NASA Invites Media to See Artemis II Moon Rocket Elements at Kennedy

Media are invited in late July to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida to see progress on the agency’s SLS (Space Launch System) Moon rocket as preparations continue for the Artemis II test flight around the Moon.

Participants joining the multi-day events will see the arrival and unloading of the 212-foot-tall SLS core stage at the center’s turn basin before it is transported to the nearby Vehicle Assembly Building. The stage will arrive on NASA’s Pegasus barge from the agency’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans, where it was manufactured and assembled.

Media also will see the twin pair of solid rocket boosters inside the Rotation, Processing, and Surge Facility at the spaceport, where NASA’s Exploration Ground Systems Program is processing the motor segments in preparation for rocket assembly. NASA and industry subject matter experts will be available to answer questions. At launch, the SLS rocket’s two solid rocket boosters and four RS-25 engines, located at the base of its core stage, will produce 8.8 million pounds of thrust to send the first crewed mission of the Artemis campaign around the Moon.

Media interested in participating must apply for credentials at:

https://media.ksc.nasa.gov

To receive credentials, international media must apply by Friday, June 28, and U.S. citizens must apply by Thursday, July 5.

Credentialed media will receive a confirmation email upon approval, along with additional information about the specific date for the activities when they are finalized. NASA’s media accreditation policy is available online. For questions about accreditation, please email ksc-media-accreditat@mail.nasa.gov. For other questions, please contact Kennedy’s newsroom at: 321-867-2468.

Para obtener información sobre cobertura en español en el Centro Espacial Kennedy o si desea solicitar entrevistas en español, comuníquese con Antonia Jaramillo o Messod Bendayan a: antonia.jaramillobotero@nasa.gov o messod.c.bendayan@nasa.gov.

The approximately 10-day Artemis II flight will test NASA’s SLS rocket, Orion spacecraft, and ground systems for the first time with astronauts and will pave the way for lunar surface missions, including landing the first woman, first person of color, and first international partner astronaut on the Moon.

Learn more about Artemis at:

www.nasa.gov/artemis/

-end-

Rachel Kraft 
Headquarters, Washington 
281-358-1100  
rachel.h.kraft@nasa.gov  

Tiffany Fairley/Antonia Jaramillo
Kennedy Space Center, Florida
321-867-2468
tiffany.l.fairley@nasa.gov/antonia.jaramillobotero@nasa.gov

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Tiernan P. Doyle

Transportation Officer Melissa Coleman

“Don’t let the NASA emblem scare you away.

“I was very intimidated by it because it was a childhood dream [to make it to NASA]. I saw a picture of me at Kennedy Space [Center’s] visitor center the last time I went home. I must have been five years old. I always used to tell myself that I wasn’t smart enough. [I assumed you needed to be] a literal rocket scientist, and I have absolutely no STEM [science, technology, engineering, and math] degree whatsoever.

“So my advice is, as long as you’re true to who you are, you’re transparent, you’re yourself, and you put the work in, you will get what you want.

“And make them tell you no — that was one of the first things I learned. If you don’t ask and you don’t apply, you have your answer. So make them tell you no. If you don’t ask, you’ll never know.

“And don’t be intimidated or influenced by an emblem or your perception of what kind of people are behind that emblem. Because now I realize, once I’ve made it to NASA, that it’s nothing like I thought it was. In a lot of ways, it’s better, right? Because I get these opportunities to do things that are not in my primary role to serve others, and in that capacity, it’s serving me. That’s my advice.”

— Melissa Coleman, Transportation Officer, Logistics Branch, NASA’s Kennedy Space Center

Image Credit: NASA/Cory Huston
Interviewer: NASA/Thalia Patrinos

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Thalia K. Patrinos

Johnson Celebrates LGBTQI+ Pride Month: Meet Margaret Kennedy

Although surrounded by the big and bold missions of human spaceflight, Margaret Kennedy, an aerospace systems engineer on the Human Health and Performance Contract, still appreciates the little things. Ask about her favorite NASA experience to date and she will tell you it is getting to show her badge to the gate guards at Houston’s Johnson Space Center every day. “Knowing I get to be a part of things that can change the world – that I’m helping to make it possible for astronauts to do their job safely, which in turn supports life on Earth – is very rewarding,” she said.

