Category: NASA Headquarters

Auto Added by WPeMatico

Posted on

California Students to Hear from NASA Astronauts Aboard Space Station

Source: NASA

Students from Emblem Academy in Santa Clarita, California, will have an opportunity to hear from NASA astronauts living and working aboard the International Space Station.  
The Earth-to-space call will stream live at 11:35 a.m. EST Tuesday, Jan. 16, on NASA+, NASA Television, and the agency’s website. Learn how to stream NASA TV through a variety of platforms including social media. Follow event online at: https://www.nasa.gov/nasatv.
NASA astronauts Loral O’Hara and Jasmin Moghbeli will answer prerecorded questions from students at Emblem Academy, a public transitional kindergarten through sixth-grade school. In preparation for the event, students and their families will participate in a STEM family night including science, technology, engineering, and math design challenges related to the space station.
Media interested in covering the event should RSVP no later than 5 p.m., Friday, Jan. 12, to Katie Demsher at: kdemsher@saugususd.org or 661-294-5315.
For more than 23 years, astronauts have continuously lived and worked aboard the space station, testing technologies, performing science, and developing the skills needed to explore farther from Earth. Astronauts living in space aboard the orbiting laboratory communicate with NASA’s Mission Control Center in Houston 24 hours a day through the Space Communications and Navigation (SCaN) Near Space Network.
Important research and technology investigations taking place aboard the International Space Station benefits people on Earth and lays the groundwork for future exploration. As part of Artemis, NASA will send astronauts to the Moon to prepare for future human exploration of Mars. Inspiring the next generation of explorers – the Artemis Generation – ensures America will continue to lead in space exploration and discovery.
See videos and lesson plans highlighting research aboard  the space station at:
https://www.nasa.gov/stemonstation
-end-
Katherine BrownHeadquarters, Washington202-358-1288katherine.m.brown@nasa.gov
Sandra Jones Johnson Space Center, Houston281-483-5111sandra.p.jones@nasa.gov

Posted on

NASA Astronauts to Speak with North Carolina, Virginia Students

Source: NASA

Students from North Carolina and Virginia will have separate opportunities next week to each hear from a NASA astronaut living and working aboard the International Space Station.
The two Earth-to-space calls will air live Tuesday, Jan. 9, on NASA+, NASA Television, and the agency’s website. Learn how to stream NASA TV through a variety of platforms including social media. Follow events online at: https://www.nasa.gov/nasatv.
At 9:20 a.m. EST, NASA astronaut Jasmin Moghbeli will answer prerecorded questions from students at Thales Academy in Raleigh, North Carolina. In preparation for the education downlink, students will participate in an annual Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Day that will include presentations about the space station by Marc Fusco, one of NASA’s solar system ambassadors. Students also will participate in hands-on activities, including making space related art, building bottle rockets, and launching a model rocket.
Media interested in covering the North Carolina event RSVP no later than 5 p.m. Monday, Jan. 8., should contact Janice Holton at: janice.holton@thalesacademy.org or 919-882-2320.
At 1:05 p.m., NASA astronaut Loral O’Hara will answer prerecorded questions from students across the state of Virginia through an event hosted by the Virginia Space Grant Consortium. These students studied life aboard the space station and participated in a Plant the Moon Challenge where they worked to grow plants in lunar regolith simulant for the Artemis mission.
Media interested in covering the Virginia event must RSVP no later than 4 p.m. on Jan. 8., to Kristyn Damadeo at: kdamadeo@odu.edu or 202-465-5190.
For more than 23 years, astronauts have continuously lived and worked aboard the space station, testing technologies, performing science, and developing the skills needed to explore farther from Earth. Astronauts living in space aboard the orbiting laboratory communicate with NASA’s Mission Control Center in Houston 24 hours a day through the Space Communications and Navigation (SCaN) Near Space Network.
Important research and technology investigations taking place aboard the International Space Station benefits people on Earth and lays the groundwork for future exploration.
As part of Artemis, NASA will send astronauts to the Moon to prepare for future human exploration of Mars. Inspiring the next generation of explorers – the Artemis Generation – ensures America will continue to lead in space exploration and discovery.
See videos and lesson plans highlighting research on the space station at:
https://www.nasa.gov/stemonstation
-end-
Katherine BrownHeadquarters, Washington202-358-1288katherine.m.brown@nasa.gov
Sandra Jones Johnson Space Center, Houston281-483-5111sandra.p.jones@nasa.gov

