NASA Statement on Departure of JPL Director Michael Watkins
The following is a statement from NASA Administrator Bill Nelson on the departure of Michael Watkins, director of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California:
NASA Invites Media to New OSIRIS-REx, Asteroid Bennu Study Briefing
NASA will host a media teleconference at 1 p.m. EDT Wednesday, Aug. 11, to discuss an important finding from NASA’s Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) spacecraft.
Astronauts Relaxing Day Before Cygnus Cargo Ship Lifts Off to Station
Astronaut Thomas Pesquet is pictured inside the cupola, the space station’s “window to the world,” while orbiting above the Atlantic Ocean.
Northrop Grumman is “go” to launch its Cygnus space freighter atop an Antares rocket on Tuesday at 5:56 p.m. EDT. It will arrive at the International Space Station on Thursday for a capture at 6:10 a.m. with NASA Flight Engineer Megan McArthur at the controls of the Canadarm2 robotic arm.
Cygnus will lift off from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia with live NASA TV coverage beginning at 5:30 p.m. NASA TV will go back on the air at 4:45 a.m. on Thursday broadcasting Cygnus’ approach and rendezvous as ESA (European Space Agency) Flight Engineer Thomas Pesquet assists McArthur during the robotics activities.
Most of the Expedition 65 crew relaxed on Monday aboard the orbiting lab with some time set aside for blood and urine collections as well as battery swaps. McArthur and Pesquet processed the biological samples spinning them in a centrifuge before stowing them in a science freezer. McArthur also charged and swapped out batteries inside the Astrobee robotic helpers ahead of upcoming research activities planned for the devices.
The two cosmonauts in the station’s Russian segment had a full schedule as they continued focusing on cargo transfers from the Nauka Multipurpose Laboratory Module during the morning. Flight Engineers Oleg Novitskiy and Pyotr Dubrov then split up in the afternoon to work on a variety of life support and power supply maintenance.
NASA’s Perseverance Team Assessing First Mars Sampling Attempt
Data sent to Earth by NASA’s Perseverance rover after its first attempt to collect a rock sample on Mars and seal it in a sample tube indicate that no rock was collected during the initial sampling activity.