NASA News – Week Ending December 15 2023

NASA News – Week Ending December 15 2023

• Our Webb Space Telescope’s new look at an exploded star.
• Teams prepare to install some Moon rocket hardware.
• And completing NASA’s first two-way, end-to-end laser relay system.

A few of the stories to tell you about – This Week at NASA!

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Our James Webb Space Telescope recently captured a new image of supernova remnant Cassiopeia A. The image, captured by Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera, displays the stellar explosion at a resolution previously unreachable at these wavelengths, and is giving astronomers hints at the dynamic processes occurring within the supernova remnant.

Teams at our Marshall Space Flight Center recently flipped the Orion stage adapter to prepare the adapter for the installation of its diaphragm. The stage adapter connects the Orion spacecraft to the Space Launch System rocket’s interim cryogenic propulsion stage, or ICPS. The diaphragm helps prevent highly flammable hydrogen gas, that could escape  the rocket’s propellant tanks, from building up beneath Orion and its crew before and during launch.

NASA’s LCRD and the new space station technology experiment, ILLUMA-T, successfully exchanged data for the first time – marking ILLUMA-T’s first laser link with an in-orbit laser relay system. Together, LCRD and ILLUMA-T completed NASA’s first two-way, end-to-end laser relay system. Laser communications uses infrared light rather than traditional radio waves to send and receive signals, which allows spacecraft to pack more data into each  transmission.

The deadline to join NASA’s Europa Clipper mission’s “Message in a Bottle” campaign is 11:59 p.m. EST, Dec. 31, 2023. You can join the mission and have your name engraved on our Europa Clipper spacecraft, which will travel 1.8 billion miles to explore Jupiter’s icy moon, Europa. Learn more at go.nasa.gov/MessageInABottle.

That’s what’s up this week @NASA! For more about what else we’re up to, check out nasa.gov.