NASA – Wikipedia

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the U.S. federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research.

NASA was established in 1958, succeeding the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), to give the U.S. space development effort a distinctly civilian orientation, emphasizing peaceful applications in space science.[5][6][7] NASA has since led most American space exploration, including Project Mercury, Project Gemini, the 1968-1972 Apollo Moon landing missions, the Skylab space station, and the Space Shuttle. NASA supports the International Space Station and oversees the development of the Orion spacecraft and the Space Launch System for the crewed lunar Artemis program, Commercial Crew spacecraft, and the planned Lunar Gateway space station. The agency is also responsible for the Launch Services Program, which provides oversight of launch operations and countdown management for uncrewed NASA launches.

NASA's science is focused on better understanding Earth through the Earth Observing System;[8] advancing heliophysics through the efforts of the Science Mission Directorate's Heliophysics Research Program;[9] exploring bodies throughout the Solar System with advanced robotic spacecraft such as New Horizons and planetary rovers such as Perseverance;[10] and researching astrophysics topics, such as the Big Bang, through the James Webb Space Telescope, and the Great Observatories and associated programs.[11]

The agency's administration is located at NASA Headquarters in Washington, DC, and provides overall guidance and direction.[12] Except under exceptional circumstances, NASA civil service employees are required to be US citizens.[13] NASA's administrator is nominated by the President of the United States subject to the approval of the US Senate,[14] and serves at the President's pleasure as a senior space science advisor. The current administrator is Bill Nelson, appointed by President Joe Biden, since May 3, 2021.[15]

NASA operates with four FY2022 strategic goals.[16]

NASA budget requests are developed by NASA and approved by the administration prior to submission to the U.S. Congress. Authorized budgets are those that have been included in enacted appropriations bills that are approved by both houses of Congress and enacted into law by the U.S. president.[17]

NASA fiscal year budget requests and authorized budgets are provided below.

NASA funding and priorities are developed through its six Mission Directorates.

Center-wide activities such as the Chief Engineer and Safety and Mission Assurance organizations are aligned to the headquarters function. The MSD budget estimate includes funds for these HQ functions. The administration operates 10 major field centers with several managing additional subordinate facilities across the country. Each is led by a Center Director (data below valid as of September 1, 2022).

Short 2018 documentary about NASA produced for its 60th anniversary

Beginning in 1946, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) began experimenting with rocket planes such as the supersonic Bell X-1.[43] In the early 1950s, there was challenge to launch an artificial satellite for the International Geophysical Year (19571958). An effort for this was the American Project Vanguard. After the Soviet space program's launch of the world's first artificial satellite (Sputnik 1) on October 4, 1957, the attention of the United States turned toward its own fledgling space efforts. The US Congress, alarmed by the perceived threat to national security and technological leadership (known as the "Sputnik crisis"), urged immediate and swift action; President Dwight D. Eisenhower counseled more deliberate measures. The result was a consensus that the White House forged among key interest groups, including scientists committed to basic research; the Pentagon which had to match the Soviet military achievement; corporate America looking for new business; and a strong new trend in public opinion looking up to space exploration.[44]

On January 12, 1958, NACA organized a "Special Committee on Space Technology", headed by Guyford Stever.[7] On January 14, 1958, NACA Director Hugh Dryden published "A National Research Program for Space Technology", stating,[45]

It is of great urgency and importance to our country both from consideration of our prestige as a nation as well as military necessity that this challenge [Sputnik] be met by an energetic program of research and development for the conquest of space ... It is accordingly proposed that the scientific research be the responsibility of a national civilian agency ... NACA is capable, by rapid extension and expansion of its effort, of providing leadership in space technology.[45]

While this new federal agency would conduct all non-military space activity, the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) was created in February 1958 to develop space technology for military application.[46]

On July 29, 1958, Eisenhower signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act, establishing NASA.[47] When it began operations on October 1, 1958, NASA absorbed the 43-year-old NACA intact; its 8,000 employees, an annual budget of US$100million, three major research laboratories (Langley Aeronautical Laboratory, Ames Aeronautical Laboratory, and Lewis Flight Propulsion Laboratory) and two small test facilities.[48] Elements of the Army Ballistic Missile Agency and the United States Naval Research Laboratory were incorporated into NASA. A significant contributor to NASA's entry into the Space Race with the Soviet Union was the technology from the German rocket program led by Wernher von Braun, who was now working for the Army Ballistic Missile Agency (ABMA), which in turn incorporated the technology of American scientist Robert Goddard's earlier works.[49] Earlier research efforts within the US Air Force[48] and many of ARPA's early space programs were also transferred to NASA.[50] In December 1958, NASA gained control of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a contractor facility operated by the California Institute of Technology.[48]

NASA's first administrator was Dr. T. Keith Glennan who was appointed by President Dwight D. Eisenhower. During his term (19581961) he brought together the disparate projects in American space development research.[51] James Webb led the agency during the development of the Apollo program in the 1960s.[52] James C. Fletcher has held the position twice; first during the Nixon administration in the 1970s and then at the request of Ronald Reagan following the Challenger disaster.[53] Daniel Goldin held the post for nearly 10 years and is the longest serving administrator to date. He is best known for pioneering the "faster, better, cheaper" approach to space programs.[54] Bill Nelson is currently serving as the 14th administrator of NASA.

The NASA seal was approved by Eisenhower in 1959, and slightly modified by President John F. Kennedy in 1961.[55][56] NASA's first logo was designed by the head of Lewis' Research Reports Division, James Modarelli, as a simplification of the 1959 seal.[57] In 1975, the original logo was first dubbed "the meatball" to distinguish it from the newly designed "worm" logo which replaced it. The "meatball" returned to official use in 1992.[57] The "worm" was brought out of retirement by administrator Jim Bridenstine in 2020.[58]

NASA Headquarters in Washington, DC provides overall guidance and political leadership to the agency's ten field centers, through which all other facilities are administered.[59]

Aerial views of the NASA Ames (left) and NASA Armstrong (right) centers

Ames Research Center (ARC) at Moffett Field is located in the Silicon Valley of central California and delivers wind-tunnel research on the aerodynamics of propeller-driven aircraft along with research and technology in aeronautics, spaceflight, and information technology.[60] It provides leadership in astrobiology, small satellites, robotic lunar exploration, intelligent/adaptive systems and thermal protection.

Armstrong Flight Research Center (AFRC) is located inside Edwards Air Force Base and is the home of the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (SCA), a modified Boeing 747 designed to carry a Space Shuttle orbiter back to Kennedy Space Center after a landing at Edwards AFB. The center focuses on flight testing of advanced aerospace systems.

Glenn Research Center is based in Cleveland, Ohio and focuses on air-breathing and in-space propulsion and cryogenics, communications, power energy storage and conversion, microgravity sciences, and advanced materials.[61]

Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), located in Greenbelt, Maryland develops and operates uncrewed scientific spacecraft.[62] GSFC also operates two spaceflight tracking and data acquisition networks (the Space Network and the Near Earth Network), develops and maintains advanced space and Earth science data information systems, and develops satellite systems for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).[62]

Johnson Space Center (JSC) is the NASA center for human spaceflight training, research and flight control.[63] It is home to the United States Astronaut Corps and is responsible for training astronauts from the US and its international partners, and includes the Christopher C. Kraft Jr. Mission Control Center.[64] JSC also operates the White Sands Test Facility in Las Cruces, New Mexico to support rocket testing.

Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), located in the San Gabriel Valley area of Los Angeles County, C and builds and operates robotic planetary spacecraft, though it also conducts Earth-orbit and astronomy missions.[65] It is also responsible for operating NASA's Deep Space Network (DSN).

Langley Research Center (LaRC), located in Hampton, Virginia devotes two-thirds of its programs to aeronautics, and the rest to space. LaRC researchers use more than 40 wind tunnels to study improved aircraft and spacecraft safety, performance, and efficiency. The center was also home to early human spaceflight efforts including the team chronicled in the Hidden Figures story.[66]

Kennedy Space Center (KSC), located west of Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, has been the launch site for every United States human space flight since 1968. KSC also manages and operates uncrewed rocket launch facilities for America's civil space program from three pads at Cape Canaveral.[67]

Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC), located on the Redstone Arsenal near Huntsville, Alabama, is one of NASA's largest centers and is leading the development of the Space Launch System in support of the Artemis program. Marshall is NASA's lead center for International Space Station (ISS) design and assembly; payloads and related crew training; and was the lead for Space Shuttle propulsion and its external tank.[68]

Stennis Space Center, originally the "Mississippi Test Facility", is located in Hancock County, Mississippi, on the banks of the Pearl River at the MississippiLouisiana border.[69] Commissioned in October 1961, it is currently used for rocket testing by over 30 local, state, national, international, private, and public companies and agencies.[70][71] It also contains the NASA Shared Services Center.[72]

NASA inherited NACA's X-15 experimental rocket-powered hypersonic research aircraft, developed in conjunction with the US Air Force and Navy. Three planes were built starting in 1955. The X-15 was drop-launched from the wing of one of two NASA Boeing B-52 Stratofortresses, NB52A tail number 52-003, and NB52B, tail number 52-008 (known as the Balls 8). Release took place at an altitude of about 45,000 feet (14km) and a speed of about 500 miles per hour (805km/h).[73]

Twelve pilots were selected for the program from the Air Force, Navy, and NACA. A total of 199 flights were made between June 1959 and December 1968, resulting in the official world record for the highest speed ever reached by a crewed powered aircraft (current as of 2014[update]), and a maximum speed of Mach 6.72, 4,519 miles per hour (7,273km/h).[74] The altitude record for X-15 was 354,200 feet (107.96km).[75] Eight of the pilots were awarded Air Force astronaut wings for flying above 260,000 feet (80km), and two flights by Joseph A. Walker exceeded 100 kilometers (330,000ft), qualifying as spaceflight according to the International Aeronautical Federation. The X-15 program employed mechanical techniques used in the later crewed spaceflight programs, including reaction control system jets for controlling the orientation of a spacecraft, space suits, and horizon definition for navigation.[75] The reentry and landing data collected were valuable to NASA for designing the Space Shuttle.[76]

In 1958, NASA formed an engineering group, the Space Task Group, to manage their human spaceflight programs under the direction of Robert Gilruth. Their earliest programs were conducted under the pressure of the Cold War competition between the US and the Soviet Union. NASA inherited the US Air Force's Man in Space Soonest program, which considered many crewed spacecraft designs ranging from rocket planes like the X-15, to small ballistic space capsules.[77] By 1958, the space plane concepts were eliminated in favor of the ballistic capsule,[78] and NASA renamed it Project Mercury. The first seven astronauts were selected among candidates from the Navy, Air Force and Marine test pilot programs. On May 5, 1961, astronaut Alan Shepard became the first American in space aboard a capsule he named Freedom7, launched on a Redstone booster on a 15-minute ballistic (suborbital) flight.[79] John Glenn became the first American to be launched into orbit, on an Atlas launch vehicle on February 20, 1962, aboard Friendship7.[80] Glenn completed three orbits, after which three more orbital flights were made, culminating in L. Gordon Cooper's 22-orbit flight Faith 7, May 1516, 1963.[81] Katherine Johnson, Mary Jackson, and Dorothy Vaughan were three of the human computers doing calculations on trajectories during the Space Race.[82][83][84] Johnson was well known for doing trajectory calculations for John Glenn's mission in 1962, where she was running the same equations by hand that were being run on the computer.[82]

