NASA Celebrates Employees Selected for Top Federal Award

BREAKING NEWS:

JARED ISAACMAN HAS ELECTED TO STEPDOWN AS THE NASA ADMINISTRATOR SELECTEE

President Donald Trump has confirmed previous reports that he’s withdrawing Jared Isaacman as his pick to lead NASA. Isaacman, a billionaire who owns a credit card processing company, was about to go for his Senate confirmation in the next few weeks. “After a thorough review of prior associations, I am hereby withdrawing the nomination of Jared Isaacman to head NASA,” Trump said in a Truth Social post late Saturday. “I will soon announce a new Nominee who will be Mission Aligned, and put America First in Space.” 

Trump did not elaborate on what specific “prior associations” were found to sour him on Isaacman, but Isaacman is a close friend of former Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) leader Elon Musk, who left that post on Friday. Musk championed Isaacman for the NASA job and appeared critical of the decision to drop him. “It is rare to find someone so competent and good-hearted,” he said in an X post.

Isaacman did not comment directly on the decision but did say his experience as the nominee was positive and showed him the vetting is done by “many competent, dedicated people who love this country and care deeply about the mission.” That dedication “was on full display during my hearing, where leaders on both sides of the aisle made clear they’re willing to fight for the world’s most accomplished space agency.” Isaacman bought a series of SpaceX trips to space, one of which included the first private spacewalk.

--------------------------------------------------

President-elect Donald Trump announced Jared Isaacman as his pick to lead the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

Shift4 Payments CEO and civilian astronaut Jared Isaacman—President Donald Trump’s nominee to be the next NASA administrator—will get his day before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation on Wednesday.

The committee this week announced the date of Isaacman’s confirmation hearing, about five months after Trump made the pick. The billionaire and SpaceX ally is viewed as an unusual choice to lead NASA, given his limited interactions with the space agency and civil space community.

Nonetheless, Isaacman has received broad support across industry and government. He has flown to space twice on missions purchased from SpaceX—Inspiration4 in 2021 and Polaris Dawn in September, both of which achieved human spaceflight history. Isaacman’s Polaris Program has two further missions on tap with SpaceX, but he has vowed to end those agreements and step down as head of Shift4.

In statements and social media posts, Isaacman has lauded commercial space providers such as SpaceX and Rocket Lab and emphasized U.S. leadership in the final frontier.

Last month, multiple sources told Ars Technica that Senator Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), the chair of the Senate Commerce Committee, was the main roadblock to Isaacman’s confirmation hearing. Cruz reportedly took issue with Isaacman’s political donations—many of which have gone to Democrats—and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk’s call to deorbit the International Space Station (ISS) “as soon as possible.” NASA and SpaceX have already detailed a plan to destroy the ISS at the end of the decade.

Cruz apparently was also concerned that Isaacman might have more interest in going to Mars than the moon. Trump, who signed the Artemis Accords during his first term, said in his inauguration speech that the U.S. would “pursue our manifest destiny into the stars” and plant the American flag on Mars. He made no mention of the moon or missions under the Artemis program, which is years behind schedule and over budget. 

Responding to a post on X from Michael Bloomberg that raised those criticisms, Isaacman said he agreed. But he was also optimistic that commercial providers could help land American astronauts “on the Moon, Mars and beyond.” The Shift4 CEO has also pushed for a Hubble Telescope reboost mission and recently visited the operations center for NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, which he has advocated to save from budget cuts.

Last month, a group of governors from states where NASA houses human spaceflight activities, including Florida and Texas, sent Cruz a letter urging Isaacman’s swift confirmation. Alabama governor Kay Ivey sent her own letterpraising him.

A group of nearly 30 former NASA astronauts last month endorsed Isaacman as “uniquely qualified to lead NASA at this critical juncture.” Former NASA chief Jim Bridenstine—who served during Trump’s first term—has urged the Senate to move quickly. The Planetary Society, Space Frontier Foundation, and Commercial Space Federation have all backed his nomination.

Isaacman’s confirmation hearing comes as NASA contends with potential mass layoffs and hundreds of millions of dollars worth of terminated contracts, moves that have been widely condemned by the space community. 

