In Case You Missed It: A Weekly Summary of Top Content from NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center
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Technicians Apply Thermal Protection Material to NASA Moon Rocket Hardware
Technicians at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, have completed applying thermal protection system material to the launch vehicle stage adapter (LVSA) of NASA’s SLS (Space Launch System) rocket for Artemis III, which will land astronauts on the Moon to advance long-term lunar exploration and scientific discovery and inspire the Artemis Generation. The LVSA is a cone-shaped element connecting the mega rocket’s core stage to its interim cryogenic propulsion stage (ICPS), partially enclosing it and protecting its avionics and electrical systems from the extreme pressures, sounds, and temperatures during launch and flight. Teams at Marshall began applying the thermal protection system material earlier this spring. Unlike other parts of the SLS rocket, the thermal protection system material for the LVSA is applied entirely by hand using a spray gun.
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Station Crew Focuses on Spacewalks, Cargo Mission After Ax-2
The seven Expedition 69 crew members are turning their attention to a pair of spacewalks and a cargo mission after saying goodbye to their Axiom Mission-2 (Ax-2) guests on Tuesday. Meanwhile, a pair of experiments onboard the International Space Station on Wednesday looked at monitoring health and 3D printing. The four astronauts and three cosmonauts that comprise Expedition 69 are resuming their standard mission activities today following the departure of four Ax-2 astronauts. Next up in June for the orbital residents are a pair of spacewalks to upgrade the station’s power generation system and a commercial resupply mission.
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Hubble Captures a Drifting Galaxy
The jellyfish galaxy JW39 hangs serenely in this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. This galaxy lies over 900 million light-years away in the constellation Coma Berenices and is one of several jellyfish galaxies Hubble has been studying over the past two years. Despite this jellyfish galaxy’s serene appearance, it is adrift in a ferociously hostile environment: a galaxy cluster. Compared to their more isolated counterparts, the galaxies in galaxy clusters are often distorted by the gravitational pull of larger neighbors, which can twist galaxies into a variety of shapes. If that was not enough, the space between galaxies in a cluster is also pervaded with a searingly hot plasma known as the intracluster medium. While this plasma is extremely tenuous, galaxies moving through it experience it almost like swimmers fighting against a current, and this interaction can strip galaxies of their star-forming gas.
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Webb Maps Surprisingly Large Plume Jetting from Saturn’s Moon Enceladus
A water vapor plume from Saturn’s moon Enceladus spanning more than 6,000 miles – nearly the distance from Los Angeles, California to Buenos Aires, Argentina – has been detected by researchers using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. Not only is this the first time such a water emission has been seen over such an expansive distance, but Webb is also giving scientists a direct look, for the first time, at how this emission feeds the water supply for the entire system of Saturn and its rings. Enceladus, an ocean world about four percent the size of Earth, just 313 miles across, is one of the most exciting scientific targets in our solar system in the search for life beyond Earth. Sandwiched between the moon’s icy outer crust and its rocky core is a global reservoir of salty water. Geyser-like volcanos spew jets of ice particles, water vapor, and organic chemicals out of crevices in the moon’s surface informally called ‘tiger stripes.’ Previously, observatories have mapped jets hundreds of miles from the moon’s surface, but Webb’s exquisite sensitivity reveals a new story.
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NASA, Rocket Lab Complete Launch of TROPICS CubeSat Constellation
The final pair of NASA’s TROPICS (Time-Resolved Observations of Precipitation structure and storm Intensity with a Constellation of Smallsats) are in orbit after successfully launching at 3:46 p.m. NZST Friday, May 26 (11:46 p.m. EDT Thursday, May 25), completing the constellation. TROPICS launched aboard an Electron rocket from Rocket Lab’s Launch Complex 1 Pad B in Māhia, New Zealand. The smallsats were deployed at 12:20 a.m. EDT May 26. Signal for the first CubeSat was acquired at 1:16 a.m., and at 2:19 a.m., for the second. Through this mission, NASA will study tropical cyclones and aims to improve forecasting for hurricanes and typhoons.
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