Mercury's competition from the Soviet Union (USSR) was the single-pilot Vostok spacecraft. They sent the first man in space, cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, into a single Earth orbit aboard Vostok 1 in April 1961, one month before Shepard's flight.[85] In August 1962, they achieved an almost four-day record flight with Andriyan Nikolayev aboard Vostok 3, and also conducted a concurrent Vostok 4 mission carrying Pavel Popovich.[86]

Based on studies to grow the Mercury spacecraft capabilities to long-duration flights, developing space rendezvous techniques, and precision Earth landing, Project Gemini was started as a two-man program in 1961 to overcome the Soviets' lead and to support the planned Apollo crewed lunar landing program, adding extravehicular activity (EVA) and rendezvous and docking to its objectives. The first crewed Gemini flight, Gemini 3, was flown by Gus Grissom and John Young on March 23, 1965.[87] Nine missions followed in 1965 and 1966, demonstrating an endurance mission of nearly fourteen days, rendezvous, docking, and practical EVA, and gathering medical data on the effects of weightlessness on humans.[88][89]

Under the direction of Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, the USSR competed with Gemini by converting their Vostok spacecraft into a two- or three-man Voskhod. They succeeded in launching two crewed flights before Gemini's first flight, achieving a three-cosmonaut flight in 1964 and the first EVA in 1965.[90] After this, the program was canceled, and Gemini caught up while spacecraft designer Sergei Korolev developed the Soyuz spacecraft, their answer to Apollo.

The U.S. public's perception of the Soviet lead in the Space Race (by putting the first man into space) motivated President John F. Kennedy[91] to ask the Congress on May 25, 1961, to commit the federal government to a program to land a man on the Moon by the end of the 1960s, which effectively launched the Apollo program.[92]

Apollo was one of the most expensive American scientific programs ever. It cost more than $20billion in 1960s dollars[93] or an estimated $236billion in present-day US dollars.[94] (In comparison, the Manhattan Project cost roughly $30.1billion, accounting for inflation.)[94][95] The Apollo program used the newly developed Saturn I and Saturn V rockets, which were far larger than the repurposed ICBMs of the previous Mercury and Gemini programs.[96] They were used to launch the Apollo spacecraft, consisting of the Command and Service Module (CSM) and the Lunar Module (LM). The CSM ferried astronauts from Earth to Moon orbit and back, while the Lunar Module would land them on the Moon itself.[note 1]

The planned first crew of 3 astronauts were killed due to a fire during a 1967 preflight test for the Apollo 204 mission (later renamed Apollo 1).[97] The second crewed mission, Apollo 8, brought astronauts for the first time in a flight around the Moon in December 1968.[98] Shortly before, the Soviets had sent an uncrewed spacecraft around the Moon.[99] The next two missions (Apollo 9 and Apollo 10) practiced rendezvous and docking maneuvers required to conduct the Moon landing.[100][101]

The Apollo 11 mission, launched in July 1969, landed the first humans on the Moon. Astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the lunar surface, conducting experiments and sample collection, while Michael Collins orbited above in the CSM.[102] Six subsequent Apollo missions (12 through 17) were launched; five of them were successful, while one (Apollo 13) was aborted after an in-flight emergency nearly killed the astronauts. Throughout these seven Apollo spaceflights, twelve men walked on the Moon. These missions returned a wealth of scientific data and 381.7 kilograms (842lb) of lunar samples. Topics covered by experiments performed included soil mechanics, meteoroids, seismology, heat flow, lunar ranging, magnetic fields, and solar wind.[103] The Moon landing marked the end of the space race; and as a gesture, Armstrong mentioned mankind when he stepped down on the Moon.[104]

On July 3, 1969, the Soviets suffered a major setback on their Moon program when the rocket known as the N-1 had exploded in a fireball at its launch site at Baikonur in Kazakhstan, destroying one of two launch pads. Each of the first four launches of N-1 resulted in failure before the end of the first stage flight effectively denying the Soviet Union the capacity to deliver the systems required for a crewed lunar landing.[105]

Apollo set major milestones in human spaceflight. It stands alone in sending crewed missions beyond low Earth orbit, and landing humans on another celestial body.[106] Apollo 8 was the first crewed spacecraft to orbit another celestial body, while Apollo 17 marked the last moonwalk and the last crewed mission beyond low Earth orbit. The program spurred advances in many areas of technology peripheral to rocketry and crewed spaceflight, including avionics, telecommunications, and computers. Apollo sparked interest in many fields of engineering and left many physical facilities and machines developed for the program as landmarks. Many objects and artifacts from the program are on display at various locations throughout the world, notably at the Smithsonian's Air and Space Museums.

Skylab was the United States' first and only independently built space station.[107] Conceived in 1965 as a workshop to be constructed in space from a spent Saturn IB upper stage, the 169,950lb (77,088kg) station was constructed on Earth and launched on May 14, 1973, atop the first two stages of a Saturn V, into a 235-nautical-mile (435km) orbit inclined at 50 to the equator. Damaged during launch by the loss of its thermal protection and one electricity-generating solar panel, it was repaired to functionality by its first crew. It was occupied for a total of 171 days by 3 successive crews in 1973 and 1974.[107] It included a laboratory for studying the effects of microgravity, and a solar observatory.[107] NASA planned to have the in-development Space Shuttle dock with it, and elevate Skylab to a higher safe altitude, but the Shuttle was not ready for flight before Skylab's re-entry and demise on July 11, 1979.[108]

To reduce cost, NASA modified one of the Saturn V rockets originally earmarked for a canceled Apollo mission to launch Skylab, which itself was a modified Saturn V fuel tank. Apollo spacecraft, launched on smaller Saturn IB rockets, were used for transporting astronauts to and from the station. Three crews, consisting of three men each, stayed aboard the station for periods of 28, 59, and 84 days. Skylab's habitable volume was 11,290 cubic feet (320m3), which was 30.7 times bigger than that of the Apollo Command Module.[108]

In February 1969, President Richard Nixon appointed a space task group headed by Vice President Spiro Agnew to recommend human spaceflight projects beyond Apollo. The group responded in September with the Integrated Program Plan (IPP), intended to support space stations in Earth and lunar orbit, a lunar surface base, and a human Mars landing. These would be supported by replacing NASA's existing expendable launch systems with a reusable infrastructure including Earth orbit shuttles, space tugs, and a nuclear-powered trans-lunar and interplanetary shuttle. Despite the enthusiastic support of Agnew and NASA Administrator Thomas O. Paine, Nixon realized public enthusiasm, which translated into Congressional support, for the space program was waning as Apollo neared its climax, and vetoed most of these plans, except for the Earth orbital shuttle, and a deferred Earth space station.[109]

On May 24, 1972, US President Richard M. Nixon and Soviet Premier Alexei Kosygin signed an agreement calling for a joint crewed space mission, and declaring intent for all future international crewed spacecraft to be capable of docking with each other.[110] This authorized the ApolloSoyuz Test Project (ASTP), involving the rendezvous and docking in Earth orbit of a surplus Apollo command and service module with a Soyuz spacecraft. The mission took place in July 1975. This was the last US human spaceflight until the first orbital flight of the Space Shuttle in April 1981.[111]

The mission included both joint and separate scientific experiments and provided useful engineering experience for future joint USRussian space flights, such as the ShuttleMir program[112] and the International Space Station.

The Space Shuttle was the only vehicle in the Space Transportation System to be developed, and became the major focus of NASA in the late 1970s and the 1980s. Originally planned as a frequently launchable, fully reusable vehicle, the design was changed to use an expendable external propellant tank to reduce development cost, and four Space Shuttle orbiters were built by 1985. The first to launch, Columbia, did so on April 12, 1981, the 20th anniversary of the first human spaceflight.[113]

The Shuttle flew 135 missions and carried 355 astronauts from 16 countries, many on multiple trips. Its major components were a spaceplane orbiter with an external fuel tank and two solid-fuel launch rockets at its side. The external tank, which was bigger than the spacecraft itself, was the only major component that was not reused. The shuttle could orbit in altitudes of 185643 km (115400 miles)[114] and carry a maximum payload (to low orbit) of 24,400 kg (54,000 lb).[115] Missions could last from 5 to 17 days and crews could be from 2 to 8 astronauts.[114]

On 20 missions (19831998) the Space Shuttle carried Spacelab, designed in cooperation with the European Space Agency (ESA). Spacelab was not designed for independent orbital flight, but remained in the Shuttle's cargo bay as the astronauts entered and left it through an airlock.[116] On June 18, 1983, Sally Ride became the first American woman in space, on board the Space Shuttle Challenger STS-7 mission.[117] Another famous series of missions were the launch and later successful repair of the Hubble Space Telescope in 1990 and 1993, respectively.[118]

In 1995, Russian-American interaction resumed with the ShuttleMir missions (19951998). Once more an American vehicle docked with a Russian craft, this time a full-fledged space station. This cooperation has continued with Russia and the United States as two of the biggest partners in the largest space station built: the International Space Station (ISS).[119] The strength of their cooperation on this project was even more evident when NASA began relying on Russian launch vehicles to service the ISS during the two-year grounding of the shuttle fleet following the 2003 Space Shuttle Columbia disaster.