In March, he said he did not know anything about the job cuts and insisted that Trump “said he’s targeting fraud, waste & abuse w/ a scalpel—not a hatchet.”

SpaceX headquarters could soon become Texas' newest city known as Starbase if a small group of voters approves the measure at the polls on Saturday.

Spanning just 1.5 square miles, the proposed city would effectively function as a company town—serving as the future headquarters of Elon Musk’s rocket company, SpaceX. For some time, Musk has envisioned a space-age town like Starbase, populated primarily by his SpaceX employees. If the measure is approved, the coastal land would be formally incorporated as a municipality.

According to an AP report, SpaceX's rocket launches, engine tests and equipment movements often require closing a local highway and access to nearby Boca Chica State Park and Beach. Currently, this requires coordination with Cameron County. However, two proposed state bills would transfer much of that authority to the new city.

Critics argued that the move would grant Musk and SpaceX undue authority over a heavily visited public beach.

According to county election records cited by AP, nearly 200 of the 283 eligible voters had already cast early ballots by Tuesday. With most voters employed by SpaceX, the measure is widely expected to pass.

Three launch systems and two landers from Boeing, SpaceX, and Blue Origin are all part of the complicated puzzle of NASA’s Artemis program.

Sixty-five years ago, the USSR shocked the world by sending the first robotic emissary from Earth to the moon. The September 1959 impact of Luna 2 on northeastern Mare Imbrium was a stunning achievement, reaching the moon less than two years after the launch of Sputnik 1 ushered in the Space Age. The event helped ignite the technological firestorm now known as the Space Race between the U.S. and the USSR.

The U.S. responded to the lunar challenge with a flurry of robotic and human explorers. Less than 10 years after Luna 2 reached the moon, Neil Armstrong took his “one small step for mankind” on the Sea of Tranquility.

But just as Apollo reached its stride and the scientific exploration of the moon began in earnest, politics ended the greatest technological effort in the history of humankind and the moon faded from our dreams.

Now, in the first decades of the 21st century, the Artemis program to return to the moon has taken root. The U.S. and international partners have formulated plans and hardware that will return humans to the moon within the next several years.

The current, publicly available Artemis timelines remain very optimistic, but they must be tempered with the program’s extraordinary complexity and ambition. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Artemis is facing repeated development delays, although none of the technological obstacles appear to be showstoppers.

The real question is: When will new footprints appear on the moon?

Click the button below to read the entire article from Flying Magazine.

Resignations of leaders associated with the Artemis program come as speculation swirls around the space agency’s plans for the moon and Mars.

Feb 20, 2025

NASA, in a Wednesday news release revealed that associate administrator Jim Free—a major figure in the Artemis moon mission program and a vocal defender of the agency’s lunar exploration efforts—will step down, effective Saturday. The Artemis III lunar landing is tentatively scheduled for mid-2027.

“It has been an honor to serve NASA and walk alongside the workforce that tackles the most difficult engineering challenges, pursues new scientific knowledge in our universe and beyond, develops technologies for future exploration endeavors, all while prioritizing safety every day for people on the ground, in the air, and in space,” Free said in a statement.

Free, who served more than three decades at NASA, previously oversaw the Artemis I mission as associate administrator of the Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate. He was also “responsible for the development of NASA’s Moon to Mars architecture, defining and managing the systems development for NASA’s Artemis missions, and planning for NASA’s integrated deep space exploration approach,” per his biography on NASA’s website.

Free was serving as senior adviser to Janet Petro, whom the White House in January named acting administrator following the departure of her predecessor, Bill Nelson, as well as deputy administrator Pam Melroy.

“Throughout his career, Jim has been the ultimate servant leader—always putting the mission and the people of NASA first,” Petro said in Wednesday’s news release. “A remarkable engineer and a decisive leader, he combines deep technical expertise with an unwavering commitment to this agency’s mission.”

In addition, internal NASA communications on Tuesday announced the retirements of the chiefs of procurement, finance, and information at Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama, Reuters reported on Wednesday. Marshall is the build site for many key Artemis technologies, including components for the Orion capsule and Space Launch System (SLS) rocket.

