In this image from Sept. 5, 1983, Guion “Guy” Bluford checks out the sample pump on the continuous flow electrophoresis system (CFES) experiment in the middeck of the Earth-orbiting space shuttle Challenger. Forty years ago today, he launched from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, becoming the […]
A Mercury-Redstone launch vehicle awaits test-firing in the Redstone Test Stand at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, in this photo from the late 1950s. Between 1953 and 1960, the rocket team at Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville performed hundreds of test firings on the R
NASA’s Mars Phoenix Lander gathered images of itself for this selfie from June 5 through July 12, 2008, with its Surface Stereo Imager (SSI). This mosaic is made up of more than 100 different SSI pointings, with images taken through three different filters at each pointing. 15 years ago in August 20
Astronaut Buzz Aldrin, lunar module pilot of Apollo 11, the first lunar landing mission, poses for a photograph beside the deployed United States flag during a walk on the lunar surface. The lunar module is on the left, and the footprints of the astronauts are clearly visible in the soil of the moon
During the Skylab 2 crew’s final fly-around inspection on June 22, 1973, they saw this overhead view of the Skylab space station. It has a single solar panel and a parasol solar shield, rigged to replace the micrometeoroid shield. A mishap in the original Skylab 1 liftoff and orbital insertion
Hired by NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston in 1963, Josephine Jue was a Chinese-American computer programmer and mathematician who worked for the agency for more than 30 years. Of her notable contributions, in the mid-1970s she oversaw development of the HAL/S compiler for the Space Shuttle. Se
Clouds of smoke billow out over the surrounding area as the uncrewed Skylab 1/Saturn V space vehicle launches from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center on May 14, 1973. The Skylab 1 payload included the major components of the space station: the orbital workshop, Apollo Telescope Mount, multiple docking adap
Astronaut John Glenn enters the Mercury spacecraft, Friendship 7, prior to the launch of Mercury-Atlas 6 (MA-6) on Feb. 20, 1962. The MA-6 mission was the first crewed orbital flight and Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth during the three-orbit, five-hour MA-6 mission. Image Credit:
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson lays a wreath at the Space Shuttle Challenger Memorial during NASA’s Day of Remembrance, Thursday, Jan. 26, 2023, at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Va. Wreaths were laid in memory of those men and women who lost their lives in the quest for space explo
On Dec. 24, 1968, Apollo 8 astronauts Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, and Bill Anders became the first humans to orbit the Moon, and the first to witness the magnificent sight called “Earthrise.” As the spacecraft was in the process of rotating, Anders took this iconic picture showing Earth ri
