Since the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope in December last year, engineers have been working to deploy the telescope’s hardware, then align both its mirrors and its instruments. Now, that months-long process is complete, and the telescope is confirmed to be fully aligned. NASA and the European Space Agency have shared an image showing the sharpness check of all of Webb’s instruments, showing that they are all crisp and properly focused.
“Engineering images of sharply focused stars in the field of view of each instrument demonstrate that the telescope is fully aligned and in focus,” the European Space Agency writes. “For this test, Webb pointed at part of the Large Magellanic Cloud, a small satellite galaxy of the Milky Way, providing a dense field of hundreds of thousands of stars across all the observatory’s sensors. The sizes and positions of the images shown here depict the relative arrangement of each of Webb’s instruments in the telescope’s focal plane, each pointing at a slightly offset part of the sky relative to one another.”
Engineering images of sharply focused stars in the field of view of each instrument demonstrate that the telescope is fully aligned and in focus.NASA/STScI
The four instruments in question are the Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI), the Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam), the Near-Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec), and the Near-Infrared Imager and Slitless Spectrograph/Fine Guidance Sensor (NIRISS/FGS). Those are three imaging instruments and one spectrograph (an instrument for detecting the composition of objects by separating the light they give off), but the spectrograph can be used to take images as well — like the images shown above which are used for calibration and target selection. If you look at the NIRSpec image you’ll see black bands across it, which are caused by its microshutter array which allows it to open and close tiny windows so that the instrument can observe up to 100 objects at the same time.
All four of the instruments are pointed at the same target so that engineers could check they were all as sharp and accurate as they need to be. And the results are even better than the engineers hoped, resulting in a high degree of image quality which means the instruments are diffraction-limited — meaning that they are getting the maximum amount of detail possible for the size of the telescope.
With the alignments complete, now the team can begin commissioning each instrument. That involves configuring and checking parts of the instruments such as the masks and filters to make sure they are ready for science operations. There are also some final telescope calibration processes required, like checking that the telescope remains at a steady temperature when moving from one target to another. Once all of this is done, the telescope is scheduled to begin science operations this summer.
Engineering images of sharply focused stars in the field of view of each instrument demonstrate that the telescope is fully aligned and in focus. For this test, Webb pointed at part of the Large Magellanic Cloud, a small satellite galaxy of the Milky Way, providing a dense field of hundreds of thousands of stars across all the observatory's sensors. The sizes and positions of the images shown here depict the relative arrangement of each of Webb's instruments in the telescope's focal plane, each pointing at a slightly offset part of the sky relative to one another. Webb's three imaging instruments are NIRCam (images shown here at a wavelength of 2 microns), NIRISS (image shown here at 1.5 microns), and MIRI (shown at 7.7 microns, a longer wavelength revealing emission from interstellar clouds as well as starlight). NIRSpec is a spectrograph rather than imager but can take images, such as the 1.1 micron image shown here, for calibrations and target acquisition. The dark regions visible in parts of the NIRSpec data are due to structures of its microshutter array, which has several hundred thousand controllable shutters that can be opened or shut to select which light is sent into the spectrograph. Lastly, Webb's Fine Guidance Sensor tracks guide stars to point the observatory accurately and precisely; its two sensors are not generally used for scientific imaging but can take calibration images such as those shown here. This image data is used not just to assess image sharpness but also to precisely measure and calibrate subtle image distortions and alignments between sensors as part of Webb's overall instrument calibration process. Credit: NASA/STScI
Alignment of NASA's James Webb Space Telescope is now complete. After full review, the observatory has been confirmed to be capable of capturing crisp, well-focused images with each of its four powerful onboard science instruments. Upon completing the seventh and final stage of telescope alignment, the team held a set of key decision meetings and unanimously agreed that Webb is ready to move forward into its next and final series of preparations, known as science instrument commissioning. This process will take about two months before scientific operations begin in the summer.
The alignment of the telescope across all of Webb's instruments can be seen in a series of images that captures the observatory's full field of view.
"These remarkable test images from a successfully aligned telescope demonstrate what people across countries and continents can achieve when there is a bold scientific vision to explore the universe," said Lee Feinberg, Webb optical telescope element manager at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.
The optical performance of the telescope continues to be better than the engineering team's most optimistic predictions. Webb's mirrors are now directing fully focused light collected from space down into each instrument, and each instrument is successfully capturing images with the light being delivered to them. The image quality delivered to all instruments is "diffraction-limited," meaning that the fineness of detail that can be seen is as good as physically possible given the size of the telescope. From this point forward the only changes to the mirrors will be very small, periodic adjustments to the primary mirror segments.
