Another power-packed spacewalk outside the
space station …
Highlighting a pretty cool comet …
And a key piece of Space Launch System hardware
is on the move … a few of the stories to
tell you about – This Week at NASA!
Our Chris Cassidy and Bob Behnken were back
outside the International Space Station on
July 16 to outfit one of the station’s power
channels with new lithium-ion batteries and
associated hardware.
The spacewalk is one of the few remaining
in a three-and-a-half-year effort to upgrade
the station’s power system.
NASA photographer Bill Ingalls recently captured
images of Comet NEOWISE in the early morning
skies over Washington, D.C.
The comet, which was discovered by and nicknamed
after our NEOWISE spacecraft, has been visible
at certain hours with the naked-eye – and
has been spotted by several NASA spacecraft,
as well as astronauts aboard the space station.
“The fact that we can see it is really what
makes it unique.
It’s quite rare for a comet to be bright
enough that we can see it with the naked eye,
or even with just binoculars.
The last time we had a comet that was this
bright was Comet Hale-Bopp back in 1995 and
1996.”
Comet NEOWISE is expected to make its closest
approach to Earth on July 22.
On July 17, teams at our Marshall Space Flight
Center in Huntsville, Alabama put the wheels
in motion to transport the launch vehicle
stage adapter for our Space Launch System
(SLS) rocket, to our Kennedy Space Center
in Florida – in preparation for the first
uncrewed Artemis mission around the Moon and
back.
The adapter, which connects the upper and
core stages of the rocket, is being transported
aboard the agency’s Pegasus barge.
On July 16, the joint European Space Agency/NASA
Solar Orbiter mission released the mission’s
first data – captured during the spacecraft’s
first close pass of the Sun.
On that flyby last month, Solar Orbiter captured
the closest images ever taken of the Sun,
and had all 10 of its instruments turned on
together for the first time, including an
American-led instrument designed to pinpoint
coronal mass ejections.
We are now targeting Oct. 31, 2021, for the
launch of our James Webb Space Telescope from
French Guiana, due to impacts from the ongoing
coronavirus pandemic, as well as technical
challenges.
Engineers recently conducted the first full
systems evaluation on Webb since the telescope
was assembled into its final form.
It’s a critical software and electrical
analysis on the entire observatory as a single,
fully connected vehicle.
Webb is the largest and most technically complex
space science telescope NASA has ever built.
The CALIPSO satellite, a joint venture between
NASA and the French space agency, CNES, helped
provide a unique view of the massive Saharan
dust plume that crossed the North Atlantic
Ocean in June – into parts of the U.S.
The animation includes data and imagery from
CALIPSO, a space-based laser that measures
clouds and small atmospheric particles, and
from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
satellites.
That’s what’s up this week @NASA …
For more on these and other stories, follow
us on the web at nasa.gov/twan.
