NASA to Take Part in Hidden Figures Congressional Gold Medal Ceremony

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson will represent the agency during a Congressional Gold Medal ceremony at 3 p.m. EDT Wednesday, Sept. 18, recognizing the women who contributed to the space race, including the NASA mathematicians who helped land the first astronauts on the Moon under the agency’s Apollo Program.

Hosted by House Speaker Mike Johnson, the Congressional Gold Medal Ceremony will take place inside Emancipation Hall at the U.S. Capitol in Washington. Nelson is expected to be among the speakers.

The event will stream live on the speaker’s YouTube channel. The agency will share a direct link on this advisory in advance of the event.

Media without current congressional credentials on the Hill interested in participating in the event must RSVP by Sept. 13, to Abby Ronson at: abby.ronson@mail.house.gov.

Medal Information

Introduced by Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson on Feb. 27, 2019, H.R.1396 – Hidden Figures Congressional Gold Medal Act – was signed into law later that year. Awards will include:

• Congressional Gold Medal to Katherine Johnson, in recognition of her service to the United States as a mathematician
• Congressional Gold Medal to Dr. Christine Darden, for her service to the United States as an aeronautical engineer
• Congressional Gold Medals in commemoration of the lives of Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson, in recognition of their service to the United States during the space race
• Congressional Gold Medal in recognition of all the women who served as computers, mathematicians, and engineers at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics and NASA between the 1930s and the 1970s.

For more information about NASA missions, visit:

https://www.nasa.gov

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Meira Bernstein / Cheryl Warner
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
meira.b.bernstein@nasa.gov / cheryl.m.warner@nasa.gov

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Abbey A. Donaldson

NASA Scientific Balloon Takes Flight With Student-Built Payloads

NASA’s Scientific Balloon Program’s fifth balloon mission of the 2024 fall campaign took flight Wednesday, Sept. 4, 2024, from the agency’s Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility in Fort Sumner, New Mexico. The HASP 1.0 (High-Altitude Student Platform) mission remained in flight over 11 hours before it safely touched down. Recovery is underway.

HASP is a partnership among the Louisiana Space Grant Consortium, the Astrophysics Division of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, and the agency’s Balloon Program Office and Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility. The HASP platform supports up to 12 student-built payloads and is designed to flight test compact satellites, prototypes, and other small experiments. Since 2006, HASP has engaged more than 1,600 undergraduate and graduate students involved in the missions.

Teams participating in the 2024 HASP 1.0 flight included: University of North Florida and University of North Dakota; Arizona State University; Louisiana State University; University of Colorado Boulder; College of the Canyons; Fort Lewis College; Capitol Technical College; University of Arizona; Universidad Nacional de Ingeniería (Peru); and McMaster University (Canada).

A new, larger version of the High-Altitude Student Platform (HASP 2.0) had its engineering test flight a few days prior. HASP 2.0 will be able to accommodate twice as many student experiments as HASP 1.0 once operational in the next year.

The remaining three balloon flights scheduled for the 2024 Fort Sumner fall campaign await next launch opportunities. To follow the missions, visit NASA’s Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility website for real-time updates on balloons altitudes and GPS locations during flight.

For more information on NASA’s Scientific Balloon Program, visit:

https://www.nasa.gov/scientificballoons

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Olivia F. Littleton

NASA Sets Coverage for Crew Launch; Trio to Join Expedition 71

NASA astronaut Don Pettit will launch aboard the Roscosmos Soyuz MS-26 spacecraft, accompanied by cosmonauts Alexey Ovchinin and Ivan Vagner, to the International Space Station where they will join the Expedition 71 crew in advancing scientific research.

Pettit, Ovchinin, and Vagner will lift off at 12:23 p.m. EDT Wednesday, Sept. 11 (9:23 p.m. Baikonur time) from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

Coverage will stream on NASA+, the NASA app, and the agency’s website. Learn how to stream NASA content through a variety of platforms including social media.

After a two-orbit, three-hour trajectory to the station, the spacecraft will automatically dock at 3:33 p.m. at the orbiting laboratory’s Rassvet module. Shortly after, hatches will open between the spacecraft and the station.

Once aboard, the trio will join NASA astronauts Tracy C. Dyson, Mike Barratt, Matthew Dominick, Jeanette Epps, Butch Wilmore, and Suni Williams, as well as Roscosmos cosmonauts Nikolai Chub, Alexander Grebenkin, and Oleg Kononenko.

NASA’s coverage is as follows (all times Eastern and subject to change based on real-time operations):

11:15 a.m. – Launch coverage begins on NASA+, the NASA app, YouTube, and the agency’s website.

12:23 p.m. – Launch

2:30 p.m. – Rendezvous and docking coverage begins on NASA+, the NASA app, YouTube, and the agency’s website.