The resignations add to the uncertainty around Artemis, which has faced scrutiny due to setbacks and cost overruns. President Donald Trump in his inaugural address notably did not mention the moon but did vow to “plant the Stars and Stripes on Mars,” a comment that raised questions about the administration’s plans for the moon program.

On Thursday Dec 5, National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) head Bill Nelson announced the Artemis program, which aims to return astronauts to the moon for the first time since 1972, has been delayed.

The agency is now targeting April 2026 for Artemis II, a mission that will take astronauts around the moon and back, and mid-2027 for Artemis III, a lunar landing mission. NASA explained that the delays will provide additional time to address the Orion spacecraft's environmental control and life support systems.

“The Artemis campaign is the most daring, technically challenging, collaborative, international endeavor humanity has ever set out to do,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson in a press release. “We have made significant progress on the Artemis campaign over the past four years, and I’m proud of the work our teams have done to prepare us for this next step forward in exploration as we look to learn more about Orion’s life support systems to sustain crew operations during Artemis II. We need to get this next test flight right. That’s how the Artemis campaign succeeds.”

Introduced in 2017, Artemis is part of NASA’s plan to lay the groundwork for future human missions to Mars and reestablish a human presence on the moon. According to Reuters, the U.S. is expected to invest about $93 billion in the program through 2025.

This is likely the first recorded video of a meteorite crashing onto earth.  This happens quickly, so turn the volume up, sit back then watch and listen.  The video is only a few seconds long.  Enjoy!

"This is not a time for business as usual."

The next few years are likely to be pivotal ones for NASA, according to a hard-hitting report by the U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

The report, which was released last month, is called "NASA at a Crossroads: Maintaining Workforce, Infrastructure and Technology Preeminence in the Coming Decades." And that title was chosen advisedly.

"The bottom line of all this, I think, would be to say that, for NASA, this is not a time for business as usual," said Norm Augustine, committee chair and former Lockheed Martin CEO, during a Sept. 10 webinar that detailed the report's findings. 

"The concerns that it faces are ones that have built up over decades," Augustine said. "NASA truly is, in our view, at a crossroads, and that's why we put that word in the title." 

The report identifies out-of-date infrastructure, pressures to prioritize short-term objectives, budget mismatches, inefficient management practices and nonstrategic reliance on commercial partners as the core issues.  

Related: NASA's Mars sample return plan is getting a major overhaul: 'The bottom line is, $11 billion is too expensive'

The report also argues that NASA should rebalance its priorities and increase investments in its facilities, expert workforce and the development of cutting-edge technology, "even if it means forestalling initiation of new missions."

Indeed, the environment in which NASA functions today is complicated by several factors, including:

• Rapid advancements in technology 
• The need to compete for talent with the commercial space sector, other space agencies and other high-tech sectors 
• A declining federal discretionary budget and a flat agency budget (in terms of purchasing power) 
• Lack of timely congressional authorization acts 
• Shortfalls in the nation's education system, from pre-K through high school 
• Increasing competition in space from China 

The bottom line of a new U.S. National Academies report on NASA's overall health is that "this is not a time for business as usual," said Norm Augustine, committee chair during a Sept. 10 webinar that detailed the report's findings.  (Image credit: National Academies)

Continued success at NASA is at risk, the report stresses, due to budget and program mismatch, short-term focus and aging infrastructure. 

Space.com asked several space policy experts about their reactions to the report's conclusions.

The story of NASA's infrastructure woes is all too familiar, said Marcia Smith, editor of the respected website SpacePolicyOnline.com.

"What I did find new was the report telling NASA that the problem is so acute that NASA needs to fix it even if that means forgoing new missions," Smith said. "NASA is well aware of its aging infrastructure. It all comes down to money."

The space agency's ongoing quest for funding is a situation that has only gotten worse, said Smith.

Last year, Congress abruptly started cutting NASA's budget — 2% less in fiscal year 2024 than in fiscal year 2023 (not accounting for the effects of inflation) — after years of growth, Smith pointed out. 

"The agency is looking at canceling missions, never mind starting new ones. I don't know what they can do about infrastructure in this budget climate," Smith added.

The budget caps set by the Fiscal Responsibility Act last year are only for fiscal year 2024 and fiscal year 2025. Which party wins the House, Senate, and White House in November, Smith observed, will have a major effect on whether those caps are lifted after that and NASA gets more breathing room. 

