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NASA, Partners Review Axiom Mission 4 Launch Opportunities

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NASA, Partners Review Axiom Mission 4 Launch Opportunities

The Axiom Mission 4, or Ax-4, crew will launch aboard a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft to the International Space Station from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. From left to right: ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Sławosz Uznański-Wiśniewski of Poland, former NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson, ISRO (Indian Space Research Organization) astronaut Shubhanshu Shukla, and Tibor Kapu of Hungary.
The Axiom Mission 4, or Ax-4, crew (from left) with ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Sławosz Uznański-Wiśniewski of Poland, former NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson, ISRO (Indian Space Research Organization) astronaut Shubhanshu Shukla, and Tibor Kapu of Hungary.
Axiom Space

NASA, Axiom Space, and SpaceX are reviewing launch opportunities no earlier than Thursday, June 19, for the fourth private astronaut mission to the International Space Station, Axiom Mission 4.

On June 12, NASA and Axiom Space delayed the mission as the agency continued to work with Roscosmos to understand the most recent repair efforts to seal small leaks. The leaks, located in the aft (back) most segment of the International Space Station’s Zvezda service module, have been monitored by flight controllers for the past few years.

Following the most-recent repair, pressure in the transfer tunnel has been stable. Previously, pressure in this area would have dropped. This could indicate the small leaks have been sealed. Teams are also considering the stable pressure could be the result of a small amount of air flowing into the transfer tunnel across the hatch seal from the main part of space station. By changing pressure in the transfer tunnel and monitoring over time, teams are evaluating the condition of the transfer tunnel and the hatch seal between the space station and the back of Zvezda.

It is not uncommon for the agency and its international partners to adjust launches around changes in operations aboard the space station. Teams are making progress evaluating the transfer tunnel configuration, resulting in an updated launch opportunity for the private astronaut mission.

In addition, SpaceX teams have repaired a liquid oxygen leak identified during post-static fire Falcon 9 rocket inspections. Following the repairs, the company completed a wet dress rehearsal of the Falcon 9.

Peggy Whitson, former NASA astronaut and director of human spaceflight at Axiom Space, will command the commercial mission, while ISRO (Indian Space Research Organisation) astronaut Shubhanshu Shukla will serve as pilot. The two mission specialists are ESA (European Space Agency) project astronaut Sławosz Uznański-Wiśniewski of Poland and Tibor Kapu of Hungary.

The crew will lift off aboard the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft on Falcon 9 from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Learn more about station activities by following the space station blog, @space_station and @ISS_Research on X, as well as the ISS Facebook and ISS Instagram accounts.

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Mark A. Garcia

Curiosity Blog, Sols 4568-4569: A Close Look at the Altadena Drill Hole and Tailings

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Curiosity Blog, Sols 4568-4569: A Close Look at the Altadena Drill Hole and Tailings

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Curiosity Blog, Sols 4568-4569: A Close Look at the Altadena Drill Hole and Tailings

A color close-up photo of the Martian surface shows flat, mostly smooth, tan-orange ground, crisscrossed with a few shallow grooves and indentations. At the center is a hole cored into the ground, surrounded by a pile of soil and small rocks dug from the hole — those are similarly colored to the surrounding ground, but in shades ranging from lighter and more yellow to darker and deeper orange. Some of the back wall of the interior of the hole is also visible.
NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity acquired this image of the “Altadena” drill hole using its Mast Camera (Mastcam) on June 8, 2025 — Sol 4564, or Martian day 4,564 of the Mars Science Laboratory mission — at 13:57:45 UTC.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

Written by Sharon Wilson Purdy, Planetary Geologist at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum

Earth planning date: Wednesday, June 11, 2025

As we near the end of our Altadena drill campaign, Curiosity continued her exploration of the Martian bedrock within the boxwork structures on Mount Sharp. After successfully delivering a powdered rock sample to both the CheMin (Chemistry and Mineralogy) and SAM (Sample Analysis at Mars) instruments, the focus for sols 4568 and 4569 was to take a closer look at the drill hole itself — specifically, the interior walls of the drill hole and the associated tailings (the rock material pushed out by the drill).

In the image above, you can see that the tone (or color) of the rock exposed within the wall of the drill hole appears to change slightly with depth, and the drill tailings are a mixture of fine powder and more solid clumps. If you compare the Altadena drill site with the 42 drill sites that came before, one can really appreciate the impressive range of colors, textures, and grain sizes in the rocks that Curiosity has analyzed over the past 12 years. Every drill hole marks a window into the past and can help us understand how the ancient environment and climate on Mars evolved over time.

