Rollout of Our Experimental Supersonic X-Plane on This Week

Rollout of our experimental supersonic X-plane. Schedule updates for future Artemis missions. And another year of global record heat.

A few of the stories to tell you about – This Week at NASA! On Jan. 12, we officially unveiled the fully completed and freshly painted X-59 aircraft during a rollout ceremony hosted by Lockheed Martin Skunk Works in Palmdale California.

The X-59 is a one-of-a-kind experimental aircraft that, as part of our Quesst mission, will demonstrate the ability to fly supersonic while generating a gentle “sonic thump” rather than the typical loud sonic boom.

For more information about Quesst, visit nasa.gov/Quesst.

NASA has adjusted the schedules for our Artemis II and Artemis III missions. Artemis II, the first crewed Artemis mission around the Moon, is now targeted for September 2025. Artemis III, which is planned to land the first astronauts near the lunar South Pole, is now being targeted for September 2026.

The schedule adjustments were made to allow teams to work through challenges associated with first-time developments, operations, and integration. According to an analysis by NASA, Earth's average surface temperature in 2023 was the warmest on record. Global temperatures last year were around 2.1 degrees Fahrenheit above the average for NASA's baseline period of 1951 through 1980. Independent analyses by NOAA and the United Kingdom’s Hadley Centre concluded the global surface temperatures for 2023 were the highest since modern record-keeping began.

For more about NASA’s Earth science efforts, visit nasa.gov/earth. Astronomers using our James Webb Space Telescope have discovered a new, previously unseen structure in the Beta Pictoris system, about 63 light-years from Earth. The structure is a branch of dust, shaped like a cat’s tail. It extends from the system’s secondary debris disk that has been produced by collisions between asteroids, comets, and planetesimals. This and other NASA news was featured at the 243rd meeting of the American Astronomical Society in New Orleans.

That’s what’s up this week @NASA.

For more about what else we’re up to, check out nasa.gov.

https://youtu.be/WnLhpmoA_hU?si=lAFssBaVe6E5rPlh

The First Artemis Robotic Launch to the Moon on This Week @NASA – January 5, 2024

An Artemis lunar robotic rover is halfway built. And an up-close look at a volcanic moon. A few of the stories to tell you about – This Week at NASA!

United Launch Alliance and Astrobotic are currently targeting no earlier than Jan. 8 for the launch of Astrobotic’s Peregrine lunar lander to the Moon. NASA payloads aboard the lander aim to help the agency develop capabilities needed to explore the Moon under Artemis. This is the first commercial robotic launch to the Moon’s surface as part of our CLPS initiative and Artemis program.

The team building our VIPER lunar rover is about halfway through the build. The mobile robot will land at the South Pole of the Moon in late 2024 to search for ice and other potential resources. The critical information it provides will teach us about the origin and distribution of water on the Moon and help determine how we can harvest the Moon's resources for future human space exploration.

Our Juno spacecraft recently flew by Jupiter’s moon, Io. The spacecraft captured imagery and other data as it passed about 930 miles above the surface of the most volcanic world in our solar system. This was the closest flyby of Io that any spacecraft has made in over 20 years.

For more about Juno, go to nasa.gov/juno. While stationary during Mars solar conjunction, our Curiosity rover on Mars captured a 12-hour sequence showing its own shadow moving across the planet’s surface. Plasma from the Sun can interfere with radio communications during Mars solar conjunction, so missions hold off on sending commands to Mars spacecraft during that time.

That’s what’s up this week @NASA.

For more about what else we’re up to, check out nasa.gov.

https://youtu.be/2F6-sZq0acU?si=3bfDOStM3UJtzR8R