The Shuttle fleet lost two orbiters and 14 astronauts in two disasters: Challenger in 1986, and Columbia in 2003.[120] While the 1986 loss was mitigated by building the Space Shuttle Endeavour from replacement parts, NASA did not build another orbiter to replace the second loss.[120] NASA's Space Shuttle program had 135 missions when the program ended with the successful landing of the Space Shuttle Atlantis at the Kennedy Space Center on July 21, 2011. The program spanned 30 years with 355 separate astronauts sent into space, many on multiple missions.[121]

While the Space Shuttle program was still suspended after the loss of Columbia, President George W. Bush announced the Vision for Space Exploration including the retirement of the Space Shuttle after completing the International Space Station. The plan was enacted into law by the NASA Authorization Act of 2005 and directs NASA to develop and launch the Crew Exploration Vehicle (later called Orion) by 2010, return Americans to the Moon by 2020, land on Mars as feasible, repair the Hubble Space Telescope, and continue scientific investigation through robotic solar system exploration, human presence on the ISS, Earth observation, and astrophysics research. The crewed exploration goals prompted NASA's Constellation program.[122]

On December 4, 2006, NASA announced it was planning a permanent Moon base.[123] The goal was to start building the Moon base by 2020, and by 2024, have a fully functional base that would allow for crew rotations and in-situ resource utilization. However, in 2009, the Augustine Committee found the program to be on an "unsustainable trajectory."[124] In February 2010, President Barack Obama's administration proposed eliminating public funds for it.[125]

President Obama's plan was to develop American private spaceflight capabilities to get astronauts to the International Space Station, replace Russian Soyuz capsules, and use Orion capsules for ISS emergency escape purposes. During a speech at the Kennedy Space Center on April 15, 2010, Obama proposed a new heavy-lift vehicle (HLV) to replace the formerly planned Ares V.[126] In his speech, Obama called for a crewed mission to an asteroid as soon as 2025, and a crewed mission to Mars orbit by the mid-2030s.[126] The NASA Authorization Act of 2010 was passed by Congress and signed into law on October 11, 2010.[127] The act officially canceled the Constellation program.[127]

The NASA Authorization Act of 2010 required a newly designed HLV be chosen within 90 days of its passing; the launch vehicle was given the name Space Launch System. The new law also required the construction of a beyond low earth orbit spacecraft.[128] The Orion spacecraft, which was being developed as part of the Constellation program, was chosen to fulfill this role.[129] The Space Launch System is planned to launch both Orion and other necessary hardware for missions beyond low Earth orbit.[130] The SLS is to be upgraded over time with more powerful versions. The initial capability of SLS is required to be able to lift 70t (150,000lb) (later 95t or 209,000lb) into LEO. It is then planned to be upgraded to 105t (231,000lb) and then eventually to 130t (290,000lb).[129][131] The Orion capsule first flew on Exploration Flight Test 1 (EFT-1), an uncrewed test flight that was launched on December 5, 2014, atop a Delta IV Heavy rocket.[131]

NASA undertook a feasibility study in 2012 and developed the Asteroid Redirect Mission as an uncrewed mission to move a boulder-sized near-Earth asteroid (or boulder-sized chunk of a larger asteroid) into lunar orbit. The mission would demonstrate ion thruster technology and develop techniques that could be used for planetary defense against an asteroid collision, as well as a cargo transport to Mars in support of a future human mission. The Moon-orbiting boulder might then later be visited by astronauts. The Asteroid Redirect Mission was cancelled in 2017 as part of the FY2018 NASA budget, the first one under President Donald Trump.[132]

NASA has conducted many uncrewed and robotic spaceflight programs throughout its history. Uncrewed robotic programs launched the first American artificial satellites into Earth orbit for scientific and communications purposes and sent scientific probes to explore the planets of the Solar System, starting with Venus and Mars, and including "grand tours" of the outer planets. More than 1,000 uncrewed missions have been designed to explore the Earth and the Solar System.[133]

The first US uncrewed satellite was Explorer 1, which started as an ABMA/JPL project during the early part of the Space Race. It was launched in January 1958, two months after Sputnik. At the creation of NASA, the Explorer project was transferred to the agency and still continues. Its missions have been focusing on the Earth and the Sun, measuring magnetic fields and the solar wind, among other aspects.[134]

The Ranger missions developed technology to build and deliver robotic probes into orbit and to the vicinity of the Moon. Ranger 7 successfully returned images of the Moon in July 1964, followed by two more successful missions.[135]

NASA also played a role in the development and delivery of early communications satellite technology to orbit. Syncom 3 was the first geostationary satellite. It was an experimental geosynchronous communications satellite placed over the equator at 180 degrees longitude in the Pacific Ocean. The satellite provided live television coverage of the 1964 Olympic games in Tokyo, Japan and conducted various communications tests. Operations were turned over to the Department of Defense on January 1, 1965; Syncom 3 was to prove useful in the DoD's Vietnam communications.[136] Programs like Syncom, Telstar, and Applications Technology Satellites (ATS) demonstrated the utility of communications satellites and delivered early telephonic and video satellite transmission.[137]

Study of Mercury, Venus, or Mars has been the goal of more than ten uncrewed NASA programs. The first was Mariner in the 1960s and 1970s, which made multiple visits to Venus and Mars and one to Mercury. Probes launched under the Mariner program were also the first to make a planetary flyby (Mariner 2), to take the first pictures from another planet (Mariner 4), the first planetary orbiter (Mariner 9), and the first to make a gravity assist maneuver (Mariner 10). This is a technique where the satellite takes advantage of the gravity and velocity of planets to reach its destination.[138]

Magellan orbited Venus for four years in the early 1990s capturing radar images of the planet's surface.[139] MESSENGER orbited Mercury between 2011 and 2015 after a 6.5-year journey involving a complicated series of flybys of Venus and Mercury to reduce velocity sufficiently enough to enter Mercury orbit. MESSENGER became the first spacecraft to orbit Mercury and used its science payload to study Mercury's surface composition, geological history, internal magnetic field, and verified its polar deposits were dominantly water-ice.[140]

From 1966 to 1968, the Lunar Orbiter and Surveyor missions provided higher quality photographs and other measurements to pave the way for the crewed Apollo missions to the Moon.[141] Clementine spent a couple of months mapping the Moon in 1994 before moving on to other mission objectives.[142] Lunar Prospector spent 19 months from 1998 mapping the Moon's surface composition and looking for polar ice.[143]

The first successful landing on Mars was made by Viking 1 in 1976. Viking 2 followed two months later. Twenty years later the Sojourner rover was landed on Mars by Mars Pathfinder.[144]

After Mars, Jupiter was first visited by Pioneer 10 in 1973. More than 20 years later Galileo sent a probe into the planet's atmosphere and became the first spacecraft to orbit the planet.[145] Pioneer 11 became the first spacecraft to visit Saturn in 1979, with Voyager 2 making the first (and so far, only) visits to Uranus and Neptune in 1986 and 1989, respectively. The first spacecraft to leave the Solar System was Pioneer 10 in 1983. For a time, it was the most distant spacecraft, but it has since been surpassed by both Voyager 1 and Voyager 2.[146]

Pioneers 10 and 11 and both Voyager probes carry messages from the Earth to extraterrestrial life.[147][148] Communication can be difficult with deep space travel. For instance, it took about three hours for a radio signal to reach the New Horizons spacecraft when it was more than halfway to Pluto.[149] Contact with Pioneer 10 was lost in 2003. Both Voyager probes continue to operate as they explore the outer boundary between the Solar System and interstellar space.[150]

NASA continued to support in situ exploration beyond the asteroid belt, including Pioneer and Voyager traverses into the unexplored trans-Pluto region, and gas giant orbiters Galileo (19892003) and Cassini (19972017) exploring the Jovian and Saturnian systems respectively.

The missions below represent the robotic spacecraft that have been delivered and operated by NASA to study the heliosphere. The Helios A and Helios B missions were launched in the 1970s to study the Sun and were the first spacecraft to orbit inside of Mercury's orbit.[151] The Fast Auroral Snapshot Explorer (FAST) mission was launched in August 1996 becoming the second SMEX mission placed in orbit. It studied the auroral zones near each pole during its transits in a highly elliptical orbit.[152]

The International Earth-Sun Explorer-3 (ISEE-3) mission was launched in 1978 and is the first spacecraft designed to operate at the Earth-Sun L1 libration point. It studied solar-terrestrial relationships at the outermost boundaries of the Earth's magnetosphere and the structure of the solar wind. The spacecraft was subsequently maneuvered out of the halo orbit and conducted a flyby of the Giacobini-Zinner comet in 1985 as the rechristened International Cometary Explorer (ICE).[153]

Ulysses was launched in 1990 and slingshotted around Jupiter to put it in an orbit to travel over the poles of the Sun. It was designed study the space environment above and below the poles and delivered scientific data for about 19 years.[154]

Additional spacecraft launched for studies of the heliosphere include: Cluster II, IMAGE, POLAR, Reuven Ramaty High Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager, and the Van Allen Probes.

The Earth Sciences Division of the NASA Science Mission Directorate leads efforts to study the planet Earth. Spacecraft have been used to study Earth since the mid-1960s. Efforts included the Television Infrared Observation Satellite (TIROS) and Nimbus satellite systems of which there were many carrying weather research and forecasting from space from 1960 into the 2020s.

The Combined Release and Radiation Effects Satellite (CRRES) was launched in 1990 on a three-year mission to investigate fields, plasmas, and energetic particles inside the Earth's magnetosphere.[155] The Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS) was launched in 1991 by STS-48 to study the Earth's atmosphere especially the protective ozone layer.[156] TOPEX/Poseidon was launched in 1992 and was the first significant oceanographic research satellite.[157]

The Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation Satellite (ICESat) was launched in 2003, operated for seven years, and measured ice sheet mass balance, cloud and aerosol heights, and well as topography and vegetation characteristics.[158]

Over a dozen past robotic missions have focused on the study of the Earth and its environment. Some of these additional missions include Aquarius, Earth Observing-1 (EO-1), Jason-1, Ocean Surface Topography Mission/Jason-2, and Radarsat-1 missions.

The International Space Station (ISS) combines NASA's Space Station Freedom project with the Soviet/Russian Mir-2 station, the European Columbus station, and the Japanese Kib laboratory module.[159] NASA originally planned in the 1980s to develop Freedom alone, but US budget constraints led to the merger of these projects into a single multi-national program in 1993, managed by NASA, the Russian Federal Space Agency (RKA), the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), the European Space Agency (ESA), and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA).[160][161] The station consists of pressurized modules, external trusses, solar arrays and other components, which were manufactured in various factories around the world, and have been launched by Russian Proton and Soyuz rockets, and the US Space Shuttles.[159] The on-orbit assembly began in 1998, the completion of the US Orbital Segment occurred in 2009 and the completion of the Russian Orbital Segment occurred in 2010, though there are some debates of whether new modules should be added in the segment. The ownership and use of the space station is established in intergovernmental treaties and agreements[162] which divide the station into two areas and allow Russia to retain full ownership of the Russian Orbital Segment (with the exception of Zarya),[163][164] with the US Orbital Segment allocated between the other international partners.[162]

Long-duration missions to the ISS are referred to as ISS Expeditions. Expedition crew members typically spend approximately six months on the ISS.[165] The initial expedition crew size was three, temporarily decreased to two following the Columbia disaster. Since May 2009, expedition crew size has been six crew members.[166] Crew size is expected to be increased to seven, the number the ISS was designed for, once the Commercial Crew Program becomes operational.[167] The ISS has been continuously occupied for the past 22years and 73days, having exceeded the previous record held by Mir; and has been visited by astronauts and cosmonauts from 15 different nations.[168][169]

The station can be seen from the Earth with the naked eye and, as of 2023, is the largest artificial satellite in Earth orbit with a mass and volume greater than that of any previous space station.[170] The Russian Soyuz and American Dragon spacecraft are used to send astronauts to and from the ISS. Several uncrewed cargo spacecraft provide service to the ISS; they are the Russian Progress spacecraft which has done so since 2000, the European Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) since 2008, the Japanese H-II Transfer Vehicle (HTV) since 2009, the (uncrewed) Dragon since 2012, and the American Cygnus spacecraft since 2013.[171][172] The Space Shuttle, before its retirement, was also used for cargo transfer and would often switch out expedition crew members, although it did not have the capability to remain docked for the duration of their stay. Between the retirement of the Shuttle in 2011 and the commencement of crewed Dragon flights in 2020, American astronauts exclusively used the Soyuz for crew transport to and from the ISS[173] The highest number of people occupying the ISS has been thirteen; this occurred three times during the late Shuttle ISS assembly missions.[174]

The ISS program is expected to continue to 2030,[175] after which the space station will be retired and destroyed in a controlled de-orbit.[176]

Commercial Resupply Services missions approaching International Space Station

Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) are a contract solution to deliver cargo and supplies to the International Space Station (ISS) on a commmercial basis.[177] NASA signed its first CRS contracts in 2008 and awarded $1.6 billion to SpaceX for twelve cargo Dragon and $1.9 billion to Orbital Sciences[note 2] for eight Cygnus flights, covering deliveries to 2016. Both companies evolved or created their launch vehicle products to support the solution (SpaceX with The Falcon 9 and Orbital with the Antares).

