A sample colliecton from asteroid Bennu — categorized as a "near-Earth object" — is due to land Sunday. Scientists hope the sample will give a greater understanding of how Earth became habitable. The capsule's safe landing is risky but mission managers at the US space agency are hoping for  a "spot-on" touchdown. Why is the OSIRIS-REx mission important? The mission was launched in September 2016 to collect samples from Bennu, an asteroid rich in Carbon and classified as a "near-Earth object." The capsule landed on Bennu's surface after four years and collected about nine ounces (250 grams) of dust from its stony surface. "This sample return is really historic," NASA scientist Amy Simon told AFP news agency. "This is going to be the biggest sample we've brought back since the Apollo moon rocks" were returned to Earth. Scientists have high hopes and believe that by examining the samples, we can gain a better understanding of how our solar system was formed and how Earth became habitable.

NASA reestablished contact with the Voyager 2 spacecraft on Friday following two weeks of silence after flight controllers sent a wrong command to the spacecraft that titled its antenna away from earth. To reposition the antenna, NASA's Deep Space Network sent an "interstellar shout" on Wednesday with the help of NASA's most powerful radio antenna in Canberra, Australia. It was a longshot attempt at sending instructions to right the craft that required perfect timing. Voyager project manager Suzanne Dodd at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California told AFP news agency that the command was timed to be sent during the "best conditions during the antenna tracking pass in order to maximize possible receipt of the command by the spacecraft." As Voyager 2 is more than 12 billion miles (19 billion kilometers) from earth, it took roughly 18.5 hours for the command traveling at light speed to reach the spacecraft, and another 18.5 hours to hear back. Crews therefore had to wait more than a day to learn whether their intervention had even worked.  In the early hours of August 4 in the US, Voyager began returning science and telemetry data "indicating it is operating normally and that it remains on its expected trajectory," the Jet Propulsion Laboratory said. What went wrong with Voyager 2? On July 21, a series of planned commands sent to Voyager 2 mistakenly caused the probe's antenna to point 2 degrees away from Earth, which disrupted the transmission of signals. The day before coming up with the plan to send the "interstellar shout," NASA engineers had detected a carrier or "heartbeat" wavefrom Voyager, by using multiple observatories around the world that form the Deep Space Network. It was too faint to carry any data, but it was enough to confirm that the mission was still operating, and gave engineers hope that they could send a signal to adjust the antenna positioning. The two-week outage was believed to be the longest NASA had gone without hearing from Voyager 2 in a mission that's well into its fifth decade, project manager Suzanne Dodd told The Associated Press. The antenna only needed to be shifted 2 degrees to correct the error, but the situation was not expected to be resolved until a scheduled automated realignment maneuver on October 15. What is Voyager? Voyager 2, and its twin Voyager 1, were launched in 1977 to explore the outer solar system and beyond, while serving as a beacon of humanity in outer space. Both spacecraft carry "Golden Records," which are 12-inch, gold-plated copper disks that feature "the sounds of Earth," such as thunder, rainfall, dogs barking, and the sound of a baby. The discs also include a map of the solar system, a piece of uranium that serves as a radioactive clock allowing recipients to date the spaceship's launch, and symbols that show how to play the record. The disc is intended to convey the story of our world to extraterrestrials. Voyager 1 crossed into interstellar space in 2012, and Voyager 2 crossed in 2018. Before leaving the solar system, Voyager 2 explored Jupiter and Saturn, and became the first and so far only spacecraft to visit Uranus and Neptune. Scientific data sent back from Voyager include details about the interstellar magnetic field and the abundance of cosmic rays. Voyager 1 is now the most distant spacecraft from earth at 15 billion miles (24 billion kilometers) away. It is still in contact. Dodd said that as long as the plutonium power holds, both spacecraft could make it to the 50th anniversary of their launch in 2027. "Hopefully, one of them will make it to 50. But they are old and certainly events like this one that just happened scare the dickens out of me, as far as making that type of a milestone," she told the Associated Press.