"With the completion of telescope alignment and half a lifetime's worth of effort, my role on the James Webb Space Telescope mission has come to an end," said Scott Acton, Webb wavefront sensing and controls scientist, Ball Aerospace. "These images have profoundly changed the way I see the universe. We are surrounded by a symphony of creation; there are galaxies everywhere. It is my hope that everyone in the world can see them."
Now, the Webb team will turn its attention to science instrument commissioning. Each instrument is a highly sophisticated set of detectors equipped with unique lenses, masks, filters, and customized equipment that helps it perform the science it was designed to achieve. The specialized characteristics of these instruments will be configured and operated in various combinations during the instrument commissioning phase to fully confirm their readiness for science. With the formal conclusion of telescope alignment, key personnel involved with the commissioning of each instrument have arrived at the Mission Operations Center at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, and some personnel involved with telescope alignment have concluded their duties.
Webb Telescope Completes Alignment Phase. Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
Though telescope alignment is complete, some telescope calibration activities remain: As part of scientific instrument commissioning, the telescope will be commanded to point to different areas in the sky where the total amount of solar radiation hitting the observatory will vary to confirm thermal stability when changing targets. Furthermore, ongoing maintenance observations every two days will monitor the mirror alignment, and when needed, apply corrections to keep the mirrors in their aligned locations.
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SpaceX has shared a cool video showing the Crew Dragon’s Draco engines nudging the spacecraft toward the International Space Station (ISS).
The autonomous maneuver took place on Wednesday, April 27 and marked the arrival of SpaceX’s Crew-4 astronauts at the orbital outpost following a 16-hour voyage from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
“The Dragon spacecraft is equipped with 16 Draco thrusters used to orient the spacecraft during the mission, including apogee/perigee maneuvers, orbit adjustment and attitude control,” SpaceX says on its website, adding that each one is capable of generating 90 pounds of force in the vacuum of space.
Traveling aboard the Crew Dragon were NASA astronauts Kjell Lindgren, Bob Hines, and Jessica Watkins, along with the European Space Agency’s Samantha Cristoforetti.
Soon after the footage was captured, the spacecraft, named Freedom by the crew, successfully docked with the ISS. A short while later, the Crew-4 astronauts passed through the connecting hatch to enter the facility and meet the current inhabitants for the first time.
The Crew Dragon will stay docked at the space station until the end of Crew-4’s mission, which is scheduled to last about six months.
After that, the astronauts will re-enter capsule and undock, with the Draco engines firing up once again to help bring the spacecraft and astronauts safely home.
SpaceX’s capsule also contains eight SuperDraco engines capable of blasting the Crew Dragon up to half a mile away from the launch vehicle in less than eight seconds in the case of an emergency situation shortly after launch. To date, the SuperDraco engines have never been needed, but a couple of years ago, SpaceX shared dramatic footage of a crewless mission that tested the safety system high over the Atlantic Ocean.
The Crew Dragon spacecraft has been ferrying cargo to the International Space Station since 2012, while astronaut missions started in 2020.
A group of scientists is working to design a material that can mimic the ability of human skin to sense touch, and they're using a dessert popular with children and hospital cafeterias to do it.
It sounds futuristic, but the research being conducted at the University of British Columbia would offer a wearer of a prosthetic arm or robotic hand a more natural, comfortable feel.
Most so-called "smart skins" are made of metals and plastics, but some, called ionic skins, are made of more flexible materials.
These hydrogels use ions to carry an electrical charge, meaning when they're touched, the "skin" can generate voltages. This was known, according to a news release from UBC summarizing the team's peer-reviewed work that was published Thursday, but what was unclear is how this happened.
So a then-master's student in the biomedical engineering program at the University of British Columbia came up with a way to incorporate different sized hydrogel sensors into the skin.
The student, Yuta Dobashi, then worked with others in the school's physics and chemistry departments to apply magnetic fields. What this did was allow them to monitor how the ions moved.
And to demonstrate this movement, they used an unlikely substance: a jelly dessert, similar to what kids might take to school as a lunchtime treat, or what a hospital might serve its patients.
