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  • Billionaire who performed the first private spacewalk is Trump’s pick to lead NASA

    Billionaire who performed the first private spacewalk is Trump’s pick to lead NASA

    CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — A tech billionaire who bought a series of spaceflights from Elon Musk’s SpaceX and conducted the first private spacewalk was nominated by President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday to lead NASA.

    Jared Isaacman, 41, CEO and founder of a card-processing company, has been a close collaborator with Musk ever since buying his first chartered flight with SpaceX. He took along contest winners on that 2021 trip and followed it in September with a mission where he briefly popped out the hatch to test SpaceX’s new spacewalking suits.

    If confirmed, Isaacman will replace Bill Nelson, 82, a former Democratic senator from Florida who was nominated by President Joe Biden. Nelson flew aboard space shuttle Columbia in 1986 – on the flight right before the Challenger disaster — while a congressman.

    Isaacman said he was honored to be nominated and would be “grateful to serve.” “Having been fortunate to see our amazing planet from space, I am passionate about America leading the most incredible adventure in human history,” he said via X.

    During Nelson’s tenure, NASA picked up steam in its effort to return astronauts to the moon. This next-generation Apollo program — named after Apollo’s mythological twin sister Artemis — plans to send four astronauts around the moon as soon as next year. The first moon landing in more than half a century would follow.

    NASA is counting on SpaceX to get astronauts to the lunar surface via Starship, the mega rocket launching out of Texas on test flights.

    The space agency already relies on SpaceX to fly astronauts to and from the International Space Station along with supply runs. Boeing launched its first crew for NASA in June, but the Starliner capsule encountered so many problems that the two test pilots ended up stuck at the space station. They’ll catch a ride home with SpaceX in February, after more than eight months in orbit. Their mission should have lasted eight days.

    Also on NASA’s plate right now: exploring the solar system. Robotic missions to the moon and beyond continues with a NASA spacecraft en route to Jupiter’s watery moon Europa and the Mars rover Perseverance collecting more rock and dirt samples.

    Facing tight budgets, NASA is seeking a quicker, cheaper way of getting these Martian samples to Earth than the original plan, which had swollen to $11 billion with nothing arriving before 2040. As with human spaceflight, NASA has turned to industry and others for ideas and help.

    Musk congratulated Isaacman via X, describing him as a man of “high ability and integrity.”

    The fighter jet-piloting Isaacman, whose call name is Rookie, has described himself as a “space geek” since kindergarten. He dropped out of high school when he was 16, got a GED certificate and started a business in his parents’ basement that became the genesis for Shift4. His business is based in eastern Pennsylvania, where he lives with his wife and their two young daughters.

    He set a speed record flying around the world in 2009 while raising money for the Make-A-Wish program, and later established Draken International, the world’s largest private fleet of fighter jets.

    Isaacman has reserved two more flights with SpaceX, including a trip leading Starship’s first crew into orbit around Earth.

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    The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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  • NASA spacecraft rockets toward Jupiter’s moon Europa in search of the right conditions for life

    NASA spacecraft rockets toward Jupiter’s moon Europa in search of the right conditions for life

    CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — A NASA spacecraft rocketed away Monday on a quest to explore Jupiter’s tantalizing moon Europa and reveal whether its vast hidden ocean might hold the keys to life.

    It will take Europa Clipper 5 1/2 years to reach Jupiter, where it will slip into orbit around the giant gas planet and sneak close to Europa during dozens of radiation-drenched flybys.

    Scientists are almost certain a deep, global ocean exists beneath Europa’s icy crust. And where there is water, there could be life, making the moon one of the most promising places out there to hunt for it.

    Europa Clipper won’t look for life; it has no life detectors. Instead, the spacecraft will zero in on the ingredients necessary to sustain life, searching for organic compounds and other clues as it peers beneath the ice for suitable conditions.