The US space agency lost contact with the Voyager 2 probe after a series of routine commands misdirected its antenna. Now flight controllers are hoping to reposition the spacecraft, which is traveling between stars. NASA on Tuesday picked up a "heartbeat signal" from the Voyager 2 space probe after it went silent late last month. Voyager 2 was launched in 1977 to explore the outer planets of the solar system. It was designed to last 12 years but continued to beam data back to Earth for more than three decades. However, late last month, flight controllers accidentally sent a wrong command causing the spacecraft's antenna to point away from Earth, making it unable to receive commands or transmit data. NASA then used the Deep Space Network, its global network of giant radio antennas, to finally reestablish contact with the space probe on Tuesday. "So we know the spacecraft is alive and operating," Voyager project manager Suzanne Dodd told the AFP news agency. "This buoyed our spirits." What's next for Voyager 2? Flight controllers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California now attempt to reposition Voyager 2's antenna back towards Earth. If this command doesn't work — and controllers doubt it will — NASA will have to wait until October for an automatic spacecraft reset. The antenna is only 2% off-kilter. "That is a long time to wait, so we'll try sending up commands several times" before then, Dodd said. Voyager 2 is the first and only spacecraft to have visited Uranus and Neptune. In December 2018, it left the solar system's protective magnetic bubble known as the heliopsphere and is now travelling through space between stars, some 19 billion kilometers (12 billion miles) from Earth. ts twin, Voyager 1, is even further away at 24 billion kilometers (15 billion miles) from Earth, making it humanity's most distant spacecraft. Both space probes carry so-called "Golden Records" — 12-inch, gold-plated disks that contain photos and audio selected to portray the diversity of life on Earth to any potential extraterrestrial life that may encounter them. In roughly 296,000 years, Voyager 2 is expected to pass by the star Sirius at a distance of 4.3 light-years.

The new NASA device is capable of measuring air pollution across North America down to the neighborhood level. NASA said the mission isn't just for research, but about "improving life on Earth for all." A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket successfully launched from Florida on Friday, carrying a new NASA device that can track air pollution over North America. The Tropospheric Emissions Monitoring of Pollution (TEMPO) instrument will allow scientists to monitor air pollutants and their emission sources from space more comprehensively than ever before, down to the neighborhood level. According to Kevin Daugherty, NASA's TEMPO project manager, the instrument will measure pollution and air quality across greater North America on an hourly basis during the daytime, all the way "from Puerto Rico up to the tar sands of Canada." The data will be used by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and other agencies responsible for tackling atmospheric pollution. Why is TEMPO so special? "The TEMPO mission is about more than just studying pollution — it's about improving life on Earth for all," NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said in a statement. "By monitoring the effects of everything from rush-hour traffic to pollution from forest fires and volcanoes, NASA data will help improve air quality across North America and protect our planet," he added. A unique feature of TEMPO, which is about the size of a washing machine and has been described as a chemistry laboratory in space, is that it will be hosted on an Intelsat communications satellite in geostationary orbit. Existing pollution-monitoring satellites are in low Earth orbit, which means they can only provide observations once a day at a fixed time. TEMPO will be able to measure atmospheric pollution down to a spatial resolution of 4 square miles (10 square kilometers), or neighborhood level. What is geostationary orbit? "Geostationary orbit is a common orbit for weather satellites and communications satellites, but an air quality instrument measuring gases hadn't been there yet," Caroline Nowlan, an atmospheric physicist at the Harvard & Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, explained to news agency AFP. In a geostationary orbit 22,236 miles (35,786 kilometers) above the equator, TEMPO will match the rotation of the Earth, meaning it will stay over the same location — North America — at all times. "The great thing about TEMPO is that for the first time we'll be able to make hourly measurements over North America, so we'll be able to see what's happening over a whole day as long as the sun is up," Nowlan added. TEMPO will have multiple applications from measuring levels of various pollutants to providing air quality forecasts and helping the development of emission-control strategies. Why is the mission important? More than 40% of the US population, 137 million people, live in places with unhealthy levels of particle pollution or ozone, according to the American Lung Association. Air pollution is blamed for some 60,000 premature deaths a year. Among the pollutants tracked by TEMPO will be nitrogen dioxide, produced from the combustion of fossil fuels, formaldehyde and ozone. The data will be made available online for members of the public to monitor air quality information in their local area. Daugherty said TEMPO will power up at the end of May or in early June and begin producing data in October, although it will not be made available to the public until April of next year.