Posted on

NASA Sets Coverage for White House National Space Council Meeting

Source: NASA

NASA is participating in a meeting of the National Space Council on Wednesday, Dec. 20, in Washington. The meeting, chaired by Vice President Kamala Harris, will focus on international partnerships and is the third council meeting held by the Biden-Harris Administration.
NASA Deputy Administrator Pam Melroy and Artemis II and CSA (Canadian Space Agency) astronaut Jeremy Hansen will represent the agency at the meeting, which also includes other federal government agencies.
NASA will provide coverage of the meeting at 2 p.m. EST on the NASA+ streaming service via the web or NASA app. Coverage also will air live on NASA Television, the NASA app, YouTube, and the agency’s website. Learn how to stream NASA TV through a variety of platforms including social media.
Deputy Administrator Melroy will provide remarks that will focus on the societal benefits of NASA’s space exploration, including the agency’s Earth science missions that provide open and transparent climate data for all people. Melroy also will discuss NASA’s space exploration with international partners to build a responsible and sustainable human presence in space.
For more information on the National Space Council visit:
https://www.whitehouse.gov/spacecouncil/
-end-
Amber Jacobson / Jennifer DoorenHeadquarters, Washington202-358-1600amber.c.jacobson@nasa.gov / jennifer.m.dooren@nasa.gov

Posted on

NASA’s GUSTO Prepares to Map Space Between the Stars

Source: NASA

6 min read

On a vast ice sheet in Antarctica, scientists and engineers are preparing a NASA experiment called GUSTO to explore the universe on a balloon. GUSTO will launch from the Ross Ice Shelf, near the U.S. National Science Foundation’s McMurdo Station research base, no earlier than Dec. 21.

GUSTO, which stands for Galactic/Extragalactic ULDB Spectroscopic Terahertz Observatory, will peer into the space between stars called the interstellar medium. The balloon-borne telescope will help scientists make a 3D map of a large part of the Milky Way in extremely high-frequency radio waves. Examining a 100-square-degree area, GUSTO will explore the many phases of the interstellar medium and the abundances of key chemical elements in the galaxy.

By studying the LMC and comparing it to the Milky Way, we’ll be able to understand how galaxies evolve from the early universe until now.

Chris Walker
GUSTO principal investigator

In particular, GUSTO will scan the interstellar medium for carbon, oxygen, and nitrogen because they are critical for life on Earth. These elements can also help scientists disentangle the complex web of processes that sculpt the interstellar medium.  

While our galaxy brims with billions of stars, including our Sun, that are interesting in their own right, the space between them holds a wealth of clues about how stars and planets are born.

The interstellar medium is where diffuse, cold gas and dust accumulate into gigantic cosmic structures called molecular clouds, which, under the right conditions, can collapse to form new stars. From the swirling disk of material around the young star, planets can form.

GUSTO is unique in its ability to examine the first part of this process, “to understand how these clouds form in the first place,” Chris Walker, principal investigator of GUSTO at the University of Arizona, said. GUSTO is a collaboration between NASA, the University of Arizona, Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL), and the Netherlands Institute for Space Research (SRON); as well as MIT, JPL, the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, and others.

Eventually, when massive stars die and explode as supernovae, massive shock waves ripple through molecular clouds, which can in turn lead to more stars being born, or simply destroy the clouds. GUSTO can also look at this end stage of the molecular clouds.

GUSTO functions as a cosmic radio, equipped to “listen” for particular cosmic ingredients. That’s because it senses the high-frequency signals that atoms and molecules transmit. The “T” in GUSTO stands for “terahertz” – that’s about a thousand times higher than the frequencies that cellphones operate at.