 In this two-sol plan, the ChemCam, Mastcam, APXS, and MAHLI instruments coordinated their observations to image and characterize the chemistry of the wall of the drill hole and tailings before we drive away from this site over the coming weekend. Outside of our immediate workspace, Mastcam created two stereo mosaics that will image the boxwork structures nearby as well as the layers within Texoli butte. ChemCam assembled three long-distance RMI images that will help assess the layers at the base of the “Mishe Mokwa” hill, complete the imaging of the nearby boxwork structures, and image the very distant crater rim (about 90 kilometers, or 56 miles away) and sky to investigate the scattering properties of the atmosphere. The environmental theme group included observations that will measure the properties of the atmosphere and also included a dust-devil survey.

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Jun 13, 2025

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Station Crew Ends Week with Half-Shift Filled with Space Research

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Station Crew Ends Week with Half-Shift Filled with Space Research

NASA astronaut and Expedition 73 Flight Engineer Anne McClain checks out a pair of spacesuits during routine maintenance operations inside the International Space Station's Quest airlock.
Astronaut Anne McClain checks out a pair of spacesuits during routine maintenance operations inside the International Space Station’s Quest airlock.
NASA

The Expedition 73 crew wrapped up the week with another light duty day working half a shift filled with vein scans, a pharmaceutical study, and International Space Station upkeep.

NASA Flight Engineer Nichole Ayers kicked off her day with station Commander Takuya Onishi from JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) taking turns operating the Ultrasound 2 device and scanning each other’s neck, shoulder, and leg veins. Afterward, Ayers handed over the biomedical hardware to NASA Flight Engineer Anne McClain who scanned the veins of Roscosmos Flight Engineer Kirill Peskov. Doctors on the ground monitored the regularly scheduled scans in real time checking for potential blood clots arising due to blood pooling toward a crew member’s upper body in microgravity.

Onishi and McClain then spent some time on different maintenance duties in the Quest airlock. Onishi observed, photographed, and documented the condition and location of a variety of spacewalking tools, while McClain transferred wastewater collected from a spacesuit into a contingency water container bag.

NASA Flight Engineer Jonny Kim began his shift inside Quest searching for and locating a specialized socket that will be used on a future spacewalk. Next, he worked inside the Destiny laboratory module installing hardware and setting up samples inside the Microgravity Science Glovebox to explore the behavior of amyloids, or protein deposits that affects organs and tissues, in weightlessness. Results may lead to a better understanding and newer treatments for neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and promote space commercialization opportunities.

Peskov began his shift in the orbital outpost’s Roscosmos segment and attached himself to a device that applies a known force to a crew member and uses the resulting acceleration to accurately calculate mass. After his vein scans, Peskov worked in the Zarya module and cleaned life support equipment and checked lighting systems.

Veteran space station resident and cosmonaut Sergey Ryzhikov spent his half-day in Zarya organizing electronics hardware to create more stowage space. First-time space-flyer cosmononaut Alexey Zubritskiy transferred fluids from the station into the Progress 90 cargo craft’s tanks then copied science data collected from a protein crystallization investigation to a flash drive.

Learn more about station activities by following the space station blog, @space_station and @ISS_Research on X, as well as the ISS Facebook and ISS Instagram accounts.

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Mark A. Garcia

NASA, DoD Practice Abort Scenarios Ahead of Artemis II Moon Mission

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NASA, DoD Practice Abort Scenarios Ahead of Artemis II Moon Mission

Teams with NASA and the Department of Defense (DoD) rehearse recovery procedures for a launch pad abort scenario off the coast of Florida near the agency’s Kennedy Space Center on Wednesday, June 11, 2025.
NASA/Isaac Watson

NASA and the Department of Defense (DoD) teamed up June 11 and 12 to simulate emergency procedures they would use to rescue the Artemis II crew in the event of a launch emergency. The simulations, which took place off the coast of Florida and were supported by launch and flight control teams, are preparing NASA to send four astronauts around the Moon and back next year as part of the agency’s first crewed Artemis mission.

The team rehearsed procedures they would use to rescue the crew during an abort of NASA’s Orion spacecraft while the SLS (Space Launch System) rocket is still on the launch pad, as well as during ascent to space. A set of test mannequins and a representative version of Orion called the Crew Module Test Article, were used during the tests.

The launch team at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, flight controllers in mission control at the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, as well as the mission management team, all worked together, exercising their integrated procedures for these emergency scenarios.

