Topic: Astronaut

NASA’s Doug Wheelock gets Astronauts ready for Moon Landing

August 30, 2020 |

Edwards, CA – Astronaut  Doug “Wheels” Wheelock spent his NASA career expanding knowledge of living and working in space. His new mission is working to determine the best way to train astronauts to return to the surface of the Moon.

Wheelock is a veteran test pilot and retired U.S. Army colonel who has accumulated 178 days in space and was a guest speaker at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in California during a recent virtual Safety Day.

Astronaut Scott Parazynski, while anchored to a foot restraint, assessed his repair work as the solar array was fully deployed while Space Suttle Discovery was docked with the International Space Station. Astronaut Doug Wheelock (out of frame) assisted from the truss by keeping an eye on the distance between Parazynski and the array. (Doug “Wheels” Wheelock)

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5 NASA Space Technologies that have driven Auto Innovations

August 28, 2020 |

Washington, D.C. – Space technology developed by and for NASA has made its way into cars and even onto the NASCAR track. Future collaborations with the auto industry and car manufacturers could change how we get from point A to point B. NASA helped drive the following five auto innovations.

NASA has a long history of transferring technology to the private sector. The agency’s Spinoff publication profiles NASA technologies that have transformed into commercial products and services, demonstrating the broader benefits of America’s investment in its space program. Spinoff is a publication of the Technology Transfer program in NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate.

NASA studied the posture astronauts’ bodies naturally assumed in microgravity while onboard the first space station Skylab, shown here. (NASA)

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First SpaceX Crew Dragon piloted by NASA Astronauts docks at International Space Station

June 2, 2020 |

Washington, D.C. – NASA astronauts Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley arrived at the International Space Station on Sunday aboard the first commercially built and operated American spacecraft to carry humans to orbit, opening a new era in human spaceflight.

The pair of astronauts docked to the space station’s Harmony module at 90:16am CT Sunday as the microgravity laboratory flew 262 miles above the border northern China and Mongolia.

The Expedition 63 crew welcomes Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley to the International Space Station. (NASA / Bill Stafford)

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NASA Astronaut Christina Kock, Crewmates return to Earth from International Space Station

February 7, 2020 |

Washington, D.C. – After setting a record for the longest single spaceflight in history by a woman, NASA astronaut Christina Koch returned to Earth Thursday, along with Soyuz Commander Alexander Skvortsov of the Russian space agency Roscosmos and Luca Parmitano of ESA (European Space Agency).

The trio departed the International Space Station at 11:50pm CST and made a safe, parachute-assisted landing at 3:12am (3:12pm Kazakhstan time) southeast of the remote town of Dzhezkazgan, Kazakhstan.

NASA astronaut Christina Koch is helped out of the Soyuz MS-13 spacecraft just minutes after she, Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexander Skvortsov, and ESA astronaut Luca Parmitano, landed their Soyuz MS-13 capsule in a remote area near the town of Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan on Thursday, Feb. 6, 2020. (NASA/Bill Ingalls)

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NASA’s Cold Atom Lab arrives at International Space Station

December 18, 2019 |

Pasadena, CA – NASA Astronaut Christina Koch recently gave a warm welcome to a very cool arrival to the International Space Station: a new piece of hardware for the Cold Atom Lab, an experimental physics facility that chills atoms to almost absolute zero, or minus 459 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 273 degrees Celsius). That’s colder than any known place in the universe.

The Cold Atom Lab has been up and running in the space station’s science module since July 2018 and is operated remotely from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. Five groups of scientists on Earth are using the Cold Atom Lab to conduct a variety of experiments to help answer questions about how our world works at the smallest scales.

NASA Astronaut Christina Koch unloads new hardware for the Cold Atom Lab aboard the International Space Station the week of December 9th, 2020. (NASA)

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NASA’s Mars 2020 mission to use autopilot to maneuver around hazards during landing

July 3, 2019 |

Pasadena, CA – During the first astronaut landing on the Moon, the view of the Sea of Tranquility rising up to meet Neil Armstrong was not what Apollo 11 mission planners had intended.