“We basically have this radio system that we built that we can turn the knob and tune to the frequency of those lines,” Walker said. “And if we hear something, we know it’s them. We know it’s those atoms and molecules.”

As the telescope moves across the sky, scientists will use it to map the intensity and velocities of the signals from particular atoms and molecules at each position. “Then we can go back and connect the dots and create an image that looks like a photograph of what the emission looks like,” Walker said.

Observations like these can’t be done for carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen from Earth-based telescopes because of the water vapor in our atmosphere absorbing the light from the atoms and molecules in question, interfering with measurements. On a balloon about 120,000 feet above the ground, GUSTO will fly above most of that water vapor. “For the type of science we do, it’s as good as being in space,” Walker said.

The GUSTO telescope will also reveal the 3D structure of the Large Magellanic Cloud, or LMC, a dwarf galaxy near our Milky Way. The LMC resembles some of the galaxies of the early universe that NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope is exploring. But since the LMC is much closer than the distant early galaxies, scientists can examine it in greater detail with GUSTO.

“By studying the LMC and comparing it to the Milky Way, we’ll be able to understand how galaxies evolve from the early universe until now,” Walker explained.

GUSTO is expected to fly for at least 55 days on a 39 million cubic-foot zero-pressure balloon, a type of balloon that can fly high for long periods of time in the Austral Summer over Antarctica and has the diameter of a football field as it floats.

Antarctica provides an ideal launch location for GUSTO. During the southern hemisphere’s summer, the continent gets constant sunlight, so a scientific balloon can be extra stable there. Plus, the atmospheric zone around the South Pole generates cold rotating air – creating a phenomenon called an anticyclone, which enables balloons to fly in circles without disturbance.

“Missions will fly in circles around the South Pole for days or weeks at a time, which is really valuable to the science community,” said Andrew Hamilton, chief of the NASA Balloon Program Office at the Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. “The longer they have for observation, the more science they can get. 

GUSTO is the first balloon-borne experiment in NASA’s Explorer program. It has the same scientific reach as the program’s space-borne satellites, such as TESS (the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite) and IXPE (Imaging X-Ray Polarimetry Explorer).

“With GUSTO, we’re really trying to trailblaze,” said Kieran Hegarty, Program Manager for GUSTO at APL. “We want to show that balloon investigations do return compelling science.”

A total of twelve mission team members from University of Arizona and APL are on site in Antarctica performing the final checks before GUSTO’s launch.

With seals and penguins nearby, Walker and colleagues are hard at work readying this experiment for its ultimate adventure in the sky. For Walker, GUSTO represents some 30 years of effort, the outgrowth of many experiments from Earth-based telescopes and other balloon efforts.

“We all feel very fortunate and privileged to do a mission like this – to have the opportunity to put together the world’s most advanced terahertz instrument ever created, and then drag it halfway around the world and then launch it,” he said. “It’s a challenge, but we feel honored and humbled to be in the position to do it.”

About the Mission

In March 2017, NASA Astrophysics Division selected the Explorer Mission of Opportunity GUSTO (Galactic/Extragalactic ULDB Spectroscopic Terahertz Observatory) to measure emissions from the interstellar medium to help scientists determine the life cycle of interstellar gas by surveying a large region of our Milky Way galaxy and the Large Magellanic Cloud. The GUSTO mission is led by Principal Investigator Christopher Walker from the University of Arizona in Tucson. The team also includes the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, which provided the balloon platform to mount the instrumentation, known as the gondola, and the GUSTO project management. The University of Arizona provided the GUSTO telescope and the focal plane instrument, which incorporates detector technologies from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Arizona State University in Tempe, and SRON Netherlands Institute for Space Research.

