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• Jeff Foust
A Senate committee is set to advance nominations for NASA’s chief financial officer and inspector general. The appointments would fill two distinct oversight and management roles at the agency; the available report does not identify the nominees or provide details on the committee’s expected action.
NASA
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A Senate committee is set to advance nominations for NASA’s chief financial officer and inspector general. The appointments would fill two distinct oversight and management roles at the agency; the available report does not identify the nominees or provide details on the committee’s expected action.
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NASA is starting a new initiative, the Perseverance Sample Retrieval Architecture, to revisit how it could return samples collected on Mars to Earth. The effort renews work on a long-standing planetary science goal: bringing Red Planet material home for study.
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Launched Nov. 11, 1966, with Jim Lovell and Buzz Aldrin aboard, Gemini XII was the program’s final mission. Despite a failing rendezvous radar and a balky Agena, the flight put docking and spacewalking through a final test, helping set the stage for Apollo’s lunar landing program.
High activity
NASA is taking an “all-hands-on-deck” approach to returning humans to the Moon, describing the pace and nature of its procurements as unprecedented. The shift puts the agency’s acquisition activity at the center of its lunar effort.
NASA’s UltraViolet EXplorer (UVEX) will observe the universe in ultraviolet light, seeking evidence of energetic and turbulent phenomena that are difficult to discern in a seemingly quiet cosmos. The mission will add a new survey capability for studying how such events unfold across the universe.
NASA’s TESS observed a hot Jupiter about 1,000 light-years away crossing its star repeatedly for seven years, then the planet vanished from view. Astronomers say a nearby planetary companion can make a planet’s orbit wobble, changing its alignment with the star so it no longer transits from Earth’s perspective.
The FAA has authorized Dream Chaser to return from orbit to a runway at Vandenberg Space Force Base, alongside granting the spacecraft a reentry license. Sierra Space plans the vehicle’s first flight for spring 2027; one report says the spaceplane is designed to carry 12,000 pounds of cargo.
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