They had hoped to send the lunar module Eagle toward a relatively flat landing zone with few craters, rocks and boulders. Instead, peering through his small, triangular commander’s window, Armstrong saw a boulder field – very unfriendly for a lunar module.

So the Apollo 11 commander took control of the descent from the onboard computer, piloting Eagle well beyond the boulder field, to a landing site that will forever be known as Tranquility Base.

NASA’s Mars 2020 mission will have an autopilot that helps guide it to safer landings on the Red Planet. (NASA/JPL-Caltech)

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NASA’s Mars 2020 rover mission will pave way for future Astronauts

June 13, 2019 |

Pasadena, CA – A historic moment, when a female astronaut first sets foot on the Moon in 2024 will represent a step toward another NASA first: eventually putting humans on Mars. NASA’s latest robotic mission to the Red Planet, Mars 2020, aims to help future astronauts brave that inhospitable landscape.

When a female astronaut first sets foot on the Moon in 2024, the historic moment will represent a step toward another NASA first: eventually putting humans on Mars. NASA’s latest robotic mission to the Red Planet, Mars 2020, aims to help future astronauts brave that inhospitable landscape.

This artist’s concept depicts astronauts and human habitats on Mars. NASA’s Mars 2020 rover will carry a number of technologies that could make Mars safer and easier to explore for humans. (NASA)

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NASA looks to advance Nanomaterial-Based Detector Platform

February 18, 2019 |

Written by Lori Keesey
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

Greenbelt, MD – A NASA technologist is taking miniaturization to the extreme.

Mahmooda Sultana won funding to advance a potentially revolutionary, nanomaterial-based detector platform. The technology is capable of sensing everything from minute concentrations of gases and vapor, atmospheric pressure and temperature, and then transmitting that data via a wireless antenna — all from the same self-contained platform that measures just two-by-three-inches in size.

Under a $2 million technology development award, Sultana and her team at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, will spend the next two years advancing the autonomous multifunctional sensor platform.

Technologist Mahmooda Sultana holds an early iteration of an autonomous multifunctional sensor platform, which could benefit all of NASA’s major scientific disciplines and efforts to send humans to the Moon and Mars. (NASA/W. Hrybyk)

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NASA Astronaut, Cosmonaut Safe After Abort During Launch to International Space Station

October 12, 2018 |

NASA Headquarters

Washington, D.C. – American astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin are resting comfortably in the city of Baikonur, Kazakhstan, after an anomaly occurred shortly after their launch.

The Soyuz MS-10 spacecraft launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan to the International Space Station at 3:40am CDT Thursday, October 11th, 2018 (2:40pm in Baikonur time) carrying Hague and Ovchinin. Shortly after launch, there was an anomaly with the booster, and the launch ascent was aborted, resulting in a ballistic landing of the spacecraft.

Expedition 57 Flight Engineer Alexey Ovchinin of Roscosmos, left, and Flight Engineer Nick Hague of NASA, right. embrace their families after landing at the Krayniy Airport, Thursday, Oct. 11, 2018. (NASA/Bill Ingalls)

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NASA Mourns the Passing of Astronaut John Young

January 8, 2018 |

NASA Headquarters

Washington, D.C. – Astronaut John Young, who walked on the Moon during Apollo 16 and commanded the first space shuttle mission, died Friday, January 5th, 2018, at the age of 87 from complications of pneumonia. Young began his impressive career at NASA in 1962, when he was selected from among hundreds of young pilots to join NASA’s second astronaut class, known as the “New Nine.”

“Today, NASA and the world have lost a pioneer,” acting NASA Administrator Robert Lightfoot said in a statement. “Astronaut John Young’s storied career spanned three generations of spaceflight; we will stand on his shoulders as we look toward the next human frontier.

John Young’s official astronaut portrait. (NASA)

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