubins prepares the Thanksgiving dinner. Right: The Expedition 64 crew of NASA astronaut Michael S. Hopkins, Soichi Noguchi of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, Sergei V. Kud-Sverchkov and Sergei N. Ryzhikov of Roscosmos, and NASA astronauts K. Meghan McArthur, Victor J. Glover, and Rubins enjoying the Thanksgiving meal including frozen treats for dessert.@acenewsservices Thanksgiving 2021. Left: Thanksgiving dinner cooking in the “oven” aboard the space station. Right: Expedition 66 crew members NASA astronauts Raja J. Chari, left, Kayla S. Barron, Mark T. Vande Hei, Thomas H. Marshburn, Russian cosmonauts Anton N. Shkaplerov and Pyotr V. Dubrov (partially visible), and European Space Agency astronaut Matthias J. Maurer (taking the photo) enjoy the Thanksgiving feast.Thanksgiving 2022. Expedition 68 crew members NASA astronauts Nicole A. Mann, left, Josh A. Cassada, and Francisco “Frank” C. Rubio, and Koichi Wakata of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency send Thanksgiving Day greetings.Thanksgiving 2023. Expedition 70 crew members Andreas E. Mogensen, of the European Space Agency, front left, NASA astronauts Loral A. O’Hara and Jasmin Moghbeli, and Satoshi Furukawa of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency beam down their Thanksgiving message to everyone on the ground.
We hope you enjoyed these stories, photographs, and videos from Thanksgivings celebrated in space. We would like to wish everyone here on the ground and the seven-member crew of Expedition 70 aboard the space station a very happy Thanksgiving!
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