Media Contacts

Posted on

NASA Signs Memorandum of Agreement for Space Weather

Source: NASA

On Dec. 7, 2023, Nicola Fox, associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, signed on behalf of the agency the Memorandum of Agreement for Space Weather Research-To-Operations-To-Research Collaboration. This quad-agency agreement is between NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the National Science Foundation, and the U.S. Air Force.
The memorandum outlines the responsibilities for collaboration across the federal government to enhance the country’s preparedness for space weather – the environmental changes caused in space by the constant outflow of solar wind from the Sun.
In addition to improving our ability to protect satellites and GPS signals from space weather, NASA’s heliophysics division works closely with our Artemis program to support the human exploration of deep space in a variety of ways including learning how to measure the radiation environment on and around the moon. These measurements will aid in the prediction and validation of the radiation environment that our astronauts will experience.

Posted on

NASA Names New Highest-Ranking Civil Servant, Head of Exploration  

Source: NASA

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson announced Wednesday Jim Free’s promotion to associate administrator for the agency at NASA Headquarters in Washington, effective when his predecessor Bob Cabana retires on Sunday, Dec. 31. Since September 2021, Free has served as the associate administrator for NASA’s Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate (ESDMD).  
Nelson also announced Free’s deputy, Catherine Koerner, will succeed him as the next head of the mission directorate. 
“So many of us in the NASA family have worked with Jim and have been inspired by his character and intellect. Pam, Bob, and I strongly believe that his wealth of experience and expertise will bring exceptional guidance and perspective to our leadership team in his new role as associate administrator, enhancing our collective efforts toward achieving bold goals for the benefit of all humanity,” said Administrator Nelson. “Cathy’s experience as the ESDMD deputy associate administrator – including her leadership in establishing and defining future space exploration architectures while overseeing the development of our deep space transportation systems – has prepared her for this new role as associate administrator for ESDMD. Cathy’s leadership will help NASA continue to extend humanity’s reach in the cosmos. Congratulations, Jim and Cathy!”  
As associate administrator, Free will become NASA’s third highest-ranking executive, as well as highest-ranking civil servant. This role serves as a senior advisor to Nelson and Deputy Administrator Pam Melroy. When he assumes his role, Free also will lead the agency’s 10 center directors, and five mission directorate associate administrators at NASA Headquarters. He will act as the agency’s chief operating officer for more than 18,000 employees and an annual budget of more than $25 billion.
Before his appointment to associate administrator of Exploration Systems Development in 2021, Free spent several years in various private sector roles. He left NASA in 2017 after serving as the agency’s deputy associate administrator for technical in the Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters.  
Prior to joining NASA Headquarters, he worked his way up to center director at NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Ohio, where he was responsible for planning, organizing, and directing the activities required in accomplishing the missions assigned to the center.  Free has served a variety of roles at NASA centers since beginning his career in 1990 at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. 
A native of Northeast Ohio, Free earned his bachelor’s degree in aeronautics from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, and his master’s degree in space systems engineering from Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands.  
Free is the recipient of the Presidential Rank Award, NASA Distinguished Service Medal, NASA Outstanding Leadership Medal, NASA Exceptional Service Medal, NASA Significant Achievement Medal, and numerous other awards.  
In her new role as the associate administrator for the Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate, Koerner will assume responsibility for the development of NASA’s Moon to Mars architecture, defining and managing the systems development for Artemis missions, and planning for integrated deep space exploration approach. 
As deputy associate administrator for the mission directorate, Koerner provides leadership and management of human spaceflight development and operations related to NASA’s Moon and Mars exploration goals. She currently is responsible for establishing and defining future space exploration architectures while overseeing development of new space transportation systems and supporting capabilities that are critical for human-led deep space exploration and scientific research.  
Prior to her positions at NASA Headquarters, Koerner was NASA’s Orion Program manager at NASA Johnson, where she was responsible for oversight of design, development, and testing of the Orion spacecraft. Before leading the Orion Program, Koerner served as the director of Human Health and Performance Directorate, focusing on enhancing crew health and performance and mitigating risks associated with human spaceflight.  
As a former NASA flight director, Koerner led teams in NASA’s mission control during space shuttle and International Space Station missions. She also previously held several leadership positions within the space station program during its assembly phase and managed NASA’s cargo resupply services contracts for it, helping foster a commercial space industry in low Earth orbit. Before Johnson, she worked at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.
Koerner earned her Bachelor of Science and Master of Science degrees in aeronautical and astronautical engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She has received numerous awards including a Presidential Rank Award in 2019, two Outstanding Leadership Medals (2006, 2013), NASA’s Exceptional Service Medal (2007), Johnson’s Center Director Commendation (2017) and numerous Group Achievement Awards. 
For more about NASA’s missions, visit: 

