Media View Barge Pegasus and SLS Hardware

On May 16, NASA held a media event at Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, to highlight the recent arrival of the barge Pegasus with the first core stage test article for NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket. NASA modified Pegasus to accommodate the massive SLS core stage, increasing the barge’s length and weight-carrying capacity. The core stage test article – manufactured at the agency’s Michoud Assembly Facility, in New Orleans – is the first of four core stage test articles scheduled to be delivered to Marshall for testing. This delivery marks a critical milestone toward Exploration Mission-1 (EM-1), the first flight of SLS and NASA’s Orion spacecraft.  It also brings the agency a step closer to sending humans to deep space destinations – including Mars.

Lightfoot Discusses Future Exploration Goals

Also on May 16, NASA’s Acting Administrator Robert Lightfoot discussed the agency’s goals and plans for the future during a conversation with journalist Alison Stewart at The Atlantic’s space forum, “On the Launchpad: Return to Deep Space.” The event, held at the Newseum in Washington, brought together policy makers, key players from NASA, and space industry experts to explore the technologies needed for successful human missions to deep space. Lightfoot highlighted the agency’s plans for a flexible, reusable and sustainable infrastructure to support exploration missions of increasing complexity that will eventually take humans to Mars.

Ochoa, Foale Inducted into Hall of Fame

The U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame inducted its two newest members on May 19. Ellen Ochoa, the director of NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, veteran of four spaceflights and the first Hispanic woman to go to space, and Mike Foale, who has served on the space shuttle, the Russian space station Mir, and the International Space Station, were inducted to the hall during a ceremony at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida.

Virtual Tour of Meteorite Lab

NASA took students and educators on a virtual tour inside Johnson Space Center’s Meteorite Curation Laboratory recently. The activity highlighted the special facilities and tools used to examine meteorites discovered in Antarctica and explained how these rocks help researchers understand more about our solar system. The tour was part of NASA’s partnership with Texas Instruments to host “The Search for STEMnauts,” a virtual scavenger hunt designed to ignite students’ interest in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM).

And that’s what’s up this week @NASA …