"When pressure is applied to the gel that pressure spreads out the ions in the liquid at different speeds, creating an electrical signal," Dobashi said in the UBC news release. Dobashi is now completing his PhD in Toronto, but started the work while getting his master's.
Because positive and negative ions, contained in salt inside the sensors, move at different speeds, "this results in an uneven ion distribution, which creates an electric field," he said.
This answered the "how" question scientists had.
For those less familiar with the concept, the researchers said what it means is that these hydrogels used in ionic skins actually work in a similar way to human skin. Ions move then, too, in response to pressure.
It's exciting news for those who see the implications of the work.
According to an electrical and computer engineering professor at UBC who oversaw the work, it means sensors could be created that would be able to interact with the nervous system.
"You can imagine a prosthetic arm covered in an ionic skin. The skin senses an object through touch or pressure, conveys that information through the nerves to the brain, and the brain then activates the motors required to lift or hold the object," John Madden said.
"With further development of the sensor skin and interfaces with nerves, this bionic interface is conceivable."
Another way the science could be used is to monitor a hospital patient's pulse, blood pressure and temperature, rather than the systems used in hospitals currently.
At some point too, these jelly-like materials could be used for implants such as artificial knees and hips, and they could even release drugs based on how much pressure it senses.
The research was published in Science, an academic journal published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science that has been around since the late 1800s.
Study lead author Yuta Dobashi, a graduate of UBC's master in biomedical engineering program, is shown. (Kai Jacobson / UBC Faculty of Applied Science)
The Ingenuity helicopter has captured a unique bird's-eye perspective of the gear that helped land the Perseverance rover on Mars.
During its one-year anniversary flight on April 19, the little chopper took photos of the striped parachute used during Perseverance's landing -- often referred to as "7 minutes of terror" because it happens faster than radio signals can reach Earth from Mars -- on February 18, 2021. It also spotted the cone-shaped backshell that helped protect the rover and Ingenuity on the trip from Earth to Mars and during its fiery, plunging descent to the Martian surface.
The engineers working on the Mars Sample Return program, an ambitious and multimission process to return Martian samples collected by Perseverance to Earth by the 2030s, asked if Ingenuity could gather these images during its 26th flight.
Studying the components that allowed for a safe landing can help them prepare for future missions to the red planet that will require landing and even launching from the Martian surface for the first time.
"NASA extended Ingenuity flight operations to perform pioneering flights such as this," said Teddy Tzanetos, Ingenuity's team lead at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, in a statement.
"Every time we're airborne, Ingenuity covers new ground and offers a perspective no previous planetary mission could achieve. Mars Sample Return's reconnaissance request is a perfect example of the utility of aerial platforms on Mars."
During entry, descent and landing, the spacecraft faces scorching temperatures and gravitational forces as it plunges into the Martian atmosphere at almost 12,500 miles per hour (20,000 kilometres per hour).
Previously, we've only seen images of the discarded landing gear from a rover's perspective, like an image taken by Perseverance showing the parachute and backshell from a distance. Aerial images, captured for the first time by Ingenuity from 26 feet (8 metres) in the air, provide more detail.
"Perseverance had the best-documented Mars landing in history, with cameras showing everything from parachute inflation to touchdown," said Ian Clark, former Perseverance systems engineer and current Mars Sample Return ascent phase lead at JPL, in a statement.
"But Ingenuity's images offer a different vantage point. If they either reinforce that our systems worked as we think they worked or provide even one dataset of engineering information we can use for Mars Sample Return planning, it will be amazing. And if not, the pictures are still phenomenal and inspiring."
The backshell can be seen among a debris field it created after hitting the Martian surface while moving at about 78 miles per hour (126 kilometres per hour). But the backshell's protective coating appears to be intact, as are the 80 suspension lines connecting it to the parachute.
The orange and white parachute can be seen, covered in dust, but the canopy doesn't show any damage. It was the biggest parachute used on Mars to date, at 70.5 feet (21.5 metres) wide. The team will continue to analyze the images to determine if the parachute experienced any changes over the next several weeks.
During Ingenuity's 26th aerial excursion, the chopper flew a total of 1,181 feet (360 metres). So far, it has logged 49 minutes of total flight time and traveled 3.9 miles (6.3 kilometres) over the past year.
"To get the shots we needed, Ingenuity did a lot of maneuvering, but we were confident because there was complicated maneuvering on flights 10, 12, and 13," said Håvard Grip, chief pilot of Ingenuity at JPL, in a statement. "Our landing spot set us up nicely to image an area of interest for the Perseverance science team on Flight 27, near 'Séítah' ridge."