Kennedy joined the Johnson team as a contractor with Aegis Aerospace in October 2019. Since then, she has spent most of her time as a systems engineer for the Human Research Program’s Program Integration and Strategic Planning group. That role required her to collect technical information for various projects and to ensure systems were in place to correctly track and manage program documents and agreements. This spring, Kennedy transitioned to a new role in which she provides systems engineering for flight hardware supporting Gateway and exploration missions to the Moon and Mars.

She started engaging with Johnson’s Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) shortly before the COVID-19 pandemic and jumped at the chance to get more involved once employees came back onsite. “A few people have been surprised when I tell them I’m really an introvert, not an extrovert, but I had to get out of my shell or I’d still be stuck in my apartment,” she said. “The ERGs were a way for me get out of my space and have allowed me to grow.”

Kennedy is thankful the Johnson Parenting ERG started allowing contractors to serve as secretaries because that led to similar opportunities with other ERGs. She served as the membership secretary for both Emerge and Out & Allied ERG (OAERG) in 2023 and is currently OAERG’s executive secretary. “I help keep our chair and co-chair up to date,” she said. “I have my finger on everything that’s happening in the ERG.” Filling these roles gives Kennedy numerous opportunities to support diversity, equity, and inclusion at Johnson, the most recent of which was her participation on a panel during the center’s Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility Day.  

“The main advice I’d give to others wanting to get involved is find your people and don’t be afraid to take a risk,” she said. “Many of us deal with risk every day in our work so find a way to buy down risk by finding allies and a support system. Even if you only get a hair’s width outside your zone of comfort, it makes a difference.”

She also said that simply participating in ERG meetings and events – whether in person or virtually – is another great way to get involved. “The ERGs can’t do what we do without you,” she said. “We do it because it’s important to us and to others, but we sometimes struggle to know what people want. We need your thoughts and your ideas because it helps us provide programming and inform the center about what is happening.”

Being a part of OAERG in particular has helped Kennedy personally and professionally. “It has provided me with a space to be my authentic self and bring that person to both the world and work,” she said. “In the long line of LGBTQI+ letter soup, I end up in the + on the end more times than not. Out & Allied has given me a way to not only embrace my identity but also help spread awareness about it.” Professionally, the ERG has helped her network with a range of people, including upper and middle management, and strengthen her communication, problem solving, and leadership skills.

Kennedy acknowledged that change can take time, noting that while Johnson’s safety-oriented culture is a strength, it can sometimes slow the pace of initiatives that may not be considered mission critical, as can staffing shortages in some areas. “Things like accessible walkways and gender-neutral bathrooms are still important,” she said, adding that leadership is working on it.

Kennedy encourages everyone at Johnson to check in with their teammates and have “water cooler moments” with their colleagues as a way of promoting inclusivity. “Be patient and willing to give everyone some grace,” she said. “We can get so focused on the mission and what we need that we sometimes forget there are things happening in other people’s lives that can affect their work.”

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Linda E. Grimm

Hubble Observes a Cosmic Fossil

This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image features the globular cluster NGC 2005. It’s not an unusual globular cluster in and of itself, but it is a peculiarity when compared to its surroundings. NGC 2005 is located about 750 light-years from the heart of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), which is the Milky Way’s largest satellite galaxy some 162,000 light-years from Earth. Globular clusters are densely-packed groups of stars that can hold tens of thousands or millions of stars. Their density means they are tightly bound by gravity and therefore very stable. This stability contributes to their longevity: globular clusters can be billions of years old, and are often comprised of very old stars. Studying globular clusters in space can be a little like studying fossils on Earth: where fossils give insights into the characteristics of ancient plants and animals, globular clusters illuminate the characteristics of ancient stars.

Current theories of galaxy evolution predict that galaxies merge with one another. Astronomers think the relatively large galaxies we observe in the modern universe formed when smaller galaxies merged. If this is correct, then we would expect to see evidence that the most ancient stars in nearby galaxies originated in different galactic environments. Because globular clusters hold ancient stars, and because of their stability, they are an excellent laboratory to test this hypothesis.

NGC 2005 is such a globular cluster, and its very existence provides evidence that supports the theory of galaxy evolution via mergers. Indeed, what makes NGC 2005 a bit peculiar from its surroundings, is the fact that its stars have a chemical composition that is distinct from the stars around it in the LMC. This suggests that the LMC underwent a merger with another galaxy somewhere in its history. That other galaxy has long-since merged and otherwise dispersed, but NGC 2005 remains behind as an ancient witness to the long-past merger.

Text Credit: European Space Agency (ESA)

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Media Contact:

Claire Andreoli
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD
claire.andreoli@nasa.gov

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