Blue mach diamonds from the main engine nozzles and bright exhaust from the solid rocket boosters mark the successful launch of space shuttle Endeavour 25 years ago on Feb. 11, 2000. The STS-99 mission crew – including astronauts from NASA, the National Space Development Agency of Japan (NASDA), and the European Space Agency (ESA) – were aboard the shuttle.
This mission saw the deployment of the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission mast and the antenna turned to its operation position. After a successful checkout of the radar systems, mapping began less than 12 hours after launch. Crewmembers split into two shifts so they could work around the clock.
Also aboard Endeavour was a student experiment called EarthKAM, which took 2,715 digital photos during the mission through an overhead flight-deck window. The NASA-sponsored program lets middle school students select photo targets and receive the images via the Internet.
Crew Studies Space Agriculture, Biotechnology to Promote Future Missions
Astronaut Nick Hague processes samples of micro-algae for a biotechnology study to learn how to revitalize the spacecraft environment using photosynthesis and produce fresh food on long-term space missions.
NASA
Tuesday’s International Space Station research objectives included learning how to grow crops on spacecraft and produce vitamins and nutrients in space to sustain crews farther away from Earth. The Expedition 72 crewmates also explored how the human body orients itself in weightlessness and serviced a pair of docked spacecraft.
NASA Flight Engineers Butch Wilmore and Nick Hague joined each other on Tuesday setting up hardware for the Plant Habitat-07 botany experiment inside the Kibo laboratory module. Wilmore installed the science carrier that is packed with red romaine lettuce seeds in Kibo’s Advanced Plant Habitat then collected water samples for analysis. Hague prepared water refill bags and injected water into the plant habitat to begin growing a small crop of lettuce. The space agriculture investigation is exploring optimal plant growth methods in space, the nutritional content of space-grown plants, and the types of microbes they support.
NASA Flight Engineer Don Pettit studied how space radiation exposure affects plant growth at the molecular and cellular levels. He processed samples and watered thale cress plants that had been growing for two weeks in Kibo’s Cell Biology Experiment Facility. The samples were then placed inside a science freezer for future analysis. The Plant UV-B study is observing how microgravity stress and high ultraviolet radiation affects plants to promote growing space crops
Commander Suni Williams continued her investigation into using genetically engineered yeast to produce on-demand nutrients and avoid vitamin deficiencies on long-term missions. She first hydrated production packs containing the yeast and edible media for incubation to activate yeast growth. Williams then photographed and agitated the packs before stowing them inside a research incubator. The samples are later frozen then returned to Earth to analyze their ability promote crew health and improve the preservation of probiotics.
In the orbital outpost’s Roscosmos segment, Flight Engineers Alexey Ovchinin and Ivan Vagner took turns wearing a virtual reality headset while attached to electrodes. The two cosmonauts were studying how a crew member’s vision, balance, and spatial orientation adjusts to microgravity. Ovchinin then replaced life support gear inside the Soyuz MS-26 crew ship before gathering items for disposal inside the Progress 89 cargo craft. Vagner pointed a camera outside the Zvezda service module and photographed components on the Nauka science module for routine inspection.
Flight Engineer Aleksandr Gorbunov turned off and stowed a student-controlled camera that photographed pre-programmed Earth landmarks. He then searched areas inside the station’s Roscosmos segment for extra cargo stowage space then worked on Nauka’s ventilation system.
Biotechnology to Sustain Crews on Long Missions Tops Research Schedule
Expedition 72 Commander Suni Williams, who will soon conduct biotechnology research to demonstrate producing nutrients in space, takes a selfie portrait with a pair of Astrobee robotic free-flyers behind her inside the Kibo laboratory module.
NASA
Biotechnology to Sustain Crews on Long Missions Tops Research Schedule
Biotechnology kicked off the work week aboard the International Space Station as the Expedition 72 crew members explored ways to counter the effects of microgravity and produce vitamins and nutrients during long-term space missions.
The lack of gravity leads body fluids to move toward an astronaut’s head potentially causing eye structure and vision problems. NASA Flight Engineers Nick Hague and Butch Wilmore spent all day Monday investigating the phenomena using a thigh cuff as a potential countermeasure to the headward fluid shifts. Hague wore electrodes and the thigh cuff as Wilmore performed an ultrasound scan on Hague, measured his eye fluid pressure, and checked his blood pressure testing the effectiveness of the biomedical device. The tight leg cuffs are compact and lightweight, ideal for spacecraft, and may help protect crews on missions to the Moon, Mars, and beyond.
Providing vitamins and nutrients to keep crews healthy is another key research goal as NASA and its international partners plan longer-term missions farther away from Earth. Station Commander Suni Williams reviewed procedures on Monday for the BioNutrients biotechnology study to demonstrate producing fresh nutrients in space. Preserving nutrients on long-term space missions causes them to degrade over time. However, using genetically engineered yeast to enable on-demand production of nutrients to supplement potential vitamin losses from the stored food may benefit crews traveling longer and farther away from Earth.
NASA Flight Engineer Don Pettit spent his day inside the Tranquility module on orbital plumbing duties replacing hydraulic components on the waste and hygiene compartment, or the space station’s bathroom.
Cosmonauts Alexey Ovchinin and Ivan Vagner started their day testing communications with the Progress 89 cargo craft due to depart at the end of February after six months docked to the rear port of the Zvezda service module.