Teams with NASA and the Department of Defense (DoD) rehearse recovery procedures for a launch pad abort scenario off the coast of Florida near the agency’s Kennedy Space Center on Wednesday, June 11, 2025.
NASA/Isaac Watson

“Part of preparing to send humans to the Moon is ensuring our teams are ready for any scenario on launch day,” said Lakiesha Hawkins, NASA’s assistant deputy associate administrator for the Moon to Mars Program, and who also is chair of the mission management team for Artemis II. “We’re getting closer to our bold mission to send four astronauts around the Moon, and our integrated testing helps ensure we’re ready to bring them home in any scenario.”

The launch pad abort scenario was up first. The teams conducted a normal launch countdown before declaring an abort before the rocket was scheduled to launch. During a real pad emergency, Orion’s launch abort system would propel Orion and its crew a safe distance away and orient it for splashdown before the capsule’s parachutes would then deploy ahead of a safe splashdown off the coast of Florida.

Teams with NASA and the Department of Defense (DoD) rehearse recovery procedures for a launch pad abort scenario off the coast of Florida near the agency’s Kennedy Space Center on Wednesday, June 11, 2025.
NASA/Isaac Watson

For the simulated splashdown, the test Orion with mannequins aboard was placed in the water five miles east of Kennedy. Once the launch team made the simulated pad abort call, two Navy helicopters carrying U.S. Air Force pararescuers departed nearby Patrick Space Force Base. The rescuers jumped into the water with unique DoD and NASA rescue equipment to safely approach the spacecraft, retrieve the mannequin crew, and transport them for medical care in the helicopters, just as they would do in the event of an actual pad abort during the Artemis II mission.

The next day focused on an abort scenario during ascent to space.

The Artemis recovery team set up another simulation at sea 12 miles east of Kennedy, using the Orion crew module test article and mannequins. With launch and flight control teams supporting, as was the Artemis II crew inside a simulator at Johnson, the rescue team sprung into action after receiving the simulated ascent abort call and began rescue procedures using a C-17 aircraft and U.S. Air Force pararescuers. Upon reaching the capsule, the rescuers jumped from the C-17 with DoD and NASA unique rescue gear. In an actual ascent abort, Orion would separate from the rocket in milliseconds to safely get away prior to deploying parachutes and splashing down.

Teams with NASA and the Department of Defense (DoD) rehearse recovery procedures for an ascent abort scenario off the coast of Florida near the agency’s Kennedy Space Center on Thursday, June 12, 2025.
NASA/Isaac Watson

Rescue procedures are similar to those used in the Underway Recovery Test conducted off the California coast in March. This demonstration ended with opening the hatch and extracting the mannequins from the capsule, so teams stopped without completing the helicopter transportation that would be used during a real rescue.

Exercising procedures for extreme scenarios is part of NASA’s work to execute its mission and keep the crew safe. Through the Artemis campaign, NASA will send astronauts to explore the Moon for scientific discovery, economic benefits, and to build the foundation for the first crewed missions to Mars – for the benefit of all. 

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Jason Costa

“Cosmic Dawn” Screening at Greenbelt Cinema

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“Cosmic Dawn” Screening at Greenbelt Cinema

10 people stand in a line at a movie theater. About half of the people are standing under the movie marquee, which reads "NASA presents Cosmic Dawn The Webb Space Telescope Story" in red capital letters.
Attendees line up to enter the theater for a screening of the new NASA+ documentary “Cosmic Dawn: The Untold Story of the James Webb Space Telescope,” Wednesday, June 11, 2025, at the Greenbelt Cinema in Greenbelt, Maryland. Featuring never-before-seen footage, Cosmic Dawn offers an unprecedented glimpse into the assembly, testing, and launch of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope.
NASA/Joel Kowsky

Attendees line up to enter the theater for a screening of the new NASA+ documentary “Cosmic Dawn: The Untold Story of the James Webb Space Telescope,” Wednesday, June 11, 2025, at the Greenbelt Cinema in Greenbelt, Maryland. Following the screening, Jacob Pinter, host of NASA’s Curious Universe podcast, led a discussion with Sophia Roberts, a NASA video producer who documented the Webb project, and Paul Geithner, former deputy project manager for Webb.

Featuring never-before-seen footage, Cosmic Dawn offers an unprecedented glimpse into the assembly, testing, and launch of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope.

Watch the documentary.

Image credit: NASA/Joel Kowsky

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Monika Luabeya