The helicopter and rover have arrived at an ancient river delta where water once flowed into Jezero Crater millions of years ago.
The imposing delta rises more than 130 feet (40 metres) above the crater floor and is riddled with boulders, pockets of sand and jagged cliffs -- and it could be the best place to search for signs of ancient life if it ever existed on Mars.
Ingenuity has the crucial task of surveying two dry river channels to see which one Perseverance should use to climb to the top of the delta. It can also share images of features that could become potential science targets for the rover.
Three meteorites contain the molecular building blocks of DNA and its cousin RNA, scientists recently discovered. A subset of these building blocks had been detected in meteorites before, but the rest of the collection seemed mysteriously absent from space rocks — until now.
The new discovery supports the idea that, some four billion years ago, a barrage of meteorites may have delivered the molecular ingredients needed to jump-start the emergence of the earliest life on Earth, the researchers say.
However, not everyone is convinced that all of the newfound DNA components are extraterrestrial in origin; rather, some may have ended up in the meteorites after the rocks touched down on Earth, said Michael Callahan, an analytical chemist, astrobiologist and associate professor at Boise State University who was not involved in the study. "Additional studies are needed" to rule out this possibility, Callahan told Live Science in an email.
Assuming that all of the compounds did originate in space, one subset of building blocks — a class of compounds known as pyrimidines — appeared in "extremely low concentrations" in the meteorites, he added. This finding hints that the world's first genetic molecules emerged not due to an influx of DNA components from space but rather as a result of the geochemical processes unfolding on early Earth, he said.
For now, though, "it's hard to say" what concentration of DNA building blocks meteorites would have needed to contain to help drive the emergence of life on Earth, said Jim Cleaves, a geochemist and president of the International Society for the Study of the Origin of Life, who was not involved in the study. This question remains under investigation.
(Image credit: KATERYNA KON/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY via Getty Images)
Components of DNA and RNA have been found in meteorites before, Live Science previously reported. Specifically, such space rocks have been found to contain nucleobases, the nitrogen-containing compounds that serve as the "letters" in the genetic code of our DNA and RNA. Nucleobases come in five primary flavors — adenine (A), thymine (T), guanine (G), cytosine (C) and uracil (U) — but previously, only A, G and U had ever been identified in meteorites.
Now, in a study published Tuesday (April 26) in the journal Nature Communications, scientists reported finding all five nucleobases inside carbon-rich meteorites. This included trace amounts of all three pyrimidines: cytosine, uracil and thymine. "In particular, the detection of cytosine is of surprise," because cytosine is relatively unstable and likely to react with water, said Yasuhiro Oba, an associate professor at the Institute of Low Temperature Science at Hokkaido University in Japan and first author of the study.
Although thymine and cytosine hadn't been found in meteorites before, laboratory studies hinted that these nucleobases might be lurking, undetected, in the space rocks that slammed into Earth.
For example, in lab settings, scientists have recreated the chemical conditions of interstellar space — the space between stars — where immense clouds of gas and dust measure about 10 kelvins (minus 441.67 degrees Fahrenheit, or minus 263.15 degrees Celsius) and the parent asteroids of meteorites can be found. Through these experiments, researchers synthesized thymine, cytosine and the other primary nucleobases, suggesting that all of these compounds could theoretically be detectable in meteorites, the study authors noted in their report.
So the team went hunting for these nucleobases in three well-known meteorites. "Murchison, Murray and Tagish Lake meteorites belong to a class of meteorites called carbonaceous chondrites, which are known to contain lots of organic compounds," Callahan said.
For example, hydrocarbons and the building blocks of proteins (amino acids) had been identified in the three meteorites, Oba said. Additionally, in previous work, Oba and his colleagues detected an elusive molecule called hexamethylenetetramine (HMT), which is thought to be an important precursor to organic molecules, in the space rocks, according to NASA.
In their latest study, the researchers used a technique called high-performance liquid chromatography, which involved using pressurized water to separate the meteorite samples into their component parts. In this way, the team extracted the nucleobases from each sample and then analyzed the bases using mass spectrometry, a technique that revealed the chemical makeup of the material in fine detail. This method "enabled us to detect nucleobases with very low concentrations, as low as parts per trillions," Oba told Live Science.
