Latest news with #spaceexploration
Forbes
12 hours ago
- Science
- Forbes
White House Aims To Halt NASA Missions Across The Solar System
The New Horizons spacecraft sends back its sensational snapshots of Jupiter, and its volcanic moon ... More Io, before the mission's close encounter with Pluto (Photo by: Photo12/Universal Images Group via Getty Images) Universal Images Group via Getty Images The Trump administration's bid to terminate NASA's leading-edge flights of exploration 'across the solar system' may cripple American leadership in space, preventing discoveries that could reshape civilization in what is now considered the first Space Age, says one of the world's top planetary scientists. As space powers across the continents vie to map and image planets and moons, comets and ice-worlds circling the sun, slashes to NASA's funding would represent a great leap backward, crippling it even as rivals race ahead, says Alan Stern, a one-time leader at NASA and a globally acclaimed space scientist. The president's new proposed budget drastically cuts appropriations for NASA, with outlays for its planetary science missions—the exploration of Pluto and other celestial worlds by space-borne rockets and robots, cameras and telescopes—axed almost in half. Now facing the guillotine—inexplicably—are constellations of technologically advanced space probes developed by NASA and spearheading scientists across America, including the Juno imager now orbiting Jupiter, the Mars Odyssey and Maven spacecraft gliding above Mars and the asteroid hunter OSIRIS-Apophis. NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft, in orbit around Mars, is one of the leading-edge explorers slated to ... More be terminated by the White House. Shown here is an artist's impression of the orbiter. (Photo) Getty Images 'Incredibly, this budget proposes to turn off 55 perfectly working, productive spacecraft across the solar system,' Dr. Stern, who once headed NASA's Science Mission Directorate, tells me in an interview. Stern took up that post after conceiving and designing one of the American space agency's most sensational missions ever - the New Horizons spacecraft that aced a close approach with Pluto while sending back fantastical images of the otherworldly orb and its moons - a miniature planetary system that generated billions of hits when it began beaming down across NASA's website. While New Horizons continues its super-speed flight through the outer solar system, charting the mysterious frozen reaches of the Kuiper belt, the president's plan calls for the spacecraft to be cast away. Abandoning the $900-million mission in order to recoup the minimal costs of its ongoing operation makes no sense economically or scientifically, Stern says. The robotic photographer New Horizons images Pluto as it speeds through the outer solar system ... More (Photo by NASA/APL/SwRI via Getty Images) Getty Images 'With New Horizons,' he says, 'there are a lot of important scientific objectives still ahead, things no other spacecraft can do.' 'Terminating this mission would also represent a tragic loss of soft power projection for the U.S.' The Horizons craft, and its array of next-generation cameras and spectrometers, is exploring a region beyond Pluto that no other human-created probe has ever entered, with a treasure trove of potential discoveries waiting. 'This would be like sending a message to [Christopher] Columbus to sink his ships while they were in North America,' Stern tells me, upending a new age of discovery. 'With New Horizons, we have the power and the fuel to run this mission for another 20 years … and we have more Kuiper belt objects to explore.' The White House, in issuing its slashed budget plan for NASA, never provided a logical rationale for torpedoing some of the agency's world-leading missions to survey and image the solar system. Its inscrutable sinking of some of these vanguard voyages was unveiled with the terseness of a telegram: 'Operating missions that have completed their prime missions (New Horizons and Juno) and the follow-on mission to OSIRIX-REx, OSIRIS-Apophis Explorer, are eliminated.' The asteroid-hunter OSIRIS spacecraft, shown here at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, is one of ... More the trailblazers set to be terminated by the White House. (Photo by Bruce Weaver / AFP) (Photo by BRUCE WEAVER/AFP via Getty Images) AFP via Getty Images The OSIRIS spacecraft, which had been slated to rendezvous with the closely approaching Apophis asteroid ahead, is a precursor mission to defending the Earth's eight billion citizens against doomsday cosmic strikes by colossal comets or asteroids of the future. The robotic photographer Juno has snapped an endless kaleidoscope of imagery as it floats around Jupiter. Scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab have posted raw impressions of the orb and its moons and invited 'citizen scientists' to Photoshop and launch them across the cybersphere. In the process, they are becoming part of the spacefaring civilization that is spreading out across the globe. Model of the $1-billion Juno spacecraft, which is now orbiting and photographing Jupiter (Photo by ... More) Getty Images During its own space odyssey, New Horizons has astounded stargazers, students and scholars worldwide with its technicolor panoramas of Pluto, covered in surreal ice-fields and cryo-volcanoes, and its age-old companion Charon. The twin netherworlds—named after the mythical Greek god of the underworld and the pilot who shuttled souls across the river Styx—circle more than five billion kilometers distant from the sun, along an orbit that Stern's Pluto expedition took nine years to reach. Now, even as it whizzes beyond all of the classical planets, New Horizons, and its future, has entered the purgatory of potential excommunication by mission controllers—and their masters—six worlds away. The New Horizons spacecraft, now speeding through the outer solar system, could be jettisoned under ... More a White House plan that would destroy American leadership in planetary science missions. (Photo by Heritage Art/Heritage Images via Getty Images) Heritage Images via Getty Images 'This is a vast and tragic mistake,' Stern says, 'because the issue is larger than just NASA, it also affects U.S. world leadership [and] responsible government that protects taxpayers from waste like this.' The administration's crash-and-burn dismissal of the solar system's trailblazing robotic discoverers has triggered trepidation across NASA, whose ranks of pioneering scientists are likewise set to be culled. Within NASA, Alan Stern is a pole star of cutting-edge exploration, helping guide more than two dozen missions. After his New Horizons spacecraft rendezvoused with Pluto, the agency bestowed its highest honor on him - the NASA Distinguished Public Service Medal. 'Stern led the team that returned remarkable imagery and other data from the Pluto system last summer, generating headlines worldwide and setting a record for the farthest world ever explored,' NASA's leaders said. "New Horizons represents the best of humanity and reminds us of why we explore,' added Jim Green, NASA's director of planetary science. "The first flyby of Pluto is a remarkable achievement.' Being given the chance to lead the close encounter with Pluto, Stern said on accepting the award, 'has been the greatest honor of my lifetime.' Around the same time, NASA film-makers paid tribute to Stern, his 2000+ Pluto mission colleagues, and the target of their interplanetary expedition in the captivating documentary ' The Year of Pluto .' Stern has himself chronicled his trek across the twilight reaches of the star system in a series of fascinating books, including Pluto and Charon: Ice Worlds on the Ragged Edge of the Solar System and Chasing New Horizons, and in a torrent of acclaimed papers . Scholar Stern predicts that if the White House's proposed death sentence for flotillas of pathfinding space missions is actually carried out, that would mark the decline and fall of NASA's planetary science breakthroughs, and the comparative rise of its competitors in the renewed space race of the 2020s. If NASA's funding and inter-planet journeys are decimated, he tells me, 'These cuts will absolutely destroy U.S. leadership in all the space sciences.' 'This is tragically misguided.' The potential death knell for an armada of space discovery missions has been reverberating not just across NASA, but also throughout the U.S. universities that help conceive or design these flights. 'Certainly termination of the New Horizons mission would be terrible,' says Kip Hodges , who as founding director of Arizona State University's School of Earth and Space Exploration helped transform the university into one of the top American space studies centers. 'This a real frontier mission at this point,' he tells me in an interview, 'delivering important new information about distant parts of our Sun's heliosphere.' Congress has the power to save NASA and its leading-edge robotic explorers across the solar system ... More (Illustration by Tobias Roetsch/Future Publishing via Getty Images) Future Publishing via Getty Images Professor Hodges , one of the top space scholars in the U.S., predicts that the Swords of Damocles now hanging above New Horizons and other new-frontier flights could still be lifted. If the White House plan to cut away at NASA and its revolutionary planetary scouting missions were enacted as is, he predicts, 'a great many folks in industry, the NASA labs, and academia will be disappointed.' Yet he adds that 'the budget for NASA evolves over several stages,' with the president's initial proposal just one of competing models—one that could be rejected as the Senate and House of Representatives look afresh at NASA's missions, goals and funding. After the twin chambers reach a consensus on reshaping NASA for the next phase of its evolution, Professor Hodges adds, 'Quite often, the appropriated budget is not the president's budget.' That means space aficionados across America who seek to overturn the president's capital sentence on NASA's boundary-breaking missions have a clear channel of recourse, Stern says. Would-be petitioners for a reprieve, he advises, 'should contact their elected representatives in Congress and tell them this is a huge mistake.'