An engine problem threatened to delay the launch on Monday of NASA's most powerful rocket yet on an uncrewed test flight to take humans back to the Moon and eventually to Mars. Blastoff, which had been planned for 8:33 am (1233 GMT), was put on hold because of a temperature issue with one of the four engines on the 322-foot (98-meter) Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, the US space agency said. Tens of thousands of people -- including US Vice President Kamala Harris -- have gathered along the beach near the Kennedy Space Center in Florida to watch the launch, which comes 50 years after Apollo 17 astronauts last set foot on the Moon. The goal of the flight, dubbed Artemis 1, is to test the SLS and the Orion crew capsule that sits atop the rocket. Mannequins equipped with sensors are standing in for a crew for the mission. Overnight operations to fill the rocket with more than three million liters of ultra-cold liquid hydrogen and oxygen were briefly delayed by a high risk of lightning, though it was a "go" after an hour.  Around 3:00 am, another hiccup emerged: a potential leak was detected during the filling of the main stage with hydrogen, causing a pause.  After tests, the flow resumed. "The leak is at an acceptable level and we have returned to fast fill operations," NASA tweeted.  But NASA engineers later detected a problem with the temperature in one of the four engines and put a hold on the countdown. NASA has a two-hour window Monday in which to carry out the launch. The massive orange-and-white rocket, which has been sitting on the space center's Launch Complex 39B for more than a week, is not able to take off in case of rains and storms.  If Monday's launch is scrubbed, September 2 and 5 have been penciled in as alternative flight dates. The rocket's Orion capsule is set to orbit the Moon to see if the vessel is safe for people in the near future. At some point, Artemis aims to put a woman and a person of color on the Moon for the first time. "This mission goes with a lot of hopes and dreams of a lot of people. And we now are the Artemis generation," NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said. In another first, a woman -- Charlie Blackwell-Thompson -- will give the final green light for liftoff.  Women now account for 30 percent of the control room staff, compared to one for the Apollo 11 mission -- the first time astronauts landed on the moon in 1969. - Extreme temperatures - During the 42-day trip, the Orion capsule will orbit the Moon, coming within 60 miles (100 kilometers) at its closest approach, and then fire its engines to shoot out 40,000 miles -- a record for a spacecraft rated to carry humans. One of the mission's primary objectives is to test the capsule's heat shield, which at 16 feet in diameter is the largest ever built. On its return to Earth's atmosphere, the heat shield will have to withstand a speed of 25,000 miles per hour and a temperature of 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit (2,760 degrees Celsius) -- or half as hot as the Sun. The dummies aboard the spacecraft will record acceleration, vibration and radiation levels. The craft will deploy small satellites to study the lunar surface. A complete failure would be devastating for a program costing $4.1 billion per launch that is already years behind schedule. - Life on the Moon - Monday's launch is "not a near-term sprint, but a long-term marathon to bring the solar system and beyond into our sphere," said Bhavya Lal, NASA associate administrator for technology, policy and strategy. The next mission, Artemis 2, will take astronauts into orbit around the Moon without landing on its surface. The crew of Artemis 3 is to land on the Moon in 2025 at the earliest. And since humans have already visited the Moon, Artemis has its sights set on another lofty goal: a crewed mission to Mars. The Artemis program is to establish a lasting human presence on the Moon with an orbiting space station known as Gateway and a base on the surface. Gateway would serve as a staging and refueling station for a voyage to Mars that would take a minimum of several months. Source: AFP/BSS AH

