In Case You Missed It: A Weekly Summary of Top Content from NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center
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Webb Telescope’s Coldest Instrument Reaches Operating Temperature
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope will see the first galaxies to form after the big bang, but to do that its instruments first need to get cold – really cold. On April 7, Webb’s Mid-Infrared Instrument – a joint development by NASA and the European Space Agency – reached its final operating temperature of minus 447 degrees Fahrenheit.
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Hubble Confirms Largest Comet Nucleus Ever Seen
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has determined the size of the largest icy comet nucleus ever seen by astronomers. The estimated diameter is approximately 80 miles across, making it larger than the state of Rhode Island. Learn more about the comet, whose nucleus is about 50 times larger than found at the heart of most known comets.
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Checking in on the Cameras of NASA’s Asteroids-Bound Lucy Spacecraft
On Feb. 14, NASA’s Lucy spacecraft, which is in the first few months of its journey to the Trojan asteroids, obtained a series of calibration images with its four visible-light cameras. The first test images were taken in November 2021, shortly after Lucy’s Oct. 16, 2021, launch, but the February test was much more extensive.
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NASA, SpaceX Adjust Agency’s Crew-4 Launch Date
NASA and SpaceX now are targeting no earlier than April 23 for the launch of the agency’s Crew-4 mission to the International Space Station from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The date adjustment provides mission teams time to complete final prelaunch processing for the Crew-4 mission following the April 8 launch of Axiom Mission 1 to the space station.
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NASA Shows Off Psyche Spacecraft to Media
Engineers are putting the final touches on NASA’s Psyche spacecraft, which is set to launch from Cape Canaveral, Florida, in August on its journey to a metal-rich asteroid of the same name. Members of the media got a chance to see the spacecraft up close in a clean room at the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory on April 11.
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