SpaceX flew its first operational resupply mission (SpaceX CRS-1) in 2012.[178] Orbital Sciences followed in 2014 (Cygnus CRS Orb-1).[179] In 2015, NASA extended CRS-1 to twenty flights for SpaceX and twelve flights for Orbital ATK.[note 2][180][181]

A second phase of contracts (known as CRS-2) was solicited in 2014; contracts were awarded in January 2016 to Orbital ATK[note 2] Cygnus, Sierra Nevada Corporation Dream Chaser, and SpaceX Dragon 2, for cargo transport flights beginning in 2019 and expected to last through 2024. In March 2022, NASA awarded an additional six CRS-2 missions each to both SpaceX and Northrop Grumman (formerly Orbital).[182]

Northrop Grumman successfully delivered Cygnus NG-17 to the ISS in February 2022.[183] In July 2022, SpaceX launched its 25th CRS flight (SpaceX CRS-25) and successfully delivered its cargo to the ISS.[184] In late 2022, Sierra Nevada continued to assemble their Dream Chaser CRS solution; current estimates put its first launch in early 2023.[185]

The Commercial Crew Program (CCP) provides commercially operated crew transportation service to and from the International Space Station (ISS) under contract to NASA, conducting crew rotations between the expeditions of the International Space Station program. American space manufacturer SpaceX began providing service in 2020, using the Crew Dragon spacecraft, and NASA plans to add Boeing when its Boeing Starliner spacecraft becomes operational some time after 2022[needs update].[186] NASA has contracted for six operational missions from Boeing and fourteen from SpaceX, ensuring sufficient support for ISS through 2030.[187]

The spacecraft are owned and operated by the vendor, and crew transportation is provided to NASA as a commercial service. Each mission sends up to four astronauts to the ISS, with an option for a fifth passenger available. Operational flights occur approximately once every six months for missions that last for approximately six months. A spacecraft remains docked to the ISS during its mission, and missions usually overlap by at least a few days. Between the retirement of the Space Shuttle in 2011 and the first operational CCP mission in 2020, NASA relied on the Soyuz program to transport its astronauts to the ISS.

A Crew Dragon spacecraft is launched to space atop a Falcon 9 Block 5 launch vehicle and the capsule returns to Earth via splashdown in the ocean near Florida. The program's first operational mission, SpaceX Crew-1, launched on 16 November 2020.[188] Boeing Starliner operational flights will now commence after its final test flight which was launched atop an Atlas V N22 launch vehicle. Instead of a splashdown, a Starliner capsule returns on land with airbags at one of four designated sites in the western United States.[189]

Since 2017, NASA's crewed spaceflight program has been the Artemis program, which involves the help of US commercial spaceflight companies and international partners such as ESA, JAXA, and CSA.[190] The goal of this program is to land "the first woman and the next man" on the lunar south pole region by 2024. Artemis would be the first step towards the long-term goal of establishing a sustainable presence on the Moon, laying the foundation for companies to build a lunar economy, and eventually sending humans to Mars.

The Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle was held over from the canceled Constellation program for Artemis. Artemis 1 was the uncrewed initial launch of Space Launch System (SLS) that would also send an Orion spacecraft on a Distant Retrograde Orbit.[191]

NASA's next major space initiative is to be the construction of the Lunar Gateway, a small space station in lunar orbit.[192] This space station will be designed primarily for non-continuous human habitation. The first tentative steps of returning to crewed lunar missions will be Artemis 2, which is to include the Orion crew module, propelled by the SLS, and is to launch in 2024.[190] This mission is to be a 10-day mission planned to briefly place a crew of four into a Lunar flyby.[131] The construction of the Gateway would begin with the proposed Artemis 3, which is planned to deliver a crew of four to Lunar orbit along with the first modules of the Gateway. This mission would last for up to 30 days. NASA plans to build full scale deep space habitats such as the Lunar Gateway and the Nautilus-X as part of its Next Space Technologies for Exploration Partnerships (NextSTEP) program.[193] In 2017, NASA was directed by the congressional NASA Transition Authorization Act of 2017 to get humans to Mars-orbit (or to the Martian surface) by the 2030s.[194][195]

In support of the Artemis missions, NASA has been funding private companies to land robotic probes on the lunar surface in a program known as the Commercial Lunar Payload Services. As of March 2022, NASA has awarded contracts for robotic lunar probes to companies such as Intuitive Machines, Firefly Space Systems, and Astrobotic.[196]

On April 16, 2021, NASA announced they had selected the SpaceX Lunar Starship as its Human Landing System. The agency's Space Launch System rocket will launch four astronauts aboard the Orion spacecraft for their multi-day journey to lunar orbit where they will transfer to SpaceX's Starship for the final leg of their journey to the surface of the Moon.[197]

In November 2021, it was announced that the goal of landing astronauts on the Moon by 2024 had slipped to no earlier than 2025 due to numerous factors. Artemis 1 launched on November 16, 2022 and returned to Earth safely on December 11, 2022. As of June 2022, NASA plans to launch Artemis 2 in May 2024 and Artemis 3 sometime in 2025.[198][199] Additional Artemis missions, Artemis 4 and Artemis 5, are planned to launch after 2025.[200]

The Commercial Low Earth Orbit Destinations program is an initiative by NASA to support work on commercial space stations that the agency hopes to have in place by the end of the current decade to replace the "International Space Station". The three selected companies are: Blue Origin (et al.) with their Orbital Reef station concept, Nanoracks (et al.) with their Starlab Space Station concept, and Northrop Grumman with a station concept based on the HALO-module for the Gateway station.[201]

NASA has conducted many uncrewed and robotic spaceflight programs throughout its history. More than 1,000 uncrewed missions have been designed to explore the Earth and the Solar System.[133]

NASA executes a mission development framework to plan, select, develop, and operate robotic missions. This framework defines cost, schedule and technical risk parameters to enable competitive selection of missions involving mission candidates that have been developed by principal investigators and their teams from across NASA, the broader U.S. Government research and development stakeholders, and industry. The mission development construct is defined by four umbrella programs.

The Explorer program derives its origin from the earliest days of the U.S. Space program. In current form, the program consists of three classes of systems - Small Explorers (SMEX), Medium Explorers (MIDEX), and University-Class Explorers (UNEX) missions. The NASA Explorer program office provides frequent flight opportunities for moderate cost innovative solutions from the heliophysics and astrophysics science areas. The Small Explorer missions are required to limit cost to NASA to below $150M (2022 dollars). Medium class explorer missions have typically involved NASA cost caps of $350M. The Explorer program office is based at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.[202]

The NASA Discovery program develops and delivers robotic spacecraft solutions in the planetary science domain. Discovery enables scientists and engineers to assemble a team to deliver a solution against a defined set of objectives and competitively bid that solution against other candidate programs. Cost caps vary but recent mission selection processes were accomplished using a $500M cost cap to NASA. The Planetary Mission Program Office is based at the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center and manages both the Discovery and New Frontiers missions. The office is part of the Science Mission Directorate.[203]

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson announced on June 2, 2021, that the DAVINCI+ and VERITAS missions were selected to launch to Venus in the late 2020s, having beat out competing proposals for missions to Jupiter's volcanic moon Io and Neptune's large moon Triton that were also selected as Discovery program finalists in early 2020. Each mission has an estimated cost of $500 million, with launches expected between 2028 and 2030. Launch contracts will be awarded later in each mission's development.[204]

The New Frontiers program focuses on specific Solar System exploration goals identified as top priorities by the planetary science community. Primary objectives include Solar System exploration employing medium class spacecraft missions to conduct high-science-return investigations. New Frontiers builds on the development approach employed by the Discovery program but provides for higher cost caps and schedule durations than are available with Discovery. Cost caps vary by opportunity; recent missions have been awarded based on a defined cap of $1 Billion. The higher cost cap and projected longer mission durations result in a lower frequency of new opportunities for the program - typically one every several years. OSIRIS-REx and New Horizons are examples of New Frontiers missions.[205]

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NASA Fixes Months-Long Issue With James Webb Telescope

One of the James Webb Space Telescope's most important instruments had been offline for months — but it's now been brought back to full functionality. 

MIRI Me

One of the James Webb Space Telescope's most important instruments had been offline for months — but thanks to some ingenuity at NASA, it's now been brought back to full functionality.

As the Space Telescope Science Institute wrote in a statement, the "supercold" Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) camera, which lets astronomers see the universe from the wavelength of their choosing, went offline on August 24 after its grating wheel started to malfunction.

Described by the European Space Agency as Webb's "coolest" instrument — a pun that references the uber-cold temperatures it can see — MIRI is the camera responsible for some of the most stunning Webb images. Having it offline didn't make the telescope completely dysfunctional, but it was certainly missed.

How did #MIRI become @ESA_Webb's coolest instrument, now making awe-inspiring images like these?

Ambition, leadership, teamwork, and international collaboration between @esa, @nasa and institutions and industry from 10 European countries ? https://t.co/qM3evUBYS6 #Webb pic.twitter.com/b04wvFqqGY

— ESA Science (@esascience) November 8, 2022

Changing of the Guard

Upon discovering the problem, NASA took the instrument — which is one of four on board — offline upon discovering the issue. Weeks of remote investigations ensued, and finally, the Webb team determined that MIRI's wheel's problem was caused by "increased contact forces between the wheel central bearing assembly’s sub-components under certain conditions."

In English, that means there was too much friction between the wheel and its grate, which was in turn screwing with the camera.

