NASA to Talk Science Highlights of First Artemis Robotic Moon Landing

NASA will host a What’s on Board media teleconference at 2 p.m. EST Wednesday, Nov. 29, to discuss the science payloads flying aboard the first commercial robotic flight to the lunar surface as part of the agency’s CLPS (Commercial Lunar Payload Services) initiative under the Artemis program.

Carrying NASA and commercial payloads to the Moon, Astrobotic Technologies will launch its Peregrine lander on ULA’s (United Launch Alliance) Vulcan rocket. Liftoff of the ULA Vulcan rocket is targeted no earlier than Sunday, Dec. 24, from Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. The Peregrine lunar lander will touch down on the Moon in early 2024.

Audio of the call will stream on the agency’s website at:

https://www.nasa.gov/nasatv

Briefing participants include:

• Joel Kearns, deputy associate administrator for Exploration, Science Mission Directorate, NASA Headquarters in Washington
• Ryan Watkins, program scientist, Exploration Science Strategy and Integration Office, NASA Headquarters
• Chris Culbert, program manager, CLPS, NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston
• John Thornton, CEO, Astrobotic, Pittsburgh

To participate by telephone, media must RSVP no later than two hours before the briefing to: ksc-newsroom@mail.nasa.gov.

NASA awarded a task order for the delivery of scientific payloads to Astrobotic in May 2019. Among the items on its lander, the Peregrine Mission One will carry NASA payloads investigating the lunar exosphere, thermal properties of the lunar regolith, hydrogen abundances in the soil at the landing site, and magnetic fields, as well as radiation environment monitoring. 

Through Artemis, NASA is working with multiple CLPS vendors to establish a regular cadence of payload deliveries to the Moon to perform experiments, test technologies, and demonstrate capabilities to help NASA explore the lunar surface. This pool of companies may bid on task orders to deliver NASA payloads to the Moon. Task orders include payload integration and operations, launching from Earth, and landing on the surface of the Moon. The indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity CLPS contracts have a cumulative maximum value of $2.6 billion through 2028.

With CLPS, as well as with human exploration near the lunar South Pole, NASA will establish a long-term cadence of Moon missions in preparation for sending the first astronauts to Mars.

For more Artemis updates, follow along at:

https://blogs.nasa.gov/artemis/

-end-

Karen Fox / Alise Fisher
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600 / 202-358-2546
karen.fox@nasa.gov / alise.m.fisher@nasa.gov

Nilufar Ramji
Johnson Space Center, Houston
281-483-5111
nilufar.ramji@nasa.gov

Antonia Jaramillo
Kennedy Space Center, Florida
321-501-8425
antonia.jaramillobotero@nasa.gov

Powered by WPeMatico

Get The Details…
Abbey A. Donaldson

PRIME-1 Simulation

A team of engineers participate in simulation training for the Polar Resources Ice Mining Experiment-1 (PRIME-1) on Thursday, Nov. 2, 2023, inside the Neil Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The purpose of the training is to get the integrated PRIME-1 team – engineers with PRIME-1’s MSOLO (Mass Spectrometer Observing Lunar Operations) and Honeybee Robotics’ TRIDENT (The Regolith and Ice Drill for Exploring New Terrain) drill – prepared to operate the instrument on the lunar surface. The team commanded the PRIME-1 hardware, located at Intuitive Machines in Houston, to operate MSOLO and TRIDENT.

“While the MSOLO and TRIDENT teams have been independently training extensively, it’s exciting to have both teams in the room together operating our hardware concurrently,” said Pri Johnson, one of the MSOLO systems engineers. “There’s a tangible energy in the room this week as we all work together for this mission simulation. It all started to feel very real!”

PRIME-1 is scheduled to launch through NASA’s CLPS (Commercial Lunar Payload Delivery Service) initiative and will be the first in-situ resource utilization demonstration on the Moon, with MSOLO and TRIDENT making up its two primary components. Through Artemis missions, CLPS deliveries will be used to perform science experiments, test technologies, and demonstrate capabilities to help NASA explore the Moon and prepare for human deep space exploration missions.

Photo credit: NASA/Frank Michaux

Powered by WPeMatico

Get The Details…
Jason Costa

Seeing Sagittarius C in a New Light

A star-forming region, named Sagittarius C (Sgr C), is seen in exceptional detail in this image from Nov. 20, 2023, thanks to the Near-Infrared Camera instrument on NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. An estimated 500,000 stars shine in this image of the Sgr C region, along with some never-before-seen features astronomers have yet to explain.

Image Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, and S. Crowe (University of Virginia)

Powered by WPeMatico

Get The Details…
Monika Luabeya

NASA OSBP Celebrates Small Business Saturday 2023

A Journey of Support and Community Impact

Small Business Saturday is an annual holiday that encourages shoppers to support local businesses. Taking place on the Saturday following Thanksgiving, it stands as a dedicated day to celebrate and rally support for the contributions small businesses make to their communities. This year, amid the challenges posed by the coronavirus pandemic, the emphasis on supporting small businesses is more crucial than ever as they navigate and adapt to evolving circumstances.

The History and Evolution:

As of 2013, communities actively embraced the holiday, expressing solidarity by pledging support for their local businesses and organizations.