"If so, it will be interesting to see if NASA heeds Augustine's advice and fixes infrastructure instead of starting more missions. It does seem to be an either-or choice," Smith said.

The report is well-written and an accurate description of the many issues facing NASA as an institution, said Scott Pace, professor of the Practice of International Affairs and Director of the Space Policy Institute at The George Washington University in Washington, D.C. Pace served as the executive secretary of the National Space Council from 2017 to 2020.

Pace added, however, that the report "accepts as given that the agency as it has existed should continue, albeit with some repairs." The report does not ask, he said, what kind of NASA is needed for the 21st century? 

"It takes an 'institution-driven' perspective, rather than being 'mission-driven' in asking what the United States wants NASA to be," Pace told Space.com.

"In light of changing private sector capabilities, what internal capabilities does NASA require to perform its missions? The report suggests one set of answers, but it is unclear that the Administration or Congress will agree," said Pace.

All in all, the report recommends tough but necessary medicine, suggested John Logsdon, professor emeritus at the Space Policy Institute.

"What strikes me is the absence in the report of a recommendation to increase NASA's funding in order to avoid 'trying to do too much with too little.' That was a recommendation of the two previous Augustine-led NASA committees," said Logsdon.

This iteration of a NASA review, Logsdon said, accepts that the agency's budget is unlikely to increase significantly in coming years. 

"That implies hard choices with respect to which prospective missions not to do. On top of that, the committee recommends a reprioritization between carrying out spaceflight missions and tending to institutional health. This is antithetical to NASA's culture, which values mission success," Logsdon concluded.

As for NASA's comeback on the report, that's still to come. 

The report was requested by Congress in the Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors (CHIPS) and Science Act of 2022.  

The study was undertaken by the Academies Committee on NASA Mission Critical Workforce, Infrastructure, and Technology and sponsored by NASA.

"The Congressional direction gave the agency 180 days to respond with a plan, said Colleen Hartman, senior managing director of aeronautics, astronomy, physics, and space science for the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine. 

"I also always request an agency response to a report, which will come separately to us," Hartman told Space.com.

RELATED STORIES:

— NASA gets $25.4 billion in White House's 2025 budget request

— NASA's Mars Sample Return in jeopardy after US Senate questions budget

— US must beat China back to the moon, Congress tells NASA 

SpaceX's Starship megarocket will start flying Mars missions just two years from now, if all goes according to plan.

"These will be uncrewed to test the reliability of landing intact on Mars. If those landings go well, then the first crewed flights to Mars will be in 4 years," SpaceXfounder and CEO Elon Musk said via X on Saturday evening (Sept. 7), in a postthat announced the bold new target timelines. (Earth and Mars align properly for interplanetary missions once every 26 months.)

"Flight rate will grow exponentially from there, with the goal of building a self-sustaining city in about 20 years," Musk added in the same post. "Being multiplanetary will vastly increase the probable lifespan of consciousness, as we will no longer have all our eggs, literally and metabolically, on one planet."

The stainless-steel Starship consists of two elements: a first-stage booster called Super Heavy and a 165-foot-tall (50 meters) upper-stage spacecraft known as Starship. 

A stacked Starship is the biggest and most powerful rocket ever built. It stands about 400 feet (122 meters) tall and generates 16.7 million pounds of thrust at liftoff — nearly twice that of the Space Launch System (SLS), the rocket for NASA's Artemis moon program.

SLS is expendable, but Starship is designed to be fully and rapidly reusable. Indeed, SpaceX plans to land Super Heavy back on the launch mount after each liftoff, enabling quick inspection, refurbishment and relaunch.

SpaceX believes that Starship's combination of brawn and efficiency will finally bring Mars settlement — a long-held dream of Musk's — within humanity's grasp.

Join NASA as they explore and go forward to the Moon and on to Mars. Plus, discover the latest on Earth, the Solar System and beyond from NASA in your inbox.

The agency extended its deadline for a deorbit vehicle that will eventually steer the ISS into Earth's atmosphere.

The space station turned 25 years old on Wednesday (Dec. 6), and NASA is preparing for the pioneering outpost's end.