3:33 p.m. – Docking

5:30 p.m. – Hatch opening and welcome remarks coverage begins on NASA+, the NASA app, YouTube, and the agency’s website.

5:50 p.m. – Hatch opening

The trio will spend approximately six months aboard the orbital laboratory as Expedition 71 and 72 crew members before returning to Earth in the spring of 2025. This will be the fourth spaceflight for Pettit and Ovchinin, and the second for Vagner.

For more than two decades, people have lived and worked continuously aboard the International Space Station, advancing scientific knowledge, and making research breakthroughs that are not possible on Earth. The station is a critical testbed for NASA to understand and overcome the challenges of long-duration spaceflight and to expand commercial opportunities in low Earth orbit. As commercial companies focus on providing human space transportation services and destinations as part of a robust low Earth orbit economy, NASA is focusing more resources on deep space missions to the Moon as part of Artemis in preparation for future human missions to Mars.

Learn more about International Space Station research and operations at:

https://www.nasa.gov/station

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Joshua Finch / Claire O’Shea
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1100
joshua.a.finch@nasa.gov / claire.a.o’shea@nasa.gov

Sandra Jones
Johnson Space Center, Houston
281-483-5111
sandra.p.jones@nasa.gov

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Tiernan P. Doyle

NASA Invites Media to Discuss Europa Clipper Mission

NASA will hold a media teleconference at 4 p.m. EDT, Monday, Sept. 9, to provide an update on Europa Clipper, a mission that will study whether Jupiter’s moon Europa could be hospitable to life. The teleconference will occur after a key decision point meeting earlier that day regarding next steps for the mission.

Audio of the teleconference will stream live on the agency’s website at:

https://www.nasa.gov/live

Participants in the teleconference include:

• Nicola Fox, associate administrator, Science Mission Directorate, NASA Headquarters
• Laurie Leshin, center director, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory
• Curt Niebur, Europa Clipper program scientist, NASA Headquarters
• Jordan Evans, Europa Clipper project manager, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory

To ask questions during the teleconference, media must RSVP no later than two hours before the event to Molly Wasser at: molly.l.wasser@nasa.gov. NASA’s media accreditation policy is available online.

Europa Clipper’s main science goal is to determine whether there are places below the surface of Jupiter’s icy moon that could support life. The mission’s objectives are to understand the nature of Europa’s ice shell and the ocean beneath it, as well as to study the moon’s composition and geology. A detailed exploration of Europa also will help astrobiologists better understand the potential for habitable worlds beyond our planet.

To learn more about Europa Clipper, visit: 

https://europa.nasa.gov

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Karen Fox / Molly Wasser
Headquarters, Washington 
202-358-1600
karen.c.fox@nasa.gov / molly.l.wasser@nasa.gov

Gretchen McCartney
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-393-6215
gretchen.p.mccartney@jpl.nasa.gov

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Lauren E. Low

NASA Summer Camp Inspires Future Climate Leaders

From July 15-19, 2024, the Coastal Equity and Resilience Hub at the Georgia Institute of Technology collaborated with the University of Georgia (UGA) Marine Extension and Georgia Sea Grant to host a week-long NASA Sea Level Changemakers Summer Camp. The camp introduced 14 rising 7th-8th graders to how coastal areas are changing due to sea level rise. Set at the UGA Marine Education Center and Aquarium on Skidaway Island, the camp offered students hands-on activities and outdoor educational experiences, where they analyzed real data collected by NASA scientists and learned about community adaptations to flooding. Students interacted with experts from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, UGA, and Georgia Tech, gaining insights into satellite observations, green infrastructure, environmental sensors, and careers related to sea level rise. The camp also included a visit to the Pin Point Heritage Museum, where students engaged with leaders from the historic Gullah Geechee community of Pin Point. The camp concluded with a boat trip to Wassaw Island, where students observed the effects of sea level rise on an undeveloped barrier island and compared these observations with earlier findings from urban environments. Funding from the NASA’s Science Activation Program and its Sea Level Education, Awareness, and Literacy (SEAL) team ensured that the camp was accessible to all students, eliminating financial barriers for groups traditionally underrepresented in STEM education.

“This investment from NASA has provided an amazing opportunity for youth in coastal Georgia to utilize NASA data and resources on a critical issue affecting their communities,” said Jill Gambill, executive director of the Coastal Equity and Resilience (CEAR) Hub at Georgia Tech. “They have more confidence now in their knowledge of sea level rise and potential solutions.”

The Sea Level Education, Awareness, and Literacy (SEAL) team is supported by NASA under cooperative agreement award number NNH21ZDA001N-SCIACT and is part of NASA’s Science Activation Portfolio. Learn more about how Science Activation connects NASA science experts, real content, and experiences with community leaders to do science in ways that activate minds and promote deeper understanding of our world and beyond: https://science.nasa.gov/learn

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