The timeline of Small Business Saturday is marked by the following key milestones:

• 2010: Small Business Saturday was launched
• 2011: The U.S. Senate unanimously passes a resolution endorsing the day
• 2013: Over 1400 individuals become “Neighborhood Champions,” organizing local events
• 2015: The Small Business Administration (SBA) becomes a co-sponsor of Small Business Saturday
• 2020: Americans set a record by spending $19.8 billion on Small Business Saturday
• 2021: Shoppers surpass the previous year’s record, contributing over $20 billion

Today, Small Business Saturday has the unwavering support from private sectors, the SBA, and Women Impacting Public Policy (WIPP), and NASA.

For small business owners, their enterprises transcend mere commercial endeavors — they are extensions of their identities. Supporting local businesses in your community not only ensures their survival but also fosters thriving communities, establishing a symbiotic relationship between these businesses and the people they serve. This year, Small Business Saturday is on November 25, 2023. 

Historically, the NASA Office of Small Business Programs (OSBP) has celebrated this annual holiday by launching a Small Business Saturday Campaign. Now, in 2023, NASA OSBP developed a comprehensive Small Business Saturday Digital Toolkit. This toolkit comprises of digital posters and a virtual background designed to serve as a call-to-action for small business program specialists to integrate it into meetings for a whole week. Our outreach extended beyond the toolkit, urging followers to embrace the theme of “Shop, Support and Sustain!” We invited everyone to display their support by shopping small and tagging us in their posts on social media.

We continue to invite all individuals to help to make this movement a success! Keep an eye out for our upcoming social media posts, where we will be sharing informative strategy guides and an engaging Small Biz Bingo game. Your participation is key to amplifying the impact of this movement, and we look forward to having you on board for another year of supporting and celebrating local businesses.

NASA OSBP is dedicated to championing and uplifting local businesses making an impact on Small Business Saturday and beyond!

Editor: Maliya Malik, NASA Office of Small Business Programs Intern

Powered by WPeMatico

Get The Details…
Garrett Shea

NASA to Highlight Inclusion During Bayou Classic Event 

NASA is bringing a clear message to the 50th Annual Bayou Classic Friday, Nov. 24 and Saturday, Nov. 25 – while exploring the universe for the benefit of all, it is equally invested in ensuring the participation of all in the agency and its discovery work.

The commitment will be on full display during NASA’s outreach and engagement activities at the Bayou Classic weekend in New Orleans. “Our message is simple – there’s space for everybody at NASA,” said Pamela Covington, Office of Communications director at NASA’s Stennis Space Center near Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, which is leading the agency’s Bayou Classic planning. “We need everyone involved if we hope to accomplish our shared mission and truly benefit all humanity.”

The annual Bayou Classic event, which features a football game and a spirited Battle of the Bands, typically attracts more than 200,000 students and supporters from two Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) – Southern University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and Grambling State University in Grambling, Louisiana – to New Orleans.

In addition to signage and social media messaging, NASA Stennis representatives will be on hand during Fan Fest activities Nov. 25 to interact and visit with event participants. Alumni and others will staff a NASA booth at Champions Square next to the Caesars Superdome from 9 a.m. CDT to 12 p.m., to talk about their career paths with the agency and to promote current internship and employment opportunities for minority students and others.

The outreach and engagement effort is part of an agencywide commitment to advance equity and reach deeper into underrepresented and underserved segments of society and is in support of the Biden-Harris Administration’s efforts to advance racial equity in the federal government. NASA’s 2022 Equity Plan outlines the agency’s efforts to increase participation in areas such as procurements and contracts, as well as grants and cooperative agreements. The agency also is working to eliminate visible and invisible barriers to full participation, and to increase NASA outreach to underserved communities. The agency is scheduled to update the plan and its progress by year’s end.

Frontline evidence of the agency’s commitment to inclusion also is seen in its plan to return humans, including the first woman and the first person of color, to the Moon through Artemis missions, powered by NASA’s SLS (Space Launch System) rocket. That is just one aspect of the agency’s across-the-board diversity work.

The NASA Minority University Research and Education Project is another example. Through the initiative, NASA provides financial awards to minority-serving institutions, including HBCUs, to assist faculty and students alike in STEM-related research efforts. The initiative also focuses on providing internship opportunities and career paths for minority members.

NASA also has launched a Science Mission Directorate Bridge Program to develop partnerships with underserved institutions such as HBCUs and to promote diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility within the agency. The primary focus is to help transition science and engineering students from undergraduate studies into graduate schools and/or employment by NASA or related institutions.

Along the same lines, a new NASA Space Tech Catalyst Prize seeks to recognize individuals and/or organizations that share effective best practices on ways to engage underrepresented and diverse space technology innovators, researchers, technologists, and entrepreneurs. The initiative is built on the premise that diversity leads to greater innovation, research, and mission success.

Social Media

Stay connected with the mission on social media, and let people know you’re following it on X, Facebook, and Instagram using the hashtags #Artemis, #BayouClassic50, #NASA_HBCUs. Follow and tag these accounts:

Explore More

9 min read

Lagniappe

Article


6 days ago

2 min read

NASA Conducts 1st Hot Fire of New RS-25 Certification Test Series

Article


1 month ago

7 min read

Lagniappe

Article


1 month ago

Keep Exploring

Discover Related Topics

About NASA Stennis

STEM Engagement at Stennis Space Center

Minority University Research & Education Project

SMD Bridge Program

Planning Information Science Mission Directorate Bridge Program Call for ProposalsAnticipated ROSES-22 Amendment or ROSES-23 New Program This page contains Planning…

Powered by WPeMatico

Get The Details…
LaToya Dean