The Webb team went ahead and assigned some new operational rules for the instrument while it was being remotely worked on, and on November 2, NASA enacted those rules so that it could finally bring the camera back online after more than two months of it being shut off.

For its next move, the STScI notes, MIRI will be "taking advantage of a unique opportunity to observe Saturn’s polar regions" — not bad for an instrument that spent two months on the bench.

More Webb: NASA's New James Webb Shot Is Much Better When You Put Googly Eyes On It

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Amazing Video Shows What the ISS Would Look Like If It Flew at the Height of a Jetplane

What would happen if the International Space Station was circling the planet at the altitude of an airplane? This video shows what that would look like.

Whoosh

What would happen if the International Space Station was orbiting the planet not hundreds of miles above the surface, but right up close, at the altitude of, say, a commercial jetliner?

In a new video, airplane enthusiast Benjamin Granville used the popular game Microsoft Flight Simulator to show what the space station would look like at just 10,000 feet in altitude— and the results are equal parts amazing and terrifying.

The video shows the ISS blasting across the sky at ludicrous speeds — roughly 17,150 miles per hour, or five miles per second to be exact — in a stunning demonstration of blistering velocity that objects in low-earth orbit need to maintain.

In other words, if you were standing below and trying to take a picture of it, you'd need to be extremely well prepared as you'd only have a fraction of a second to hit the shutter.

Speed Record

Of course, such a maneuver could never be pulled off in real life. Not only would the space station need to overcome a monstrous amount of air resistance, it would also need a ludicrous amount of propulsion to maintain its velocity.

And that's not to mention the fact that, unlike an airplane, the space station would simply fall out of the sky and succumb to gravity, since it's not designed to glide through the air.

But it's a fun demonstration, nonetheless, of the extraordinary speed of an object that — from far away, at least — seems to be peacefully drifting through the night sky.

READ MORE: This is What the ISS Would Look Like if It Flew at Airplane Altitude [PetaPixel]

More on the ISS: Cargo Spacecraft Breaks Down En Route to Space Station

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Amazing Video Shows What the ISS Would Look Like If It Flew at the Height of a Jetplane

NASA Releases Hubble Images of Star Right as It Explodes

The Hubble Space Telescope captured three magnificent stages of a star right as it exploded — but it's gone unnoticed until now.

Lucky Shot

To see a star right as it explodes in a supernova is extremely rare. Luckily, researchers combing through the archives of the Hubble Space Telescope's observational data from 2010 have spotted imagery of an exploding star from some 11 billion years ago, lurking behind a galaxy cluster — making it the first time such an event has been observed from so early in the universe.

"It is quite rare that a supernova can be detected at a very early stage, because that stage is really short," said Wenlei Chen, who is the lead author of an accompanying study published in the journal Nature and a researcher at the University of Minnesota School of Physics and Astronomy, in a NASA statement.

"It only lasts for hours to a few days, and it can be easily missed even for a nearby detection," he added. "In the same exposure, we are able to see a sequence of the images — like multiple faces of a supernova."

Third time’s the charm?

Hubble witnessed three faces of a star’s evolving supernova explosion, thanks to a phenomenon known as gravitational lensing. Read more: https://t.co/dGbvAXeFkR

Learn more in this video! pic.twitter.com/yZbK6ZrMMJ

— Hubble (@NASAHubble) November 9, 2022

Warped Perception

The faraway supernova was revealed due to a phenomenon known as gravitational lensing. When the gravity of a galaxy warps and magnifies the light behind it, it allows telescopes to observe distant objects that would otherwise be too faint.

Amazingly, the warping proved to be an even greater boon than expected, because it resulted in multiple images, or "three faces," from different time periods to be captured in one go. Light from separate moments in the supernova traveled varying distances through the lensing and were in effect slowed down due to the immense gravity of the lens galaxy, causing the different "routes" of light to all arrive at the same time.

Thanks to that instant timelapse, the researchers were able to measure the supernova's rate of cooling and calculated the star's size before it exploded. They believe it was a red giant over 500 times larger than the Sun.

"You see different colors in the three different images," said Patrick Kelly, who led the study and is an assistant professor in the University of Minnesota's School of Physics and Astronomy, in the statement. "You've got the massive star, the core collapses, it produces a shock, it heats up, and then you're seeing it cool over a week. I think that's probably one of the most amazing things I've ever seen!"

More on stars: Astronomers Find Wreckage of Destroyed Solar System Right Near Our Own

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NASA Releases Hubble Images of Star Right as It Explodes

NASA Inspecting Moon Rocket for Damage From Hurricane Nicole

Winds reached 87 knots or 100 mph at the launch pad of NASA's SLS Moon rocket, which may have damaged it.

Gust Buster

The winds really started to pick up at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, as Hurricane Nicole made landfall earlier today.

And that's bad news, as the agency's uber-expensive Space Launch System (SLS) Moon rocket is currently sitting on the launch pad, fully exposed to the elements, awaiting its November 14 launch attempt next week.

Now, engineers are starting their inspections, ensuring the rocket weathered the storm intact and is ready for prime time.

Hurri-Can't

Winds reached 87 knots (about 100 mph) at the site, in strong hurricane-level gusts that were forecast by the National Weather Service.

Earlier this week, the National Hurricane Center predicted a 15 percent chance of hurricane-grade winds at the launch site — which appear to have materialized, Ars Technica reports.

And that's a problem: while NASA claimed on Tuesday that "high winds that are not expected to exceed the SLS design," according to documentation, the rocket is only designed to withstand gusts of up to 74.4 knots.

"Almost certainly there is some safety margin above 74.4 knots, but is it 15 or 20 percent higher?" Ars' Eric Berger tweeted. "Rockets are simply not designed to be battered like this by sideways winds for hours and hours."

According to weather sensors on Launch Complex-39B, the Artemis I stack saw wind gusts as high as 87 knots on the 120-foot level last night. The rocket is designed to withstand 74.4-knot gusts. pic.twitter.com/pkBuwFB6TH

— Eric Berger (@SciGuySpace) November 10, 2022

Inspecting the Damage

Now, engineers are starting to inspect the rocket to see if the winds have left a mark.

"I am imagining, if the rocket is exposed to excessive winds, the effort that will ensue to redo the structural analysis and convince everyone to sign the waiver to let it fly," former NASA space shuttle engineer Phil Metzger tweeted. "It’s gonna be a busy couple of weeks for NASA structural engineers."

In short, the SLS rollout was one big gamble. As Ars points out, it would've taken days for NASA to roll its massive rocket back in to the Vehicle Assembly Building, where the rocket spent the last couple of months following several failed launch attempts earlier this year.

Where that leaves next week's launch attempt remains to be seen. NASA is giving itself until Sunday evening to make the call.

It's a scary moment for NASA: billions of dollars were literally exposed to the elements. All we can do is hope it held up.

READ MORE: NASA leaves its Artemis I rocket exposed to winds above design limits [Ars Technica]

More on the rocket: NASA Watches Nervously as Hurricane Threatens Exposed Moon Rocket

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Furious Fire Ants "Rain Down" on Hawaiian Residents and Bite Them in their Sleep

Hawaii has a big problem with little fire ants that have begun quite literally raining down on people from above and sting them.

Smol Means

Hawaii has a big problem: little fire ants that have begun quite literally raining down on people and stinging them — and it's reportedly changing life on the islands as residents know it.

In interviews with SFGate, Hawaiian officials described infestation scenes straight out of a horror flick, replete with people being bitten in their beds while sleeping, causing painful welts that can last for weeks.

"They’re changing the way of life for our residents here in Hawaii," Heather Forester of the University of Hawai'i's Hawaii Ant Lab told the Gate. "You used to be able to go out hiking and go to the beach. They can rain down on people and sting them."

"In heavily infested areas, the ants can actually move into people’s homes," she continued. "We have a lot of reports of them stinging people while they sleep in their beds."

Invasion

While little fire ants have been detected on the islands since 1999, this latest infestation – which has hit the island of Kauai the hardest — is reportedly the largest Hawaii's ever seen.

It's gotten so bad there that the Kauai Invasive Species Committee (KISC) has executed a huge public service announcement campaign to alert residents about help they can receive to detect or deal with these minuscule monsters, including home testing kits to detect them before they invade their houses.

Riverside Blues

This latest infestation, the Gate notes, appears to have begun on private property and spilled over a cliff and into a lush valley near the Wailua River that provides the ants with the opportunity to float downriver and create colonies elsewhere.

So far, it's unclear if the ants have gotten to the river — but when and if they do, it'll only get worse, officials say.

"That would infest the entire state park," KISC's Haylin Chock told the website. "If they are at that point, they can start climbing trees. It’s like a paradise for them. If that happens, how are we supposed to know where they are?"

The whole situation is taking the tenor of a plague, which the islands certainly don't need after being unduly impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

More buggies: These Dancing Bugs Are Straight Out of a Miyazaki Film

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Furious Fire Ants "Rain Down" on Hawaiian Residents and Bite Them in their Sleep

Divers Growing Veggies in Underwater Greenhouses

Welcome to

Nemo's Garden

Welcome to "Nemo's Garden," a surreal — and beautiful — underwater garden off of Italy's Northwestern coast.

There, National Geographic reports, terrestrial plants are grown in submerged plastic greenhouses dubbed "biospheres," which can be seen glowing from the surface. And we gotta say: the pictures of these plastic, herb-filled oddities are absolutely stunning.

An Italian project, known as Nemo’s Garden, is testing the viability of underwater greenhouses https://t.co/Y1PQDM4p3Z

— National Geographic (@NatGeo) November 10, 2022

Water Cycle

Sergio Gamberini, the man behind this almost fantastical project, isn't just out to create something that looks beautiful.

He's hoping that his plastic orbs, which rest between 15 and 36 feet below the ocean's surface and hold about 528 gallons of air, will provide a water-conserving, overall sustainable alternative to on-land agricultural operations, particularly helping dry coastal nations grow more food without having to desalinate more water — a costly and resource-intensive process. The plants require just a small bit of starter water, but from there, they're self-sustaining. Sunlight heats the submerged spheres, which contain humid air that naturally condenses into freshwater on the walls and drips back into the soil.

"Since the underwater farm needs an external source of water only for the start-up of plants growing," reads the company's site, "our system could be useful for those locations far from the bodies of water available."

Deep Food

Nemo's Garden is still in its earlier phases, but results have been promising. One 2020 study showed that the organization's underwater-grown basil actually had more chlorophyll and antioxidants than land-reared basil — a fascinating finding, considering that the water pressure actually forces the Nemo plants to grow a bit differently than they might on the surface.

Excitingly, marine life is reportedly drawn to the glowing orbs as well; according to NatGeo, the structures act like an artificial coral reef for nearby species.

Whether Nemo's Garden will one day be coming to a coastline near you remains to be seen. In the meantime, though, we might agree with NatGeo photographer Luca Locatelli, who says he's excited to see someone take a well-intentioned leap — or perhaps a dive — of faith.