The analysis revealed that all of the meteorites carried adenine and guanine. The Murchison samples also contained uracil, while the other meteorites carried at least one uracil isomer, meaning a compound that contains the same number and types of atoms as uracil but in a different spatial arrangement. In addition, the Murchison and Tagish Lake samples carried thymine, and the Murray meteorite contained thymine isomers. All of the meteorites contained cytosine, along with various isomers of the compound.
Still uncertainty
(Image credit: University of Glasgow)
To check that the nucleobases were extraterrestrial in origin rather than the result of Earthly contamination, the team repeated the experimental procedures without any meteorite material in the test chambers. No nucleobases were detected during these so-called blank experiments.
The team also had access to soil samples from the site where the Murchison meteorite first plummeted to Earth. They detected some nucleobases in the soil, but "their distribution and concentrations are clearly different from those found in meteorites," Oba said. In addition, some specific isomers appeared only in the meteorites and not in the soil sample; these "odd isomers" are rarely seen on Earth and are therefore unlikely to be contaminants from the planet's surface, Cleaves said.
By comparing the diversity of nucleobases found in the meteorite against that found in the soil, the team concluded that the compounds in the space rock formed in space, Oba said. And because of this, they expect that the nucleobases "contributed to the emergence of genetic properties for the earliest life on Earth," the authors wrote.
However, on these points, there's still some uncertainty, Callahan said.
The soil sample analyzed by the researchers contained higher concentrations of cytosine, uracil and thymine than they'd found in the Murchison meteorite, "so it's difficult to determine how much is extraterrestrial versus terrestrial in the meteorite," Callahan said. Moreover, the team didn't identify a specific chemical process that would produce C, U, T and their various isomers; such an analysis could have supported the idea that all of the compounds formed in interstellar space.
Another way to determine whether the nucleobases actually hail from space is to examine what forms of carbon and nitrogen they contain, Cleaves told Live Science. These elements come in different flavors, called isotopes, which contain the same numbers of protons but different numbers of neutrons. Earth matter contains different ratios of carbon isotopes and nitrogen isotopes than matter from space, so such analyses could help discriminate the terrestrial nucleobases from extraterrestrial ones, Callahan said. Unfortunately, such experiments require a fair amount of meteorite material to run and can, therefore, be difficult to execute, Cleaves said.
In any case, even if the detected C, T and U are extraterrestrial, their scant presence in the meteorites casts doubt on the theory that the first life on Earth was seeded by DNA components from space, Callahan said. "If these results are representative of typical pyrimidine concentrations in meteorites, then geochemical synthesis on early Earth would likely have been responsible for the emergence of genetic material, rather than inputs from extraterrestrial delivery," he said.
In the future, Oba and his colleagues plan to hunt for nucleobases in material collected directly from asteroids, rather than from meteorites on Earth, Oba told Live Science; this could minimize the issue of Earth-born contaminants. For example, the Japanese spacecraft Hayabusa2 recently brought the asteroid Ryugu down to Earth, Live Science previously reported, and NASA's OSIRIS-REx probe is due to touch down with samples of the near-Earth asteroid Bennu in 2023, according to Space.com.
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — SpaceX launched four astronauts to the International Space Station for NASA on Wednesday, less than two days after completing a flight chartered by millionaires.
It’s the first NASA crew comprised equally of men and women, including the first Black woman making a long-term spaceflight, Jessica Watkins.
“This is one of the most diversified, I think, crews that we’ve had in a really, really long time,” said NASA’s space operations mission chief Kathy Lueders.
The astronauts arrived at the space station Wednesday night, just 16 hours after a predawn liftoff from Kennedy Space Center that thrilled spectators.
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“Anyone who saw it realized what a beautiful launch it was,” Lueders told reporters. After an express flight comparable to traveling from New York to Singapore, the crew will move in for a five-month stay.
SpaceX has now launched five crews for NASA and two private trips in just under two years. Elon Musk’s company is having an especially busy few weeks: It just finished taking three businessmen to and from the space station as NASA’s first private guests.
A week after the new crew arrives, the three Americans and German they’re replacing will return to Earth in their own SpaceX capsule. Three Russians also live at the space station.
Both SpaceX and NASA officials stressed they’re taking it one step at a time to ensure safety. The private mission that concluded Monday encountered no major problems, they said, although high wind delayed the splashdown for a week.
SpaceX Launch Control wished the astronauts good luck and Godspeed moments before the Falcon rocket blasted off with the capsule, named Freedom by its crew.
