NASA
• Gerelle Q. Dodson
President Donald Trump will present the Congressional Space Medal of Honor to Artemis II astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen during an Aug. 28 ceremony at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. The crew is the first to fly around the moon in more than 50 years.
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President Donald Trump will present the Congressional Space Medal of Honor to Artemis II astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen during an Aug. 28 ceremony at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. The crew is the first to fly around the moon in more than 50 years.
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NASA and Katalyst Space have abandoned an attempt to dock with and raise the orbit of the aging Swift observatory after persistent attitude-control problems disabled the LINK servicing spacecraft. The decision ends a low-cost effort to extend Swift’s operational life and preserve its gamma-ray science mission.
NASA has abandoned an effort to save a failing space telescope, leaving the spacecraft destined to reenter and burn up in Earth’s atmosphere. The decision marks the end of recovery efforts for a space-based observatory, though the available reporting does not identify the telescope or explain the failure.
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NASA and Katalyst Space have called off an experimental mission to boost the aging Swift gamma-ray observatory after the recently launched servicing spacecraft suffered irredeemable technical problems in orbit. Without the rescue, Swift is expected to reenter Earth’s atmosphere later this year, ending an effort to extend its operational life.
NASA has revealed the new livery of a 13-year-old Boeing 737-700 being converted into a reduced-gravity research aircraft at King Aerospace in Oklahoma. The airframe previously served for years as a classified U.S. Air Force flying testbed before transferring to NASA for its next mission.
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Firefly Aerospace will fly a Zeno Power radioisotope heating unit aboard an upcoming Blue Ghost lunar lander mission, potentially as early as 2028. The NASA-supported demonstration is designed to keep lander components operational through the lunar night, when extreme cold threatens spacecraft survival.
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NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has captured the clearest views so far of a new lunar crater created when a SpaceX Falcon 9 upper stage struck the Moon at roughly 8,700 km/h after drifting in space for 19 months. The images document the unexpected impact and its comparatively small crater.
NASA astronaut Anil Menon and French astronaut Sophie Adenot removed a failed antenna during an Aug. 18 spacewalk at the International Space Station, but ran out of time before installing its replacement. The antenna repair will therefore require a subsequent spacewalk or other planned intervention.
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