Ovchinin then moved on and worked on Zvezda’s ventilation system and began packing the Progress 89 with trash and discarded gear. Vagner worked on orbital plumbing inside Zvezda’s bathroom repairing pumps and pipes inside the Roscosmos segment’s toilet. Flight Engineer Aleksandr Gorbunov spent his day inside the Nauka science module first swapping out electrical hardware then inspecting and cleaning laptop computers.
NASA, SpaceX Invite Media to Watch Crew-10 Launch to Space Station
NASA’s SpaceX Crew-10 members (from left to right) Roscosmos cosmonaut Kirill Peskov, NASA astronauts Nichole Ayers and Anne McClain, and JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Takuya Onishi pictured training at SpaceX in Hawthorne, California.
Credit: SpaceX
Media accreditation is open for the launch of NASA’s 10th rotational mission of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft, carrying astronauts to the International Space Station for a science expedition. The agency’s SpaceX Crew-10 mission is targeting launch on Wednesday, March 12, from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
The launch will carry NASA astronauts Anne McClain as commander and Nichole Ayers as pilot, along with JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Takuya Onishi and Roscosmos cosmonaut Kirill Peskov as mission specialists. This is the first spaceflight for Ayers and Peskov, and the second mission to the orbiting laboratory for McClain and Onishi.
Media accreditation deadlines for the Crew-10 launch as part of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program are as follows:
International media without U.S. citizenship must apply by 11:59 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 13.
U.S. media and U.S. citizens representing international media organizations must apply by 11:59 p.m. EST on Sunday, Feb. 23.
All accreditation requests must be submitted online at:
NASA’s media accreditation policy is online. For questions about accreditation or special logistical requests, email: ksc-media-accreditat@mail.nasa.gov. Requests for space for satellite trucks, tents, or electrical connections are due by Friday, Feb. 21.
For other questions, please contact NASA 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: 321-501-8425, o Messod Bendayan: 256-930-1371.
For launch coverage and more information about the mission, visit:
NASA’s Mini Rover Team Is Packed for Lunar Journey
4 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
A team at JPL packed up three small Moon rovers, delivering them in February to the facility where they’ll be attached to a commercial lunar lander in preparation for launch. The rovers are part of a project called CADRE that could pave the way for potential future multirobot missions. NASA/JPL-Caltech
A trio of suitcase-size rovers and their base station have been carefully wrapped up and shipped off to join the lander that will deliver them to the Moon’s surface.
Three small NASA rovers that will explore the lunar surface as a team have been packed up and shipped from the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, marking completion of the first leg of the robots’ journey to the Moon.
The rovers are part of a technology demonstration called CADRE (Cooperative Autonomous Distributed Robotic Exploration), which aims to show that a group of robots can collaborate to gather data without receiving direct commands from mission controllers on Earth. They’ll use their cameras and ground-penetrating radars to send back imagery of the lunar surface and subsurface while testing out the novel software that enables them to work together autonomously.
The CADRE rovers will launch to the Moon aboard IM-3, Intuitive Machines’ third lunar delivery, which has a mission window that extends into early 2026, as part of NASA’s CLPS (Commercial Lunar Payload Services) initiative. Once installed on Intuitive Machines’ Nova-C lander, they’ll head to the Reiner Gamma region on the western edge of the Moon’s near side, where the solar-powered, suitcase-size rovers will spend the daylight hours of a lunar day (the equivalent of about 14 days on Earth) carrying out experiments. The success of CADRE could pave the way for potential future missions with teams of autonomous robots supporting astronauts and spreading out to take simultaneous, distributed scientific measurements.
Members of a JPL team working on NASA’s CADRE technology demonstration use temporary red handles to move one of the project’s small Moon rovers to prepare it for transport to Intuitive Machines’ Houston facility, where it will be attached to the company’s third lunar lander.
NASA/JPL-Caltech
Construction of the CADRE hardware — along with a battery of rigorous tests to prove readiness for the journey through space — was completed in February 2024.
To get prepared for shipment to Intuitive Machines’ Houston facility, each rover was attached to its deployer system, which will lower it via tether from the lander onto the dusty lunar surface. Engineers flipped each rover-deployer pair over and attached it to an aluminum plate for safe transit. The rovers were then sealed in protective metal-frame enclosures that were fitted snuggly into metal shipping containers and loaded onto a truck. The hardware arrived safely on Sunday, Feb. 9.
“Our small team worked incredibly hard constructing these robots and putting them to the test, and we have been eagerly waiting for the moment where we finally see them on their way,” said Coleman Richdale, the team’s assembly, test, and launch operations lead at JPL. “We are all genuinely thrilled to be taking this next step in our journey to the Moon, and we can’t wait to see the lunar surface through CADRE’s eyes.”
A division of Caltech in Pasadena, California, JPL manages CADRE for the Game Changing Development program within NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate. The technology demonstration was selected under the agency’s Lunar Surface Innovation Initiative, which was established to expedite the development of technologies for sustained presence on the lunar surface. NASA’s Science Mission Directorate manages the CLPS initiative. The agency’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland and its Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley, California, both supported the project. Motiv Space Systems designed and built key hardware elements at the company’s Pasadena facility. Clemson University in South Carolina contributed research in support of the project.