“Our heartfelt thank you to every one of you that made this possible. Now let Falcon roar and Freedom ring,” radioed NASA astronaut Kjell Lindgren, the commander. Minutes later, their recycled booster had landed on an ocean platform and their capsule was safely orbiting Earth. “It was a great ride,” he said.
The SpaceX capsules are fully automated — which opens the space gates to a broader clientele — and they’re designed to accommodate a wider range of body sizes. At the same time, NASA and the European Space Agency have been pushing for more female astronauts.
While two Black women visited the space station during the shuttle era, neither moved in for a lengthy stay. Watkins, a geologist who is on NASA’s short list for a moon-landing mission in the years ahead, sees her mission as “an important milestone, I think, both for the agency and for the country.”
She credits supportive family and mentors — including Mae Jemison, the first Black woman in space in 1992 — for “ultimately being able to live my dream.”
Also cheering Watkins on was another geologist: Apollo 17’s Harrison Schmitt, who walked on the moon in 1972. She invited the retired astronaut to the launch, along with his wife. “We sort of consider ourselves the Jessica team,” he said, chuckling.
“Those of us who rode the Saturn V into space are a little bit jaded about the smaller rockets,” Schmitt said after the SpaceX liftoff. “But still, it really was something and on board was a geologist … I hope it will stand her in good stead for being part of one of the Artemis crews that go to the moon.”
Like Watkins, NASA astronaut and test pilot Bob Hines is making his first spaceflight. It’s the second visit for Lindgren, a physician, and the European Space Agency’s lone female astronaut, Samantha Cristoforetti, a former Italian Air Force fighter pilot.
Cristoforetti turned 45 on Tuesday, “so she really celebrates and is very happy with a big smile in the capsule,” said the European Space Agency’s director general, Josef Aschbacher. “She’s really a role model and she’s doing an enormously fabulous job on doing exactly that.”
The just-completed private flight was NASA’s first dip into space tourism after years of opposition. The space agency said the three people who paid $55 million each to visit the space station blended in while doing experiments and educational outreach. They were accompanied by a former NASA astronaut employed by Houston-based Axiom Space, which arranged the flight.
“The International Space Station is not a vacation spot. It’s not an amusement park. It is an international laboratory, and they absolutely understood and respected that purpose,” said NASA flight director Zeb Scoville.
NASA also hired Boeing to ferry astronauts after retiring the shuttles. The company will take another shot next month at getting an empty crew capsule to the space station, after software and other problems fouled a 2019 test flight and prevented a redo last summer.
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The launch comes after the company and NASA successfully completed the first civilian trip to the space station.
Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk‘s rocket company SpaceX has launched four astronauts into orbit as part of a NASA mission to the International Space Station (ISS).
The astronauts were due to arrive at the space station on Wednesday night, 16 hours after their predawn liftoff from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, southeastern United States.
Kathy Lueders, NASA’s space operations mission chief, said the crew was likely “one of the most diversified” in the history of the US space agency to travel together to space.
Comprised equally of men and women, the crew also included the first Black woman making a long-term spaceflight: Jessica Watkins, a 33-year-old geologist who earned her doctorate studying the processes behind large landslides on Mars and Earth and went on to join the science team for the Mars rover Curiosity at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Also in the crew were 49-year-old Dr Kjell Lindgren, an emergency medical physician on his second trip to the ISS; Bob Hines, a 47-year-old US Air Force fighter pilot; and Samantha Cristoforetti, a 45-year-old European Space Agency astronaut and Italian Air Force jet pilot making her second flight to the space station.
“Our heartfelt thank you to every one of you that made this possible. Now let Falcon roar and Freedom ring,” said Lindgren, the commander, as their capsule safely entered orbit. “It was a great ride.”
The early morning launch came just two days after SpaceX and NASA completed the first chartered flight to the ISS, after years of opposition.
The SpaceX capsules are fully automated, opening their use to a broader clientele. They are carried to space with the reusable Falcon 9 rocket. The capsules are also designed to accommodate a wider range of body sizes.
In September 2021, SpaceX completed the first all-civilian flight into orbit, which followed launches to the edge of space by billionaires Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson.
The US space agency said the three civilian visitors to the ISS, who paid $55m each to visit the space station, blended in while doing experiments and educational outreach. They were accompanied by a former NASA astronaut employed by Houston-based Axiom Space, which arranged the flight.