The agency just celebrated the milestone mission that docked the first two International Space Station (ISS) modules on Dec. 6, 1998. In the runup to that event, NASA updated its private proposal request to help deorbit the station when it retires in 2030 or so. And early stage funding is underway for several commercial replacements that would be run by private companies, with NASA as a customer. The agency wants all these vehicles ready by the time the ISS' work is done.

Commercial activity will allow more astronauts, from more countries, to "conduct science and technology development," ISS Expedition 70 commander Andreas Mogensen said during a livestreamed event on Wednesday marking the 25th anniversary.

"I think that's incredibly exciting, to see how many countries [will fly], and hopefully also in the future private companies are interested in utilizing a laboratory in low Earth orbit," said Mogensen, who is with the European Space Agency.

The International Space Station is 356 feet (109 meters) end-to-end with a mass of 925,335 pounds (419,725 kilograms) without visiting vehicles. The solar panels alone cover one acre. There is 13,696 cubic feet of habitable volume for crew members, not including visiting vehicles. The space station has seven sleeping quarters, with the ability to add more during crew handover periods, two bathrooms, a gym, and the cupola — a 360-degree-view bay window of the Earth. You can learn more in the reference guide here. 

The space station orbits Earth at an altitude of approximately 250 miles (402 kilometers), with its orbital path taking it over 90 percent of the Earth's population. Thanks to the size of its solar panels, it can be seen with the naked eye at dusk or dawn when flying over a local area. You can track the space station's path near you at spotthestation.nasa.gov. 

The International Space Station is exactly that — international. It is a partnership of five space agencies from 15 countries who contributed different parts to make up the ISS, which are still owned by the respective partner, and we all help to continuously operate the station 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. The space station is composed of parts provided by the United States, Russia, Japan, Canada, and the countries comprising the European Space Agency. 

United Launch Alliance (ULA)—the Boeing/Lockheed joint-venture that provides space launch services to the U.S. Department of Defense, NASA, and other major players in the space industry—expects the first flight of its Vulcan Centaur rocket to take place soon.

The Vulcan Centaur will replace ULA’s Atlas-5 launch vehicle—a twenty-year old Lockheed Martin design and the oldest active American rocket.

Each Atlas-5 comprises two main stages, the first of which is powered by a Russian RD-180 engine. The RD-180 is being phased out on account of the national security implications inherent its being reliant on foreign parts—which became a concern subsequent the U.S.’s and Russia’s disagreement over Ukrainian sovereignty. 

Provided preparations proceed apace, the partially reusable Vulcan Centaur’s inaugural mission will see it depart from Space Launch Complex-41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station carrying Astrobotic’s Peregrine lunar lander—an autonomous, robotic vehicle capable of delivering payloads of up to 265-kilograms to the lunar surface with a target accuracy of one-hundred meters. 

The Vulcan Centaur was to have launched in 2020, but the program has been delayed by the rocky development of Blue Origin’s BE-4 rocket engine (pictured)—which burns methane and is more powerful than the main engines that powered the space shuttle. ULA’s optimism notwithstanding, space industry insiders believe it’s unlikely that Kent, Washington-based Blue Origin will deliver the new engines before 2023.

Gary L. Wentz Jr., ULA’s vice president of government and commercial programs, asserts ULA has in its possession a number of the Russian-made RD-180 sufficient to complete the Atlas-5’s planned missions. Mister Wentz states Atlas 5 flights will wind-down as Vulcan Centaur launches spool-up. At present, Atlas-5 operations are slated to continue into 2024.

Space Force Col. Erin Gulden shares Mr. Wentz’s outlook, stating of the transition from the Atlas 5 to the Vulcan Centaur, “from the Space Force’s perspective, we don’t see any issues or concerns at this point with a gap in capability or ability to launch.”  

The Space Force’s first launch on a Vulcan Centaur is planned for late 2023.

This article is reprinted from "Propwash"

To learn more about United Launch Alliance go to: 

 https://www.ulalaunch.com/rockets/vulcan-centaur

The history of the universe and how it evolved is broadly accepted as the Big Bang model, which states that the universe began as an incredibly hot, dense point roughly 13.7 billion years ago. So, how did the universe go from being fractions of an inch (a few millimeters) across to what it is today?