NASA Invites Media to SpaceX’s 35th Resupply Launch to Space Station

Media accreditation is open for the next cargo launch that will deliver NASA science investigations, supplies, and equipment to the International Space Station. The 35th SpaceX commercial resupply services mission to the orbital laboratory for NASA will lift off on a Falcon 9 rocket.

NASA and SpaceX are targeting no earlier than October to launch the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.

Credentialing to cover prelaunch and launch activities is open to U.S. media only. The application deadline is 11:59 p.m. EDT, Thursday, Oct. 1. All accreditation requests must be submitted online at:

https://media.ksc.nasa.gov

Media will receive a confirmation email upon approval. NASA’s media accreditation policy is available online. For questions about accreditation, or to request special logistical support, email: ksc-media-accreditat@mail.nasa.gov. For other questions, please contact NASA’s Kennedy Space Center newsroom at: 321-867-2468.

Each resupply mission to the station delivers scientific investigations in biology and biotechnology, Earth and space science, physical sciences, and technology development and demonstrations. Cargo resupply from U.S. companies ensures a national capability to deliver scientific research to the space station, significantly increasing NASA’s ability to conduct new investigations aboard humanity’s laboratory in space.

In addition to food, supplies, and equipment for the crew, Dragon will deliver the final sets of International Space Station Roll-Out Solar Arrays, called IROSA, which astronauts will install during future spacewalks to complete station’s power augmentation. Once installed, the arrays will provide additional power to support critical station operations, including its safe and controlled deorbit.

The mission also will transport several new experiments to the orbital complex, including hardware to manufacture artificial retinas in microgravity that could help restore vision for patients on Earth and 3D heart cell models to advance large-scale drug testing on future space missions. Dragon also will carry materials to study how a new type of glass is formed in microgravity, and brain organoids that could uncover potential treatment targets for neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and multiple sclerosis.

For more than 25 years, people have lived and worked continuously aboard the International Space Station, advancing scientific knowledge and making research breakthroughs not possible on Earth. The space station helps NASA understand and overcome the challenges of human spaceflight, expand commercial opportunities in low Earth orbit, and build on the foundation for long-duration missions to the Moon, as part of the Artemis program, and to Mars.

Learn more about NASA’s commercial resupply missions at:

https://www.nasa.gov/station

-end-

Josh Finch / Jimi Russell
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1100
joshua.a.finch@nasa.gov / james.j.russell@nasa.gov

Steven Siceloff
Kennedy Space Center, Fla.
321-876-2468
steven.p.siceloff@nasa.gov

Sandra Jones / Joseph Zakrzewski
Johnson Space Center, Houston
281-483-5111
sandra.p.jones@nasa.gov / joseph.a.zakrzewski@nasa.gov

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Lauren E. Low

NASA Unveils Enterprise, the First Space Shuttle

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 shuttle be named after the USS Enterprise, the fictional starship featured in the series. In a memo, President Gerald Ford directed NASA to christen the shuttle Enterprise saying he was “partial to the name”. The name Enterprise, long celebrated in U.S. naval history, had earlier been bestowed on the first nuclear-powered carrier, a World War II carrier, and an American vessel of the Revolutionary War.

Hundreds of invited guests attended the rollout ceremony at Rockwell’s Palmdale facility in southern California, including Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry and several cast members. Pictured from left to right in this photo are NASA Administrator James C. Fletcher, DeForest Kelley (Dr. “Bones” McCoy), George Takei (Mr. Sulu), James Doohan (Chief Engineer Montgomery “Scotty” Scott), Nichelle Nichols (Lt. Uhura), Leonard Nimoy (Mr. Spock), series creator Gene Rodenberry, U.S. Rep. Don Fuqua (D.-Fla) and Walter Koenig (Ensign Chekov).

Even though Enterprise was not designed to fly in space, it performed the essential atmospheric test flights that paved the way for the shuttle program’s first spaceflights in 1981. The orbiter is now on display at the Intrepid Museum in New York City.

Learn more about the historic rollout of NASA’s first space shuttle.

