As the supercooled propellant flowed into the core stage, and NASA’s SLS (Space Launch System) rocket roared to life, Allison Mjoen and her family watched with awe and pride. Mjoen, NASA’s operations manager for the agency’s Exploration Ground Systems program, helped shape the systems and ground operations that will one day send humans back to […]
Fifty years ago, on Sept. 17, 1976—Constitution Day of America’s bicentennial year—NASA unveiled its first space shuttle orbiter, OV-101, to the public. NASA had originally planned to name the vehicle Constitution, but a letter-writing campaign changed the agency’s plans. Nearly 100,000 fans of the Star Trek television series wrote the White House urging that the […]
In the 1960s NASA began developing a system of reusable space shuttles to make its work more efficient and to reduce costs. The shuttles could launch like rockets, maneuver in Earth’s orbit, and land like airplanes. They also could carry large satelli…
NASA will observe its annual Day of Remembrance on Thursday, Jan. 22, which includes commemorating the crews of Apollo 1 and the space shuttles Challenger and Columbia. The event is traditionally held every year on the fourth Thursday of January, as all three astronaut accidents happened around the end of the month. “On NASA’s Day […]