"We need someone who thinks about crazy things — not only ordinary inventions — that are coming out of a real passion," Locatelli told the magazine. "It might be something, it might not, [but] I like the fact that someone is so brave to invest money on such a thing."

READ MORE: Look inside Nemo's Garden, a surreal underwater farm [National Geographic]

More on alternative gardening: Nasa Let Astronauts Feast on Space-grown Vegetables

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Tesla Issues Software Patch So That Its Cars Don’t Lose Power Steering on Potholes

Tesla has recalled more than 40,000 of its vehicles due to an issue that could cause a loss of power steering in its 2017-2021 Model S and Model X cars

Pesky Potholes

Tesla has "recalled" more than 40,000 of its vehicles due to a glitch that could cause a loss of power steering, according to a safety-recall report from the National Highway Traffic Administration released last week that was made public on Tuesday.

Despite officially being labeled as a recall, though, it's really just an over-the-air software update that can be downloaded by owners remotely.

Nevertheless, the issue does sound consequential. It applies to rare cases in which the company's 2017-2021 Model S and Model X cars' electronic power assist steering systems erroneously identify abrupt bumps such as potholes as "unexpected steering assist torque," the NHTSA said. In such cases, drivers could still steer their Teslas, but with much greater effort required, especially at lower speeds.

Fortunately, it doesn't look like anyone was hurt or got into any accidents as a result of the oversight, which is estimated to only affect one percent of the cars in question. As of the NHTSA report's release, 314 vehicles have been reported to have been affected by the bug.

Pile Driver

The Elon-Musk-led automaker can let out a sigh of relief that this issue didn't turn out worse, because it's already garnered unwanted scrutiny from the NHTSA and other government bodies that could have potentially ruinous implications.

On the NHTSA's part, the regulator has been investigating crashes involving Tesla's Autopilot driving assistance system since August 2021. In June, it stated that it was significantly widening the scope of its investigation.

In August, Tesla's home state of California's DMV accused the automaker of lying to customers by calling its separate driving assistance systems Autopilot and Full Self-Driving, names that could fool a driver into thinking the systems can fully drive on their own — which they can't.

And now, it was revealed in October, even the Department of Justice has reportedly been furtively probing into Autopilot's misleading marketing.

At the end of the day, it's a fairly minor slip up from Tesla, but one that's amplified by all the magnifying glasses it's provoked from government bodies, both stateside and federal.

More on Tesla: Elon Musk Pulling Engineers From Tesla Autopilot to Work on Twitter

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Tesla Issues Software Patch So That Its Cars Don't Lose Power Steering on Potholes

Elon Musk Says That Under His Brilliant New Management, Twitter May Go Out of Business

In emails to his new employees, freshly-minted Twitter czar Elon Musk told them that if they don't make money fast, the site may not survive.

But His Emails

In emails to his new employees, freshly-minted Twitter czar Elon Musk painted a pretty doom-tastic portrait of the road ahead for the social network's remaining employees — and told them that soon, they may all be out of a job.

Emails Musk sent to Twitter staff that were reviewed by the New York Times show that, at very least, he's repeating the same line internally as he is on his own account: Twitter needs to be monetized — or else.

"Without significant subscription revenue," the serial CEO wrote, "there is a good chance Twitter will not survive the upcoming economic downturn."

And at a company meeting today, Musk reportedly told employees that "bankruptcy isn't out of the question."

Elon Musk emails Twitter employees

November 9, 2022 pic.twitter.com/Qeg5CA979W

— Internal Tech Emails (@TechEmails) November 10, 2022

PO'd

It's not a great way to start a friendly CEO-staff relationship, to say the least, but it's nevertheless the posture Musk is taking as he makes sweeping changes to the social network that are, unsurprisingly, very unpopular with some of the workers left at the company following his mass layoff of half of Twitter's staff.

"Elon has shown that he cares only about recouping the losses he’s incurring as a result of failing to get out of his binding obligation to buy Twitter," one disgruntled employee wrote in an email to coworkers, according to the NYT. "This will put huge amount of personal, professional and legal risk onto engineers: I anticipate that all of you will be pressured by management into pushing out changes that will likely lead to major incidents."

To be fair, Twitter is now in some seriously dire financial straits under its new ownership, and per the Times is going to be required to pay $1 billion annually in interest under Musk's deal. Paired with advertisers' increasing wariness about the site's trajectory, things aren't looking great in Twitterland.

Nevertheless, this whole mess is indeed shaping up to be as bad as many predicted, with the new CEO following through with his $8 verification plan and all.

It forces us to beg the question: was killing Twitter Musk's plan all along?

More Musk: Elon Musk Is Suddenly Selling Tesla Stock Like Crazy

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Scientists Reproduce Fascinating, Powerful Material Found in Meteorite

In an unprecedented experiment, two teams of scientists have replicated a material that was, until recently, not produced anywhere on Earth.

Spaced Out

In an unprecedented experiment, two teams of scientists on either sides of the Atlantic have replicated a material that was previously not produced anywhere on Earth.

As NPR reports, the replication of this powerful compound could have huge implications not just for the manufacturing of high-end machinery, but also for international relations to boot.

Called tetrataenite, the primarily iron-and-nickel compound is normally able to cool for millions of years as it tumbles around in asteroids. As a press release out of the University of Cambridge notes, the researchers who worked in tandem with Boston's Northeastern University found that if they add phosphorous to the mix, they were able to make synthetic tetrataenite.

Scientists made a material that doesn't exist on Earth: The compound is called tetrataenite. If synthetic tetrataenite works in industrial applications, it could make green energy technologies significantly cheaper. via @nprscience @planetmoney https://t.co/LclRNO5d6w pic.twitter.com/4yd2s4U8oj

— RealClearScience (@RCScience) November 9, 2022

Trader Gold

Beyond it being really awesome that scientists have synthesized a mineral from space, the discovery of synthetic tetrataenite is also huge because it could be used as an alternative to rare earth minerals, those valuable and difficult-to-extract materials used in the production of the heavy-duty "permanent magnets" that power tech ranging from electric vehicles to NASA experiments.

Over the past few decades, China has dominated the rare earths market because a lot of these minerals are found on the outskirts of its mainland, and it has inexpensive manufacturing and worker capabilities to undertake the laborious process of extracting them from other compounds.

Ramp It Up

With the new synthesis of terataenite, however, a future beyond a China-dominated rare earths market could unfold because, as an expert who spoke to NPR noted, it can be used as a replacement for most of the components of permanent magnets.

Northeastern's Laura Lewis cautioned against premature optimism, saying that ample testing needs to be done to make sure the synthetic is as hearty as the one found in meteorites — and even then, it'll still be at least five years, and probably more like eight, before it's "pedal to the metal" on manufacturing with it.

That said, however, it does provide an exciting look at the ways space materials can help us here on Earth — and hopefully bring about some positive international developments, too.

More on space: China Approves Three Moon Missions After Discovering Mineral That Could Be Energy Source

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NASA Disputes Calling Its Inflatable Heat Shield a "Bouncy Castle"

Martian Bouncy Castle

It was an impressive feat: NASA launched a massive inflatable heat shield all the way into space, only to test it by crashing it down in the Pacific Ocean near Hawaii.

The stunt, dubbed the Low-Earth Orbit Flight Test of an Inflatable Decelerator (LOFTID), was meant to lay the groundwork of a system capable of landing humans safely on the surface of Mars.

At 30 feet in diameter, the flying saucer-shaped device is meant to act like a giant crash pad for spacecraft as they make their way through the atmosphere of an alien planet.

In other words, it's not unlike a bouncy castle that can be packed away when not in use, as The New York Times' Kenneth Chang suggested.

But that kind of comparison didn't sit well with the people in charge of the project.

"I would say that would be inaccurate," Neil Cheatwood, principal investigator for LOFTID, told Chang.

Splashdown

Early Thursday morning, an Atlas V rocket blasted off with LOFTID in its packed-up state in tow into low-Earth orbit.

Just over two hours later, the massive inflatable device screamed through the Earth's atmosphere, harmlessly splashing down near Hawaii.

The heat shield can act as a huge brake during descent, slowing down large payloads. It's designed to survive a massive 18,000 mph fall, and ward off blistering temperatures of up to 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

During future missions to the Red Planet, it could be our ticket to getting to the surface in one piece, according to NASA, when used in tandem with other systems such as parachutes or rockets.

But before we plan our first crewed mission to Mars, where's the harm in investigating if LOFTID could serve double duty as a bouncy castle once we get there?

READ MORE: NASA Launched an Inflatable Flying Saucer, Then Landed It in the Ocean [The New York Times]

More on landing on Mars: NASA Testing Giant "Crumple Zone" Gadget That Would Let Rovers Crash Into Mars and Survive

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Divers Discover Fragment of Challenger Space Shuttle Under Ocean

Divers, who were looking for a WW2 aircraft wreckage off the Florida Space Coast discovered the heat shield remains of NASA's space shuttle Challenger.

A Rare Find

A TV documentary crew of divers who were looking for the wreckage of a World War II aircraft off the Florida Space Coast made a startling and unexpected discovery: the heat shield remains of NASA's space shuttle Challenger.

It's an incredibly rare space artifact that acts a somber reminder of the deadly 1986 disaster, a dark chapter in the history of space exploration.

"While it has been nearly 37 years since seven daring and brave explorers lost their lives aboard Challenger, this tragedy will forever be seared in the collective memory of our country," NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said in a statement. "This discovery gives us an opportunity to pause once again, to uplift the legacies of the seven pioneers we lost, and to reflect on how this tragedy changed us."

What they uncover off the coast of Florida, outside of the Triangle, marks the first discovery of wreckage from the 1986 Space Shuttle Challenger in more than 25 years. Don’t miss the premiere of The Bermuda Triangle: Into Cursed Waters on Tuesday, November 22 at 10/9C. pic.twitter.com/LWUoFXxEnK

— HISTORY (@HISTORY) November 10, 2022

Challenger Discovery

According to the TV network History, it's the first Challenger wreckage to have been discovered in more than 25 years. Footage shared by the network show divers examining small eight-inch tiles making up a large mosaic.

NASA now has to decide whether it wants to recover the wreckage. Other pieces of the Challenger spacecraft were put on display to the public for the first time back in 2015 at NASA's Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex.

The fateful 1986 launch was NASA's 25th Shuttle mission, but 73 seconds after liftoff, it disintegrated at 46,000 feet, a tragedy watched live by countless people around the world on TV.

"Challenger and her crew live on in the hearts and memories of both NASA and the nation," said Kennedy Space Center Director Janet Petro in the statement.

"Today, as we turn our sights again toward the Moon and Mars, we see that the same love of exploration that drove the Challenger crew is still inspiring the astronauts of today’s Artemis Generation," she added, "calling them to build on the legacy of knowledge and discovery for the benefit of all humanity."