Times of Oman
a day ago
- Science
- Times of Oman
Shubhanshu Shukla becomes first Indian to enter ISS
Houston: Axiom-4 mission Pilot and Indian Air Force (IAF) Group Captain, Shubhanshu Shukla, has called it a "privilege" to become the 634th human in space and the first Indian to enter the International Space Station (ISS), saying the experience of seeing Earth from such a vantage point was "wonderful." He added that with the Tricolour on his shoulder and the blessings of fellow Indians, the next 14 days of science and exploration would be "truly exciting." Axiom Space's Axiom Mission 4 (Ax-4) crew successfully reached the International Space Station on Thursday in a journey that lasted approximately 28 hours. The SpaceX Dragon spacecraft docked with the International Space Station Harmony module at 6:21 a.m. ET while soaring over the expansive North Atlantic, as per Axiom's statement. After receiving his official astronaut pin from Ax-4 Mission Commander Peggy Whitson, Shukla said, "I am no 634, that's a privilege." "To be fair, it is a privilege to be amongst the few who have got the chance to see the Earth from a vantage point that I have been able to see now. It has been a wonderful ride. I was looking forward to coming to space--it is something to look forward. But the moment I entered the ISS, I felt welcomed. You (Expedition 73 crew) guys literally opened up your doors like your house doors for us, that was fantastic. The expectations I had were surpassed, so thank you so much; this was fantastic. I am confident the next 14 days are going to be amazing doing science and research," said Shukla in his 'arrival remarks' after entering the ISS. In a message to Indians (in Hindi), Shukla said, "I have a small message for my countrymen: It is because of your love and blessings that I have safely reached the International Space Station. It may look easy to stand here, but it is not; my head is aching. However, we will get used to it. We will be here for 14 days, conducting scientific experiments and speaking with you. This is a milestone for India. Let's make this journey exciting and let everyone participate with interest." "The Tricolour I bear on my shoulder makes me feel as though the entire country is with me. I believe the next 14 days are going to be truly interesting," he reiterated. The Axiom Mission 4 crew, Commander Peggy Whitson, Pilot Shubhanshu Shukla, Mission Specialist Slawosz Uznanski-Wisniewski of Poland, and Mission Specialist Tibor Kapu of Hungary, entered the ISS at 8:23 a.m. EDT after a smooth docking aboard the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft 'Grace', as per an official statement. Their arrival was marked by a traditional welcome ceremony hosted by NASA's Expedition 73 crew. Axiom-4 Mission Commander Whitson, veteran astronaut, in her message to the rookie astronauts, said, "The best thing about being a commander with all rookies is that you get to watch the rookies go for the first time. It helps you remember all the things you went through for the first time, and it's also special to relive the experience through these guys." Following her remarks, Whitson handed out astronaut pins to the first-time spacefarers -- officially recognising Shubhanshu Shukla as astronaut No. 634, Slawosz Uznanski-Wisniewski as No. 635, and Tibor Kapu as No. 636. The Ax-4 mission will "realize the return" to human spaceflight for India, Poland, and Hungary, with each nation's first government-sponsored flight in more than 40 years. While Ax-4 marks these countries' second human spaceflight mission in history, it will be the first time all three nations will execute a mission on board the International Space Station. This historic mission underscores how Axiom Space is redefining the pathway to low-Earth orbit and elevating national space programs globally, as mentioned in a release from Axiom Space. Their schedule includes work in areas such as biology, muscle regeneration, edible microalgae, digital interface testing, and the survival of aquatic organisms, with research jointly designed by NASA, ISRO, and Axiom Space. The Ax-4 crew launched from NASA's Kennedy Space Centre in Florida at 3:21 am ET on Wednesday, June 25, aboard a Falcon 9 rocket. This marks Axiom Space's most research-intensive mission to date, with over 60 scientific experiments and technology demonstrations planned. This mission is especially significant as it marks the first time since 1984 that an Indian astronaut has reached the ISS, symbolising not just Shukla's achievement but also India's growing role in international space exploration. The Ax-4 crew is expected to stay aboard the space station for up to 14 days.