NASA chief Jim Bridenstine told lawmakers Wednesday it was crucial for the US to maintain a presence in Earth’s orbit after the International Space Station is decommissioned so that China does not gain a strategic advantage. The first parts of the ISS were launched in 1998 and it has been continuously lived in since 2000. The station, which serves as a space science lab and is a partnership between the US, Russia, Japan, Europe and Canada, is currently expected to be operated until 2030. “I’ll tell you one thing that has me very concerned — and that is that a day is coming when the International Space Station comes to the end of its useful life,” said Bridenstine. “In order to be able to have the United States of America have a presence in low Earth orbit, we have to be prepared for what comes next,” he added. To that end, NASA has requested $150 million for the 2021 fiscal year to help develop the commercialization of low Earth orbit, defined as 2,000 km (1,200 miles) or less from the planet’s surface. “We want to see a public-private partnership where NASA can deal with commercial space station providers, so that we can keep a permanent uninterrupted human presence in low Earth orbit,” said Bridenstine. “I don’t think it’s in the interest of the nation to build another International Space Station — I do think it’s in the interest of the nation to support commercial industry, where NASA is a customer.” Bridenstine warned the lawmakers this was critical to maintain US space supremacy in the face of a planned Chinese space station that Beijing hopes will be operational by 2022. The station is named Tiangong, meaning Heavenly Palace, and in June Chinese state media announced it was partnering with 23 entities from 17 countries to carry out scientific experiments on board. These countries included both developed and developing countries, such as France, Germany and Japan, as well as Kenya and Peru, according to Xinhua news agency. “China is rapidly building what they call the ‘Chinese International Space Station,’ and they’re rapidly marketing that space station to all of our international partners,” said Bridenstine. “It would be a tragedy, if, after all of his time, and all of this effort, we were to abandon low Earth orbit and cede that territory.” He explained that the microgravity of ISS offered great potential for scientific advances, from innovations in pharmaceuticals to printing 3D human organs to the creation of artificial retinas to treat people with macular degeneration. Bridenstine said that it was therefore necessary to fund NASA to pay companies to set up a space station, where it would be one of several customers in order to drive down its own costs. This, he added, was vital to “ultimately not cede that territory to another country that doesn’t have our interests at heart.” Source: AFP/BSS AH

The US space agency NASA scrapped Monday a planned historic spacewalk by two women astronauts, citing a lack of available spacesuits that would fit them at the International Space Station. Christina Koch will now perform tasks in space Friday with fellow American Nick Hague — instead of Anne McClain as originally planned. Had Koch and McClain done their spacewalk together, it would have been the first ever by two women astronauts. Until now, male-only or mixed male-female teams had conducted spacewalk since the space station was assembled in 1998 — 214 spacewalks until now. McClain worked outside the station last week — with Hague — when she realized that a “medium”-sized upper half of her spacesuit fit her better. “Because only one medium-size torso can be made ready by Friday, March 29, Koch will wear it,” NASA explained. The spacesuits aboard the ISS are in fact assemblies of several parts put together as best adapted to each astronaut’s body, explained Brandi Dean, spokeswoman of the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas where American astronauts are based. She said two upper parts in each of the three available spacesuit sizes are currently held at the ISS: medium, large and extra large. “We do our best to anticipate the spacesuit sizes that each astronaut will need, based on the spacesuit size they wore in training on the ground, and in some cases astronauts train in multiple sizes,” she said in explaining the problem that hampered Friday’s planned spacewalk. “However, individuals’ sizing needs may change when they are on orbit, in response to the changes living in microgravity can bring about in a body. “In addition, no one training environment can fully simulate performing a spacewalk in microgravity, and an individual may find that their sizing preferences change in space.” Source: AFP AH