Home Page


-end- 
Jackie McGuinness / Cheryl Warner Headquarters, Washington 202-358-1600 jackie.mcguinness@nasa.gov / cheryl.m.warner@nasa.gov 

Posted on

NASA’s Worm Logo

Source: NASA

The NASA Worm Logo sign at the NASA Headquarters building in Washington is unveiled in this image from June 21, 2023. The unveiling occurred just before NASA’s Earth Information Center, an immersive experience combining live data sets with cutting-edge data visualization and storytelling, opened to the public.
On Nov. 6, 2023, NASA held a discussion on the design and cultural significance of the worm logotype with its creator Richard Danne. The logotype, a simple, red unique type style of the word NASA, replaced the agency’s official logo (the “meatball”) for several decades beginning in the 1970s before it was retired. The worm has since been revived for limited use.
Learn more about the “worm” on “Houston We Have a Podcast,” the official podcast of the NASA Johnson Space Center.
Image Credit: NASA/Joel Kowsky

Posted on

NASA Technologies Receive Multiple Nods in TIME Inventions of 2023

Source: NASA

As NASA explores, innovates, and inspires through its work, agency inventions aimed at monitoring atmospheric pollution, studying samples from asteroids, extracting oxygen from the Martian atmosphere, and revolutionizing flight have been named TIME’s Inventions of 2023. TIME announced the honorees on Oct. 24.
“For more than 65 years, NASA has innovated for the benefit of humanity,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. “From turning carbon dioxide to oxygen on Mars, to delivering the largest asteroid sample to Earth, helping improve air quality across North America, and changing the way we fly, our MOXIE, TEMPO, OSIRIS-REx and X-59 Quesst missions are proof that NASA turns science fiction into science fact. It’s all made possible by our world-class workforce who, time after time, show us nothing is beyond our reach when we work together.”
Improving Air Quality Data

NASA’s TEMPO (Tropospheric Emissions: Monitoring of Pollution) mission is the first space-based instrument to measure pollution hourly during the daytime across North America, spanning from Mexico City to Northern Canada and coast-to-coast.
Launched in April 2023, TEMPO provides unprecedented daytime measurement and monitoring of major air pollutants. The first-of-its-kind instrument can monitor pollution within a four-square-mile area and is helping climate scientists improve life on Earth by providing openly accessible air quality data for studies of rush hour pollution, the transport of pollution from forest fires and volcanoes, and even the effects of fertilizers, and it also has the potential to help improve air quality alerts.
Making Oxygen on Mars

In September, a microwave-size device known as MOXIE (Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment) aboard NASA’s Perseverance rover generated oxygen from the Martian atmosphere for the 16th and final time. 
Extracting oxygen from the atmospheric resources found on Mars via In-situ Resource Utilization processes will be critical to long-term human exploration of the Red Planet, providing explorers with breathable air and rocket propellant. 
Since Perseverance landed in 2021, MOXIE has proven far more successful than expected, generating more than 130 grams of oxygen, including 9.8 grams on its final run. At its most efficient, MOXIE produced 12 grams of oxygen an hour – twice as much as NASA’s original goals for the instrument – at least 98% purity.
Asteroid Sampler

On Sept. 24, NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission returned a sample from asteroid Bennu to Earth. The sample is the first asteroid collected in space by NASA, and the largest ever collected from an asteroid. The rock and dust represent relics of our early solar system and could shed light on the origins of life.
Early analysis of the sample at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston has revealed high carbon content and water, which together could indicate the building blocks of life on Earth may be found in the rock. The Bennu sample will be divided and shared with partner space agencies and other institutions, providing generations of scientists a window about 4.5 billion years into the past.
Quiet Sonic Thumps