Digital Trends
2 days ago
- Science
- Digital Trends
NASA just test fired its next-gen SLS lunar rocket booster
NASA has completed the first full-scale static test fire of the Booster Obsolescence and Life Extension (BOLE) solid rocket motor, the next-generation solid rocket booster for the space agency's SLS (Space Launch System) lunar vehicle. The 140-second test took place at Northrop Grumman's Promontory production and test site in Utah on Thursday and was livestreamed on YouTube. You can watch the rocket blasting at full power via the video player embedded at the top of this page. Using hundreds of sensors to monitor its operation, the test demonstrated the ballistics performance of the BOLE motor design, as well as its nozzle, insulation, and electronic thrust vector control (eTVC) vectoring performance, NASA said. The firing also aimed to validate the use of new domestic materials and manufacturing processes that are geared toward reducing costs by about 25% over previous designs. The BOLE motor burned more than 1.4 million pounds of propellant during the procedure, and generated more than 3.9 million pounds of thrust. As a comparison, SpaceX's workhorse Falcon 9 rocket generates around 1.7 million pounds of thrust at launch, while SpaceX's mighty Starship vehicle — the most powerful rocket ever built — generates a colossal 16.7 million pounds of thrust as it leaves the launchpad. Thursday's test fire began normally, but about 100 seconds in there appeared to be some kind of explosive event in the plume, possibly involving the exhaust nozzle. However, the booster continued to fire for another 40 seconds without any noticeable difficulty. Northrop Grumman has yet to comment on the cause or implications of the apparent anomaly. Speaking just minutes after the end of the test, Dave Reynolds, NASA SLS booster program manager, said: 'It's a brand new booster from tip to tail, there are so many things that are different about this booster — it actually has very little relationship to the current boosters that are flying on the Artemis II mission that's coming up. 'We were expecting to learn a lot of things, and I guarantee that we're going to spend the next six months digging through all of that data and finding out what we need to do.' The booster is scheduled to fly for the first time — as part of NASA's SLS rocket — in the ninth Artemis mission, which is currently scheduled for 2034 and will involve a crewed landing on the moon. However, the Trump administration wants to cut the Artemis budget, instead prioritizing commercial launch partnerships while redirecting focus to the first crewed Mars mission, at the expense of lunar missions. In other words, there's a chance that this booster will never fly.
Bloomberg
2 days ago
- Science
- Bloomberg
Axiom's Crew Arrives at Space Station Aboard SpaceX Capsule
Axiom Space Inc. 's crew of astronauts from four nations has reached the International Space Station. The astronauts entered the space station at 8:23 a.m. New York time on Thursday after docking with the orbiting research laboratory, Axiom said on its website.
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Kennedy Space Center goes retro for Y2K after-hours event
Kennedy Under the Stars, an after-hours event at Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex, will carry a theme from a quarter-century ago. It's set up for Y2K nostalgia. The event, set for Aug. 30 at 6:30 p.m., allows access to many of the attraction's exhibits, including Spaceport KSC, the Shuttle Launch Experience and Space Shuttle Atlantis plus a stargazing experience through telescopes provided by Ortega Observatory of Florida Tech. On top of that are the most recent turn-of-the-century-inspired activities, including a video DJ in the Rocket Garden, a techno DJ dance party in NASA Central, mini-golf beneath the Saturn 1B rocket, science experiments, live entertainment and glowing lounge and bar areas. NASA astronauts Ellen Ochoa and Mike Foreman will greet participants during the evening. Last call: When these Disney, Universal attractions are shutting down 'This event blends 2000s nostalgia with today's cutting edge space attractions, making it an unforgettable night celebrating the wonder of space exploration,' Therrin Protze, chief operating officer of Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex, said in a news release. Space-themed costuming is allowed during the event, but costume masks that conceal faces and props that resemble weapons are not. Admission to Kennedy Under the Stars is $65. Parking is free. Food and beverage will be available for purchase. Visitor complex annual passholders get 30% discounts on food and retail items. For tickets or more information, go to SeaWorld starts sale on tickets, keeps free beer flowing dbevil@