The ISS, the largest artificial object in space, spanning the size of an American football field end-to-end, has been continuously occupied since November 2000, operated by a US-Russian-led international consortium of five space agencies from 15 countries.
An international crew of at least seven people typically lives and works on board the platform while travelling 8km (5 miles) per second, circling Earth once about every 90 minutes.
The station’s microgravity environment provides scientists a unique laboratory to run specially designed experiments on everything from fluid mechanics and combustion to cell growth and ageing.
A SpaceX Falcon rocket sits on Launch Complex 39A Tuesday, April 26, 2022, at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla. Four astronauts are scheduled to fly on SpaceX's mission to the International Space Station Wednesday morning. Credit: AP Photo/Chris O'Meara
SpaceX launched four astronauts to the International Space Station for NASA on Wednesday, less than two days after completing a flight chartered by millionaires.
It's the first NASA crew comprised equally of men and women, including the first Black woman making a long-term spaceflight, Jessica Watkins.
"This is one of the most diversified, I think, crews that we've had in a really, really long time," NASA's space operations mission chief Kathy Lueders said on the eve of launch.
The astronauts were due to arrive at the space station Wednesday night, 16 hours after their predawn liftoff from Kennedy Space Center. They will spend five months at the orbiting lab.
SpaceX has now launched five crews for NASA and two private trips in just under two years. Elon Musk's company is having an especially busy few weeks: It just finished taking three businessmen to and from the space station as NASA's first private guests.
A week after the new crew arrives, the three Americans and German they're replacing will return to Earth in their own SpaceX capsule. Three Russians also live at the space station.
Both SpaceX and NASA officials stressed they're taking it one step at a time to ensure safety. The private mission that concluded Monday encountered no major problems, they said, although high wind delayed the splashdown for a week.
A SpaceX Falcon rocket sits on Launch Complex 39A Tuesday, April 26, 2022, at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla. Four astronauts are scheduled to fly on SpaceX's mission to the International Space Station Wednesday morning. Credit: AP Photo/Chris O'Meara
The SpaceX capsules are fully automated—which opens the space gates to a broader clientele—and they're designed to accommodate a wider range of body sizes. At the same time, NASA and the European Space Agency have been pushing for more female astronauts.
While two Black women visited the space station during the shuttle era, neither moved in for a lengthy stay. Watkins, a geologist who is on NASA's short list for a moon-landing mission in the years ahead, sees her mission as "an important milestone, I think, both for the agency and for the country."
She credits supportive family and mentors—including Mae Jemison, the first Black woman in space in 1992—for "ultimately being able to live my dream."
Like Watkins, NASA astronaut and test pilot Bob Hines is making his first spaceflight. It's the second visit for the European Space Agency's lone female astronaut, Samantha Cristoforetti, a former Italian Air Force fighter pilot, and NASA's Kjell Lindgren, a physician.
The just-completed private flight was NASA's first dip into space tourism after years of opposition. The space agency said the three people who paid $55 million each to visit the space station blended in while doing experiments and educational outreach. They were accompanied by a former NASA astronaut employed by Houston-based Axiom Space, which arranged the flight.
A SpaceX Falcon rocket sits on Launch Complex 39A Tuesday, April 26, 2022, at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla. Four astronauts are scheduled fly on SpaceX's mission to the International Space Station. Credit: AP Photo/Chris O'Meara
"The International Space Station is not a vacation spot. It's not an amusement park. It is an international laboratory, and they absolutely understood and respected that purpose," said NASA flight director Zeb Scoville.
NASA also hired Boeing to ferry astronauts after retiring the shuttles. The company will take another shot next month at getting an empty crew capsule to the space station, after software and other problems fouled a 2019 test flight and prevented a redo last summer.
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SpaceX launches 4 astronauts for NASA after private flight (2022, April 27)
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The first fully private crew to visit the International Space Station is now back on Earth after spending a week longer in orbit than planned.
A SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule carrying the four members of the Axiom Space AX-1 mission splashed down off the coast of Jacksonville, Florida, around 10 a.m. Monday. The spacecraft could be seen glowing white hot on thermal imaging cameras that tracked its descent as it sliced through the atmosphere, before being slowed by a series of parachutes in preparation for the water landing in the Atlantic Ocean.
With four parachutes deployed, the charred Dragon drifted for a few minutes before finally touching the ocean. The capsule bobbed on relatively calm waters as spotters on small motorboats circled it while awaiting larger recovery vessels to arrive on the scene and transport the astronauts to shore.
