Launching America on a commercial spacecraft…
A NASA astronaut is headed back to the space
station …
And new close-up imagery of asteroid Bennu
… a few of the stories to tell you about
– This Week at NASA!
A new era of American spaceflight got underway
on May 30 with the historic launch of NASA’s
SpaceX Demo-2 test flight to the International
Space Station, from our Kennedy Space Center,
in Florida.
“Liftoff of the Falcon 9 and Crew Dragon.
Go NASA.
Go SpaceX.
Godspeed Bob and Doug!”
Our Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley rode to orbit
aboard SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft,
which the astronauts named, Endeavour.
It was the first launch of Americans on an
American spacecraft from the U.S. in almost
nine years.
Other firsts during the journey included the
first on-orbit tour inside the Crew Dragon
…
“I think I was requested to do a backflip.
I’m going to kind of do a side spin, which
is a little bit of a permutation on that request.”
The first in-flight maneuvering of the spacecraft
by astronauts onboard …
“It really worked out well.
And was a joy to fly.
And, I’m guessing it was the first time
a space vehicle was flown with a touchscreen.”
And one of the crew’s first views of Earth
from Crew Dragon.
“Good morning Dragon.
We hope your evening aboard Endeavour was
restful …”
The next day, several hours after the first
crew wakeup call on Crew Dragon …
“Dragon’s coming up on just one hundred
meters away from the space station.”
The spacecraft made its final approach to
the station – docking at 10:16 a.m. EDT
while flying over the northern border of China
and Mongolia.
A few hours later, Hurley and Behnken were
welcomed aboard the space station by fellow
NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy and others on
the station crew.
“We are so grateful for the service of,
not just our two astronauts that embarked
on this mission, but the hundred thousand
plus people that participated in this mission.”
The astronauts are scheduled for an extended
stay at the space station.
The mission is an end-to-end test flight to
eventually certify SpaceX for regular crew
flights to the station as part of NASA’s
Commercial Crew Program.
Astronaut Kate Rubins has been assigned to
a six-month mission as a member of the International
Space Station’s Expedition 63/64 crew.
She is scheduled to launch with two Russian
cosmonauts Oct. 14 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome
in Kazakhstan.
This will be her second spaceflight.
In 2016 she spent 115 days in space as a member
of the station’s Expedition 48/49 crew.
Our OSIRIS-REx spacecraft captured images
seen in this mosaic during a reconnaissance
pass over Osprey – the mission’s backup
sample collection site on asteroid Bennu.
The spacecraft passed just 820-feet above
the site, the closest from which Osprey has
been imaged.
OSIRIS-REx is scheduled to make its first
sample collection attempt at primary site
Nightingale on Oct. 20.
A virtual meeting of the American Astronomical
Society featured several items of note about
the supermassive black hole at the center
of our Milky Way galaxy.
This included some insight from our Hubble
Space Telescope about a cataclysmic explosion
there about 3.5 million years ago, a new virtual
reality experience based on data from several
telescopes – including our Chandra X-ray
Observatory, and new research from the SOFIA
airborne observatory about how materials at
the center of the Milky Way are affected by
magnetic fields at play there.
That’s what’s up this week @NASA …
For more on these and other stories, follow
us on the web at nasa.gov/twan.
