July 20, 1969

How the New Horizon’s flyby changed the way we see Pluto 💓 [NASA/JPL] 

Voyager 1 approaching Jupiter in 1979. [Reddit/spacegifs]

One Step Closer to the Moon with the Artemis Program! 🌙

The past couple of weeks have been packed with milestones for our Artemis program — the program that will land the first woman and the next man on the Moon!

Artemis I will be an integrated, uncrewed test of the Orion spacecraft and Space Launch System (SLS) rocket before we send crewed flights to the Moon.

On March 2, 2021, we completed stacking the twin SLS solid rocket boosters for the Artemis I mission. Over several weeks, workers with NASA's Exploration Ground Systems used one of five massive cranes to place 10 booster segments and nose assemblies on the mobile launcher inside the Vehicle Assembly Building at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida.

On March 18, 2021, we completed our Green Run hot fire test for the SLS core stage at Stennis Space Center in Mississippi. The core stage includes the flight computers, four RS-25 engines, and enormous propellant tanks that hold more than 700,000 gallons of super cold propellant. The test successfully ignited the core stage and produced 1.6 million pounds of thrust. The next time the core stage lights up will be when Artemis I launches on its mission to the Moon!

In coming days, engineers will examine the data and determine if the stage is ready to be refurbished, prepared for shipment, and delivered to KSC where it will be integrated with the twin solid rocket boosters and the other rocket elements.

We are a couple steps closer to landing boots on the Moon!

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Perseverance: Some early Navcam (navigation camera) images taken over the (Earth) weekend on sol 2. Originals are here: [1] [2] [3] [4]. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

NASA’s Perseverance takes first photo.

Saturn by europeanspaceagency

The historic - and, rather eventful - test flight of the SpaceX SN8 prototype. In spite of its heavy landing and subsequent destruction of the craft, I think in most other respects, it was a resounding success.

The Planets (BBC) - Jupiter and Io

If you don’t fight for all women, you fight for no women. ✊🏿✊🏾✊🏽✊🏼✊🏻 (📸: Kennedy Dickerson)

Image of Saturn taken by Cassini spacecraft in October 28, 2016.

Credit: NASA/JPL