The commercial spacecraft was commanded by former NASA astronaut Michael Lopez-Allegria alongside American pilot and adventurer Larry Connor, Canadian entrepreneur and executive Mark Pathy and investor and former fighter pilot Eytan Stibbe, who became the first Israeli astronaut on the ISS.
Connor reported from the capsule that the Crew Dragon was stable, though the crew was having a hard time seeing out the windows. He also thanked the mission team for an "amazing job and amazing mission."
Larry Connor flips aboard the ISS.
Axiom Space
The quartet blasted off from Kennedy Space Center in Florida on April 8. The mission called for spending a total of 10 days in orbit, including eight days on the ISS. But thanks to rough or uncertain weather off the coast of Florida, their return was delayed multiple times. In the end, the crew spent 15 days on the ISS in total, and 17 days in space.
During that time, the crew completed 240 orbits of Earth, traveling over 6 million miles. They also spent about 14 hours a day doing science, and completed over two dozen research projects, whose topics ranged from air purification systems to cancer to self-assembling robots.
Axiom aims to send private and professional astronauts to the ISS as often as twice a year as it prepares to launch its own space station modules, currently set to attach to the ISS as soon as 2024. When the ISS is retired in 2031, Axiom is planning for the Axiom Station to become its own free-flying private space station.
The crew of the first fully private mission to the International Space Station was set on Sunday to leave the orbiting laboratory and head back to Earth.
The three businessmen and a former NASA astronaut had spent more than two weeks on the station on a history-making mission organized by startup company Axiom Space.
A SpaceX capsule was scheduled to undock from the ISS at 8:55 pm (0055 GMT Monday) for the return trip, before landing in the ocean off the coast of Florida on Monday around 1:00 pm (1700 GMT).
The four men—three who paid tens of millions of dollars each for the rare chance to take part in the mission, and former astronaut Michael Lopez-Alegria, who holds dual US-Spanish citizenship—were originally scheduled to spend only eight days on the space station.
But bad weather on Earth forced repeated delays in their return.
Private passengers Larry Connor, an American who heads a real estate company, Canadian businessman Mark Pathy and Israeli former fighter pilot and entrepreneur Eytan Stibbe had blasted off from Florida on April 8, reaching the ISS a day later.
Once on board, they conducted a series of experiments in cooperation with Earth-bound research centers, including on cardiac health and cognitive performance in low gravity, according to a NASA blog.
Pathy in particular spent considerable time in the station's famous observation cupola photographing the Earth from 250 miles (400 kilometers) overhead.
The mission was dubbed Ax-1 in a nod to Axiom Space, which served as a sort of space travel agency, paying SpaceX for providing two-way transportation and NASA for the use of the orbiting accommodations.
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Crew of first private flight to ISS prepare for Earth return (2022, April 24)
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Astronauts for the Ax-1 mission float in zero gravity during the flight.
Axiom
SpaceX astronauts on the Ax-1 ISS mission will return on Monday, NASA's head of spaceflights said.
Poor weather conditions delayed the return of the SpaceX Crew Dragon spaceship.
NASA said it doesn't expect the delay to impact another crewed orbital mission on Wednesday.
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SpaceX astronauts returning from the International Space Station (ISS) will spend a day free flying in orbit before plunging into the atmosphere and landing in Florida waters, CNN reported.
Kathy Lueders, NASA's head of human spaceflight programs, said on Friday that the spacecraft will aim to undock from the ISS on Sunday.
The astronauts flew to the ISS on April 8 as part of the privately funded Axiom Mission 1, also known as Ax-1.
"We want about 2-days between #Ax1 return & Crew-4 launch for @NASA & @SpaceX to complete data reviews & stage recovery assets. In this case, 39-hours between operations gives us enough time to finish up the work. If needed, we'll adjust Crew-4's launch to ensure we are ready," Lueders said in a tweet.
Lueders also said the space agency was watching the weather closely after the trip home was delayed by a week due to poor conditions.
The mission had been due to last eight days but the delay means the astronauts are now expected to splash down on Monday.
NASA has been planning for another SpaceX crewed orbital flight, named Crew-4, to launch on Wednesday. Lueders said the Ax-1's late return will have no impact on the Crew-4's launch date.
Ax-1 includes a crew of four in the first all-private flight, which took place aboard the SpaceX Crew Dragon spaceship.