Credit: NASA

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HQ Web Team

APOD: 2026 September 17 – A Treasure Chest in the Carina Nebula

APOD

Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

A Treasure Chest in the Carina Nebula

Explanation: This treasure chest is full of stars. The featured image was obtained with NASA‘s James Webb Space Telescope and shows a dust pillar in the Carina Nebula inside our Galaxy, roughly 7500 light-years away. It is formed by interstellar gas and dust, and shaped by powerful stellar winds and radiation from neighboring stars like the nearby Eta Carinae stellar system which is more luminous than 5 million suns. The star formation inside the pillar is excavating its head, creating the open lid of the chest. Astronomers estimate that there are about 70 stars in a compact cluster inside the pillar. This cluster is now thought to be only around 1.3 million years old. Its bounty of young stars includes a massive star approximately 19 times as massive as the Sun. More massive stars are rarer, shine brighter and evolve faster than less massive stars. They are the shiniest jewels in the treasure chest.

APOD’s main NASA site is moving : From apod.nasa.gov to science.nasa.gov/apod
Tomorrow’s picture: what’s next?

Date	September 17, 2026
Credit	ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, M. Reiter; Acknowledgement: M. H. Özsaraç
Authors & editors:	Cecilia Chirenti, Robert Nemiroff, Jerry Bonnell, Keighley Rockcliffe
A service of:	ASD at NASA / GSFC, NASA Science Activation & Michigan Tech. U.

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Summer Goes Out With a Heat Dome

While the calendar indicated that astronomical summer was winding down, a swath of the south-central United States was sweltering under a heat dome in mid-September 2026.

This map shows air temperatures in the contiguous U.S. on September 15, 2026, at 4 p.m. Central Time (21:00 Universal Time), modeled at 2 meters (6.5 feet) above the ground. It was produced by combining satellite observations with temperatures predicted by a version of the GEOS (Goddard Earth Observing System) model, which uses mathematical equations to represent physical processes in the atmosphere. The darkest reds indicate areas where temperatures approached or exceeded 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit).

More than 41 million people in the U.S.—about 12 percent of the population—were under a National Weather Service extreme heat advisory, extreme heat watch, or extreme heat warning on September 15. The high temperatures spanned large portions of several states, such as Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, and Tennessee. Meteorologists warned that high humidity, limited cloud cover, and light winds could make temperatures feel higher than thermometer readings and increase the risk of heat-related illnesses.

Several locations set new daily high temperature records on September 15. These included Dallas, Texas, at 101ºF (38ºC), Memphis, Tennessee, at 99ºF (37ºC), and Nashville, Tennessee, at 100ºF (38ºC). The cities were all at least 12ºF warmer than normal that day, with Nashville breaking its daily-high record from 1927. The day before, Nashville also set a record-high minimum temperature of 75ºF (24ºC).

A weather phenomenon meteorologists call a heat dome was responsible for driving temperatures up across the region. A heat dome develops when an area of high pressure in the upper atmosphere pushes hot air toward the surface and traps it there. Heat domes put the brakes on convection and suppress clouds and precipitation. This allows sunlight to reach Earth’s surface relatively unhindered and further elevate air temperatures.

The stretch of unseasonable temperatures follows the warmest June through August in the contiguous United States in a 132-year record, according to NOAA. The three-month period in 2026 was 0.4ºF warmer than the previous records, set in 1936 and 2021.

NASA Earth Observatory image by Michala Garrison, using GEOS-FP data from the Global Modeling and Assimilation Office at NASA GSFC. Story by Lindsey Doermann.

Downloads

September 15, 2026

JPEG (1.22 MB)

References & Resources

• AccuWeather (2026, September 11) Latest heat dome to linger in south-central, southeastern US in mid-September. Accessed September 16, 2026.
• Heat.gov (2026) Science and Information to Reduce Heat Risk. Accessed September 16, 2026.
• NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (2026, September 9) Warmest summer on record for the contiguous U.S. Accessed September 16, 2026.
• The Washington Post (2026, September 15) It’s almost fall, but this record heat dome didn’t get the memo. Accessed September 16, 2026.

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