The History Channel will air its documentary about the rare find on November 22.

READ MORE: NASA Views Images, Confirms Discovery of Shuttle Challenger Artifact [NASA]

More on NASA: NASA Inspecting Moon Rocket for Damage From Hurricane Nicole

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Divers Discover Fragment of Challenger Space Shuttle Under Ocean

Unexploded Shell Removed From Soldier’s Chest by Surgeons Wearing Body Armor

Surgery had to quickly be performed to remove an unexploded shell lodged in a Russian soldier's chest with no guarantee it wouldn't detonate at any moment.

A Russian soldier was rushed to the ER. His diagnosis? An unexploded shell lodged so deep in his chest it was almost touching his spine.

The soldier, junior sergeant Nikolay Pasenko, probably should've been dead already from either the impact or the impending detonation. But instead, defying all expectations, he lived — thanks to surgeons at the Mandryk Central Military Clinical Hospital who successfully removed the shell in an operation that's been dubbed a "miracle" by TASS, a state-owned Russian news agency.

Given Russia's ongoing and near-universally condemned war in Ukraine, you might be inclined to doubt the veracity of the source — but miracles like this have happened before.

"The patient was admitted with a wound that had penetrated [his] chest," the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement, as quoted by TASS. "The examination revealed that the miraculously unexploded ordnance had pierced [his] ribs and lungs and got lodged close to the spinal cord, between the aorta and the inferior vena cava near the heart."

There was no guarantee that the munition wouldn't explode mid-surgery. The doctors — some military, some civilian — decided to operate on the soldier anyway, wearing body armor under their medical gowns, the Ministry said.

And the surgery had to be done fast — Pasenko was bleeding so profusely that there was no time to dawdle on a decision, let alone relocate to a safer or better equipped location.

"The unexploded shell was stuck between the aorta and the inferior vena cava close to the heart, which could have caused fatal bleeding even without the ordnance's detonation," Medical Corps Lieutenant-Colonel Dmitry Kim, who led the operation, told TASS. "A decision was made to carry out the surgery locally."

That decision proved to be the right call. The shell was removed without detonation, and a recovering Pasenko was shipped off to a central hospital.

But post-surgery, Pasenko said that, at the time, he was opposed to the doctors risking their lives.

"The surgeon ventured to perform the operation, I was against it," he told the Russian news agency. "And now you see that I am sitting in front of you."

"My thanks to surgeon Dmitry Kim and I will be grateful to him for the rest of my life. He replied: 'So, we will explode together.' That's it. He is a very courageous man," Pasenko said.

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Chinese Space Debris Crashes Down in the Philippines

ABC News reports that Chinese space debris from another one of the nation's Long March 5B rockets was just discovered at sea off the Philippines coastline.

Not Again

It happened again. ABC News reports that Chinese space debris from another one of the nation's heavy lift Long March 5B rockets was just discovered at sea off the Philippines' coastline.

The rocket remains are believed to be those of the Long March 5B that launched from the Wenchang Space Launch Center on Hainan island last week, which was reportedly carrying a payload with laboratory materials to the Tiangong Chinese space station.

This isn't the first time that the Philippines has been threatened by Chinese space junk. Now, per ABC, officials from the Philippine Space Agency are pushing authorities in Manila to ratify UN treaties regarding space junk. If those treaties are signed, citizens of the island nation would be allowed to seek restitution for any injury or damage caused by falling rocket debris.

Sky Fall

Considering that the Philippines are under China's direct space flight path, it's fair for officials to worry. In fact, back in August the nation was technically hit twice by Long March 5B junk — once at the beginning of the rocket's launch, and once at the end.

"This shows that the risk is higher for us," an official told the Philippine newspaper the The Inquirer at the time, "because we are under the flight path of most Chinese rocket launches."

Though neither of the recent Long March 5B crashes near the island actually hit land, they very well could. After all, they've done so before. A defunct rocket core made landfall in West Africa last Spring, and more recently, a chunk of a Long March 2D — a different, but apparently equally chaotic — rocket crashed into a Chinese field. And while no lives have been taken by falling space junk thus far, there's certainly a risk, and experts have even warned that there's a ten percent risk that falling cosmic trash will cause human casualties in the next decade.

For its part, China has yet to express any legitimate concern over its extremely messy rockets. And as there's yet to be much in the way of international governance for ensuring that any and all spacefaring nations keep potentially dangerous debris in check, it appears to have little incentive to change its ways.

READ MORE: Suspected Chinese rocket debris found in Philippine waters [ABC News]

More on dangerous debris: Large Chunk of Chinese Rocket Comes Crashing down, Lodges in Field

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Chinese Space Debris Crashes Down in the Philippines

A Tesla Executive Under Investigation Is Now Working at SpaceX for Some Reason

A ranking Tesla employee is taking a role as vice president of SpaceX's Starship production — even though he's under internal investigation.

Making Moves

It seems ill-advised to hire an employee who's under investigation at one of your other companies in a ranking position, but then again, Elon Musk is far from an ordinary CEO.

That's on full display as SpaceX hires Tesla's Texas plant lieutenant Omead Afshar, who according to sources close to the matter that spoke to Bloomberg has been brought on as vice president of Starship production.

Over the summer, Afshar — reportedly a close confidante of Musk's — was, as the news site reported at the time, under internal investigation for a sketchy plan he allegedly had to buy difficult-to-source construction materials for Tesla. During the investigation, some of the executive's subordinates were fired. But Afshar himself seems to have had a golden, well, Starship.

And pickle ball! https://t.co/InqxFkip7y

— Omead Afshar (@omead) November 6, 2022

Shuffleboard

It remains unclear whether Afshar is still working at Tesla as well, or if he was shuffled over to SpaceX as a result of his investigation. Sources did, however, tell Bloomberg that he hasn't been seen at Tesla's Austin plant in weeks.

Whether he was moved from Tesla to SpaceX or is working both companies, it wouldn't be the first time for either. Musk sent has shuffled Tesla employees to SpaceX previously and even sent them to Twitter in recent weeks. And as Bloomberg notes, another of his close consiglieres, Charles Keuhmann, is an executive at both companies.

To make this kind of hiring move would be weird enough in a regular context, but the fact that Musk is doing so while wreaking havoc over at his other new company makes it seem all the stranger.

More on Musk: MSN Ran a Story About Grimes and Elon Musk That's Completely Fake

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A Tesla Executive Under Investigation Is Now Working at SpaceX for Some Reason

Elon Musk Might Get Thrashed by Lawsuit From Heavy Metal Drummer

Richard Tornetta, a former metal drummer, sued CEO Elon Musk back in 2018, a suit which is headed to court next week. Experts say he should be worried.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk's just might get shredded this time.

Richard Tornetta, a former metal drummer who made a small investment in Tesla, sued CEO Elon Musk and the company's board in what is called a "shareholder derivative lawsuit" back in 2018, Reuters reports.

The case survived a 2019 motion to dismiss and is set to kick off in a Delaware court on Monday — which will feature Musk's own testimony and Kathaleen McCormick, the same judge who oversaw his initial bid to get out of his chaotic Twitter deal.

If Tornetta were to win, Musk would have to rescind his 2018 stock grants pay package worth $55 billion, a potentially devastating blow, especially considering the fact that Musk has already been selling off appreciable amounts of Tesla stock to fund his acquisition of Twitter.

While these kinds of lawsuits are usually dismissed as "nuisance suits" by business groups, "this case looks different," as Jessica Erickson, a professor at University of Richmond School of Law, told Reuters.

Tornetta, who runs an aftermarket car parts company and used to drum for a now-defunct metal band called "Dawn of Correction," maintains Tesla's board had undisclosed conflicts.

His suit alleges that Musk came up with his own pay plan with help of with his former divorce attorney Todd Maron, who also happened to sit on Tesla's general counsel until late 2018, CNBC reported back in March.

Musk also allegedly set the bar too low for hitting 12 performance targets, as laid out in the 2018 stock grants plan. The plan allows Musk to buy one percent of Tesla stock at a significant discount for each met target.

So far, Tesla has hit 11 out of the 12 targets, according to Reuters, but Tornetta's lawyers argue that three of those goals had already been met when shareholders met to vote on the pay package, something they say wasn't properly disclosed.

Musk and his legal team maintain that the targets kept Musk on track during a difficult time, and eventually led to a massive rise in stock price.

"The plan designed and approved by the board was not a typical pay package intended to compensate the ordinary executive for overseeing the day-to-day operations of a mature company," Musk's attorney said during a pre-trial brief, as quoted by Bloomberg, arguing that the situation called for an extraordinary pay package.

For now, all we can do is wait and see whether the lawsuit will bang heads in court.

READ MORE: Elon Musk braces for $56 billion battle with heavy metal drummer [Reuters]

More on Tesla: Tesla Issues Software Patch So That Its Cars Don't Lose Power Steering on Potholes

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Tesla Reportedly Canceling Solar Roof Installations Across the Country

According to reporting by Elektrek, Tesla's solar division is pulling out its solar roof program across the country, with solar employees getting laid off.

The Sun Sets

Eager customers of Tesla's solar roof program have been left holding the bag as the EV automaker says it's nixing operations in numerous markets, Electrek reports.

The cancellations underscore the degree to which the program has never really taken off. By Elecktrek's estimates, Tesla only installed its solar roofs on around 300 houses during the second quarter of 2022 — an underwhelming figure, especially since CEO Elon Musk has claimed the company's energy division will become as large as its automotive one.

And now, some Tesla Solar customers have been receiving emails from the company telling them that their orders for solar panels are being canceled.

"Upon further review of your project, our team has determined that your home is in an area we no longer service," the emails read, as quoted by Electrek. "As we cannot complete your order, we have processed your cancellation."

Solar Scapegoat

Tesla tends to be opaque when it comes to its energy division, so it's unclear which specific markets got screwed over. Electrek says the reports it's received have come from customers "in major solar markets including the greater Los Angeles area, Northern California, Oregon, and Florida."

In addition, the outlet also reports that Tesla has laid off employees in the solar scheduling, planning, and design department, but just how many is unspecified.

Historically, Tesla's solar program — controversially acquired by buying the company SolarCity in 2016 — is the one that gets the short end of the stick when it comes to reining in the budget.

In 2019, Musk admitted in a pre-trial deposition that, "If I did not take everyone off of solar and focus them on the Model 3 program to the detriment of solar, then Tesla would have gone bankrupt."

"So I took everyone from solar, and said: 'instead of working on solar, you need to work on the Model 3 program.' And as a result, solar suffered, as you would expect," he added.

Musk similarly admitted in 2022 that, for the year before, he had "shortchanged" Tesla's energy division in favor of pushing out more cars.