NASA’s X-59 experimental aircraft, the agency’s first purpose-built, supersonic X-plane in decades, is currently scheduled to take to the skies in 2024.
The centerpiece of NASA’s Quesst mission, the agency will fly the X-59 to demonstrate the ability to fly faster than the speed of sound while reducing the typically loud sonic boom to a quieter “sonic thump”. NASA will use the X-59 to provide data to help regulators amend current rules that ban commercial supersonic flight over land, opening the door to greatly reduced flight times.
NASA will fly the X-59 over several U.S. cities in the final phase of the mission, gathering public input to the hushed sonic thumps. 
The TEMPO instrument is managed by NASA Langley’s Science Directorate in collaboration with the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory. It was built by Ball Aerospace and integrated onto Intelsat 40E by Maxar.
The MOXIE experiment was built Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory manages the project for the agency’s Space Technology Mission Directorate.
The OSIRIS-REx mission, launched on Sept. 8, 2016, was led by the University of Arizona. It is managed by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, under the agency’s Science Mission Directorate’s New Frontiers Program. 
The Low-Boom Flight Demonstration project is managed by NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California, the X-59 Quesst is managed by NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, and both efforts are led by NASA’s Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate.
For more information about the agency’s missions, visit:

Home Page

Posted on

NASA Sets Coverage for Psyche Spacecraft Launch to Metal World

Source: NASA

NASA will provide coverage of the upcoming prelaunch and launch activities for its Psyche mission to a metal-rich asteroid. Launch is targeted for 10:16 a.m. EDT Thursday, Oct. 12, on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Live launch coverage without commentary will begin at 9:15 a.m. EDT on the NASA Television media channel. The live launch broadcast with commentary will begin at 9:30 a.m., and will air on YouTube, X, Facebook, Twitch, Daily Motion, the NASA app, and the agency’s website. NASA TV’s public channel will be airing coverage of a spacewalk outside the International Space Station.
Prior to launch, NASA will hold a mission and science briefing at 12 p.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 10, and a prelaunch news conference at 1 p.m. on Wednesday, Oct. 11. Watch coverage on NASA TV, the NASA app, and the agency’s website at:

NASA TV Live


NASA is sending the spacecraft to an asteroid named Psyche, which orbits the Sun between Mars and Jupiter, to learn how Earth and other rocky planets formed. This will be the first mission to an asteroid with substantial amounts of metal, as previous missions have explored asteroids made mostly of rock or ice. The asteroid Psyche may be part of the interior of a planetesimal, a building block of a rocky planet. By studying it, scientists seek to determine whether the asteroid was a planetary core.
Attached to the Psyche spacecraft is a technology demonstration, NASA’s Deep Space Optical Communications. This experiment will test the ability of lasers to transmit data at increased rates beyond the Moon. High-bandwidth optical communications to Earth will be tested during the first two years of the spacecraft’s journey to Psyche. While the optical communications demonstration is hosted by Psyche, its transceiver will not relay Psyche mission data.
Full coverage of this mission is as follows (all times Eastern):
Tuesday, Oct. 10
9:30 a.m. – One-on-one media interviews at Kennedy with various mission subject-matter experts. Sign-up information will be emailed to media accredited to attend this launch in person.
12 p.m. – Psyche Mission and Science Briefing on NASA TV with the following participants:
Lori Glaze, Planetary Science Division director, NASA Headquarters
Lindy Elkins-Tanton, Psyche principal investigator, Arizona State University
Ben Weiss, Psyche deputy principal investigator and magnetometer lead, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
David Oh, Psyche chief engineer for operations, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL)
Abi Biswas, Deep Space Optical Communications project technologist, JPL
Media may request the news conference dial-in number and passcode by contacting the Kennedy newsroom no later than one hour prior to the start of the call at ksc-newsroom@mail.nasa.gov. Members of the public also may ask questions, which may be answered in real time during the segment, by using #AskNASA on social media. On-site media previously credentialed may attend the briefing in person or via telephone.
Wednesday, Oct. 11
1 p.m. – Psyche Prelaunch News Conference on NASA TV with the following participants:
NASA Associate Administrator Bob Cabana
Nicola Fox, associate administrator, NASA’s Science Mission Directorate
Tim Dunn, senior launch director, NASA’s Launch Services Program
Julianna Scheiman, director, Civil Satellite Missions, SpaceX
Henry Stone, Psyche project manager, JPL
Arlena Moses, launch weather officer, U.S. Space Force
Media may request the news conference dial-in number and passcode by contacting the Kennedy newsroom no later than one hour prior to the start of the call at ksc-newsroom@mail.nasa.gov. Members of the public also may ask questions, which may be answered in real time during the segment, by using #AskNASA on social media. On-site media may attend the briefing in person or via telephone.
2:30 p.m. – NASA Social Panel livestream at Kennedy. Watch live on YouTube and Facebook.
5 p.m. – NASA EDGE will host the Psyche rollout show live on NASA TV and YouTube.
Thursday, Oct. 12
9:15 a.m. – Live launch coverage without commentary begins on NASA TV media channel.
9:30 a.m. – Live launch coverage with commentary begins on YouTube, X, Facebook, Twitch, Daily Motion, the NASA app, and the agency’s website.
For NASA TV downlink information, schedules, and links to streaming video, visit:

NASA TV Live


NASA Website Launch Coverage
Launch day coverage of NASA’s Psyche mission will be available on the agency’s website. Coverage will include blog updates and livestreaming beginning no earlier than 8 a.m. Streaming video and photos of the launch will be available shortly after liftoff. Images of Psyche’s processing and launch are available online.
Follow countdown coverage on the Psyche launch blog at:
https://blogs.nasa.gov/psyche
Audio Only Coverage
Audio only of the news conferences and launch coverage will be carried on the NASA “V” circuits, which may be accessed by dialing 321-867-1220, -1240, or -7135. On launch day, “mission audio,” countdown activities without NASA TV launch commentary, will be carried on 321-867-7135 beginning at 9:15 a.m.
Attend Launch Virtually
Members of the public can register to attend the Psyche launch virtually. NASA’s virtual guest program for this mission includes curated launch resources, notifications about related opportunities or changes, and a stamp for the agency’s virtual guest passport following a successful launch.
Watch, Engage Online
Let people know you’re following the mission to a metal world. On Facebook, Instagram, and X, use the hashtag #MissionToPsyche and #AskNASA. You can also stay connected by following and tagging these accounts:
Facebook: NASA, NASAKennedy, NASAJPL, NASALSP, NASASolarSystem
Instagram: @NASA, @NASAKennedy, @NASAJPL, @NASASolarSystem
X: @NASA, @NASAKennedy, @NASASocial, @NASAJPL, @NASA_LSP, @NASASolarSystem
The spacecraft will travel almost six years, using a solar electric propulsion system and a gravity assist at Mars, to make the 2.2-billion-mile (3.6-billion-kilometer) journey to the asteroid. When it arrives, the spacecraft will orbit and observe the asteroid for about 26 months using a suite of instruments, including a multispectral imager, gamma-ray and neutron spectrometer, and magnetometer.
The Psyche mission is led by Arizona State University. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, California, is responsible for the mission’s overall management, system engineering, integration and test, and mission operations. Maxar Technologies in Palo Alto, California, provided the high-power solar electric propulsion spacecraft chassis. NASA’s Launch Services Program, based at Kennedy, is managing the launch service. Psyche is the 14th mission selected as part of NASA’s Discovery Program, managed by the agency’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.
JPL manages Deep Space Optical Communications for the Technology Demonstration Missions program within NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate and the Space Communications and Navigation program within the agency’s Space Operations Mission Directorate.
For more information about Psyche, visit:
https://www.nasa.gov/psyche
-end-
Alise Fisher / Alana JohnsonHeadquarters, Washington202-617-4977 / 202-358-1501alise.m.fisher@nasa.gov / alana.r.johnson@nasa.gov
Leejay LockhartKennedy Space Center, Florida321-747-8310leejay.lockhart@nasa.gov