Considering that Musk bought the division from SolarCity with the alleged intention of bailing out his cousins that owned it, maybe it's not too surprising that the CEO seems to have no qualms over gutting it multiple times.

More on Tesla: Elon Musk Is Suddenly Selling Tesla Stock Like Crazy

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NASA’s head warned that China may try to claim the Moon two space scholars explain why that’s unlikely to happen – The Conversation

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson recently expressed concerns over Chinas aims in space, and in particular, that China would, in some way, claim ownership over the Moon and stop other countries from exploring it. In an interview with a German newspaper, Nelson cautioned, We must be very concerned that China is landing on the Moon and saying: Its ours now and you stay out. China immediately denounced the claims as a lie.

This spat between the administrator of NASA and Chinese government officials comes at a time when both nations are actively working on missions to the Moon and China has not been shy about its lunar aspirations.

In 2019, China became the first country to land a spacecraft on the far side of the Moon. That same year, China and Russia announced joint plans to reach the South Pole of the Moon by 2026. And some Chinese officials and government documents have expressed intentions to build a permanent, crewed International Lunar Research Station by 2027.

There is big difference between China or any state for that matter setting up a lunar base and actually taking over the Moon. As two scholars who study space security and Chinas space program, we believe that neither China nor any other nation is likely to take over the Moon in the near future. It is not only illegal, it is also technologically daunting the costs of such an endeavor would be extremely high, while the potential payoffs would be uncertain.

Legally, China cannot take over the Moon because it is against current international space law. The Outer Space Treaty, adopted in 1967 and signed by 134 countries, including China, explicitly states that Outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means (Article II). Legal scholars have debated the exact meaning of appropriation, but under a literal interpretation, the treaty indicates that no country can take possession of the Moon and declare it an extension of its national aspirations and prerogatives. If China tried to do this, it would risk international condemnation and a potential international retaliatory response.

While no country can claim ownership of the Moon, Article I of the Outer Space Treaty allows any state to explore and use outer space and celestial bodies. China will not be the only visitor to the South Pole of the Moon in the near future. The U.S.-led Artemis Accords is a group of 20 countries that has plans to return humans to the Moon by 2025, which will include the establishment of a research station on the lunar surface and a supporting space station in orbit called the Gateway with a planned launch in November 2024.

Even if no country can legally claim sovereignty over the Moon, it is possible that China, or any other country, would attempt to gradually establish de facto control over strategically important areas through a strategy known as salami slicing. This practice involves taking small, incremental steps to achieve a big change: Individually, those steps do not warrant a strong response, but their cumulative effect adds up to significant developments and increased control. China has recently been using this strategy in the South and East China seas. Still, such a strategy takes time and can be addressed.

With a surface area of nearly 14.6 million square miles (39 million square kilometers) or almost five times the area of Australia any control of the Moon would be temporary and localized.

More plausibly, China could attempt to secure control of specific lunar areas that are strategically valuable, such as lunar craters with higher concentrations of water ice. Ice on the Moon is important because it will provide water to humans that wouldnt need to be shipped from Earth. Ice can also serve as a vital source of oxygen and hydrogen, which could be used as rocket fuel. In short, water ice is essential for ensuring the long-term sustainability and survivability of any mission to the Moon or beyond.

Securing and enforcing control of strategic lunar areas would require substantial financial investments and long-term efforts. And no country could do this without everyone noticing.

China is investing heavily in space. In 2021, it led in number of orbital launches with a total of 55 compared to the U.S.s 51. China is also in the top three in spacecraft deployment for 2021. Chinas state-owned StarNet space company is planning a megaconstellation of 12,992 satellites, and the country has nearly finished building the Tiangong space station.

Going to the Moon is expensive; taking over the Moon would be much more so. Chinas space budget an estimated US$13 billion in 2020 is only around half that of NASAs. Both the U.S. and China increased their space budgets in 2020, the U.S. by 5.6% and China by 17.1% compared to the previous year. But even with the increased spending, China does not seem to be investing the money needed to carry out the expensive, daring and uncertain mission of taking over the Moon.

If China assumes control over some part of the moon, it would be a risky, expensive and extremely provocative action. China would risk further tarnishing its international image by breaking international law, and it may invite retaliation. All this for uncertain payoffs that remain to be determined.

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NASA's head warned that China may try to claim the Moon two space scholars explain why that's unlikely to happen - The Conversation

NASAs plan to return to the Moonand stay – EL PAS USA

Astronaut Eugene A. Cernan during the 'Apollo XVII' mission, the last time the Moon was walked on.NASA

At the end of 2017, coinciding with the 45th anniversary of the last flight of the Apollo program to the Moon, former US President Donald Trump signed a presidential directive that urged NASA to renew its efforts to return to the Moon as soon as possible. He did not set a date, but just a year later, former Vice President Mike Pence did: 2024. He was presumably counting on an eventual re-election of Trump, who would attempt to repeat John F. Kennedys achievement from half a century earlier. But the deadline was too tight. NASA had neither the right ship nor the right rocket, nor a concrete plan of how to do it. The Apollo program had been conceived essentially as a gesture for national prestige, with limited scientific ambitions. A return to the Moon would be an exploration mission with broader objectives than just planting the ceremonial flags. Thus was born the Artemis program, NASAs plan to reconquer the Moon.

The initiative is named after Apollos twin sister in Greek mythology. Its delays began to accumulate almost as soon as the plan was conceived. NASA never officially revealed its intentions beyond the first three flights: the first would depart without a crew; the second would include astronauts, who would orbit around the Moon; and the third would touch down on its surface. The landing was scheduled for 2025, which many experts considered an impossible deadline.

The lunar spacecraft Orion and its carrier rocket, the SLS, have not yet flown. Both should debut this summer. The Orion is an orbital capsule, which cannot descend to the Moons surface. The mission has been entrusted to Space Xs StarShip, which presented the best financial offer.

On paper, the Starship seems as promising as it is revolutionary: a freighter, an orbital spacecraft with capacity for dozens of crew members, a suborbital vehicle for transporting passengers, an in-flight refueling tanker, a landing capsule on the Moon andfinallya Mars explorer. So far, though, its prototype has not reached more than 15 kilometers in height, and it has only managed to complete one successful landing.

A draft of the plans for future flights has just appeared, leaked to the media outlet Ars Technica. Artemis 4 would be used to begin construction of an orbital station around the Moon, which would involve substantial European cooperation. That would take place between 2027 and 2029, at the soonest, and would require at least two or three more flights.

NASA contemplates five more Artemis missions in the next decade. They plan to take elements to the Moon to build a small permanent base, as well as a pressurized vehicle that would be something like a rolling laboratory similar to the one from the movie Mars. The last planned flight is the Artemis 9, scheduledwith great optimismfor 2034.

The plans greatest obstacle is its staggering cost. It is not clear that Washington will agree to cover bills that will exceed $4 billion dollars per flight, almost 20% of NASAs total current budget. And questions are already being raised concerning the use of the new SLS superrocket, now resting on its ramp at the Kennedy Center.

The process of designing the SLS began before Space X demonstrated the possibility of recovering the rockets for reuse. Since then, Elon Musks company has recycled some of its launchers in more than a dozen flights, consequently decreasing the cost of each operation. When it takes off, the SLS will be a throwaway rocket: its four main enginesharvested from old space shuttleswill go to the bottom of the Atlantic.

Since it used engines, center tank and side throttles all from the Shuttle program, the SLS should have been cheaper than the Saturn 5 of the 1960s. But it wasnt. Each moon rocket in the Apollo program cost about $1.4 billion in current dollars; each shuttle, about $1.5 billion. The SLS will start at $2.2 billion, without counting its astronomical development costs. For future lunar operations, an even more powerful version will be necessary.

SLS is not the only Achilles heel of the Artemis program. Many believe that the Gateway base around the Moon makes less sense than providing a secure high-altitude mooring point for the Orion capsule, whose engines would not allow it to pull itself out of a low lunar orbit. The future StarShip (known as HLS: Human Landing System) will also have to dock on the orbital station, but it will be much larger than the Gateway itself, and the two structures would have numerous duplicated systems. It is not clear whether the cost and time spent building the station are justifiable and whether a cheaper alternative is possible.

Perhaps the answer should be sought not in technology but in politics. Twelve years ago, the SLS program was designed to appease large aerospace contractors who were concerned about the end of shuttle operations and the subsequent job loss. Almost all the states got a more or less important piece of the pie, depending on the negotiating skills of their representatives in Washington. All together, they received $24 billion in development expenses alone.

We are no longer in Kennedys times, when going to the Moon was a matter of national pride. Now it is just a matter of business.

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NASAs plan to return to the Moonand stay - EL PAS USA

Garbage on International Space Station- here is how NASA throws it out in space – HT Tech

ISS crew members now have a new way to dispose of garbage on the space station.

The rising number of satellite launches and spacecraft are causing a tremendous amount of traffic in space. Not just that, there is so much space junk floating around in Earth orbit that it threatens the lives of those on the International Space Station (ISS). However, here we focus on the garbage generated on the ISS, which too is adding to the trash floating in space. Massive amounts of trash is created by those living in Space. Now, there's some good news for the astronauts, at least! The crew members on the ISS have got a new way to dispose of garbage. The International Space Station has recently ejected roughly 172 pounds (78 kilograms) of garbage within a specialized trash bag on July 2 from the station's commercial Bishop Airlock, Nanoracks informed in a press release. Nanoracks created these airlock systems to dispose of garbage in space.

"We have some incredibly exciting news to share from the weekend: as of 7:05 PM Central on Saturday, July 2, we successfully cycled the Bishop Airlock aboard the International Space Station (ISS) and deployed Nanoracks first-of-its-kind technology to dispose of approximately 172 lbs of waste from the station!" Nanoracks announced in a statement. This was a test of new orbital waste-disposal tech conducted by Nanoracks in collaboration with NASAs Johnson Space Center and according to the report, it went swimmingly well.

Till now, Astronauts aboard the ISS used to collect trash and store it in their orbiting home for months. It is the Cygnus cargo vehicle which used to arrive and collect their bags of trash before it was released from the space station for de-orbit. Later, the entire spacecraft filled with the bags of garbage used to burn up while reentering the Earths atmosphere. But now, with this new waste disposal system, the ISS crew can fill the container with up to 600 lbs of trash, which will then be released and the Airlock is re-mounted empty.

"..individual pieces of hardware have been jettisoned from ISS, and a few bundles of equipment have been hand jettisoned during spacewalks, this is the first use of an airlock trash bag ejection system on the ISS," a tweet by Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics reads.

This might be the first time for ISS to dispose of garbage in an Airlock disposable system, but it is not new to space flights! Yes, the same trash disposal system was earlier used a number of times. McDowell says in another tweet, Worth recalling that trash bags were regularly jettisoned from the Soviet Salyut space stations in the 1970s and 1980s."

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Garbage on International Space Station- here is how NASA throws it out in space - HT Tech