    “Ocean worlds like Europa are not only unique because they might be habitable, but they might be habitable today,” NASA’s Gina DiBraccio said on the eve of launch.

    SpaceX started Clipper on its 1.8 million-mile (3 billion-kilometer) journey, launching the spacecraft on a Falcon Heavy rocket from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center.

    The $5.2 billion mission almost got derailed by transistors.

    NASA didn’t learn until spring that Clipper’s transistors might be more vulnerable to Jupiter’s intense radiation field than anticipated. Clipper will endure the equivalent of several million chest X-rays during each of the 49 Europa flybys. The space agency spent months reviewing everything before concluding in September that the mission could proceed as planned.

    Hurricane Milton added to the anxiety, delaying the launch by several days.

    About the size of a basketball court with its solar wings unfurled, Clipper will swing past Mars and then Earth on its way to Jupiter for gravity assists. The nearly 13,000-pound (5,700-kilogram) probe should reach the solar system’s biggest planet in 2030.

    Clipper will circle Jupiter every 21 days. One of those days will bring it close to Europa, among 95 known moons at Jupiter and close to our own moon in size.

    The spacecraft will skim as low as 16 miles (25 kilometers) above Europa — much closer than the few previous visitors. Onboard radar will attempt to penetrate the moon’s ice sheet, believed to be 10 miles to 15 miles or more (15 kilometers to 24 kilometers) thick. The ocean below could be 80 miles (120 kilometers) or more deep.

    The spacecraft holds nine instruments, with its sensitive electronics stored in a vault with dense zinc and aluminum walls for protection against radiation. Exploration will last until 2034.

    If conditions are found to be favorable for life at Europa, then that opens up the possibility of life at other ocean worlds in our solar system and beyond, according to scientists. With an underground ocean and geysers, Saturn’s moon Enceladus is another top candidate.

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    The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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  • A spacecraft is on its way to a harmless asteroid slammed by NASA in a previous save-the-Earth test

    A spacecraft is on its way to a harmless asteroid slammed by NASA in a previous save-the-Earth test

    CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — A spacecraft blasted off Monday to investigate the scene of a cosmic crash.

    The European Space Agency’s Hera spacecraft rocketed away on a two-year journey to the small, harmless asteroid rammed by NASA two years ago in a dress rehearsal for the day a killer space rock threatens Earth. Launched by SpaceX from Cape Canaveral, it’s the second part of a planetary defense test that could one day help save the planet.

    The 2022 crash by NASA’s Dart spacecraft shortened Dimorphos’ orbit around its bigger companion, demonstrating that if a dangerous rock was headed our way, there’s a chance it could be knocked off course with enough advance notice.

    Scientists are eager to examine the impact’s aftermath up close to know exactly how effective Dart was and what changes might be needed to safeguard Earth in the future.

    “The more detail we can glean the better as it may be important for planning a future deflection mission should one be needed,” University of Maryland astronomer Derek Richardson said before launch.

    Researchers want to know whether Dart — short for Double Asteroid Redirection Test — left a crater or perhaps reshaped the 500-foot (150-meter) asteroid more dramatically. It looked something like a flying saucer before Dart’s blow and may now resemble a kidney bean, said Richardson, who took part in the Dart mission and is helping with Hera.

    Dart’s wallop sent rubble and even boulders flying off Dimorphos, providing an extra kick to the impact’s momentum. The debris trail extended thousands of miles (more than 10,000 kilometers) into space for months.

    Some boulders and other debris could still be hanging around the asteroid, posing a potential threat to Hera, said flight director Ignacio Tanco.

    “We don’t really know very well the environment in which we are going to operate,” said Tanco. “But that’s the whole point of the mission is to go there and find out.”

    European officials describe the $400 million (363 million euro) mission as a “crash scene investigation.”

    Hera “is going back to the crime site and getting all the scientific and technical information,” said project manager Ian Carnelli.

    Carrying a dozen science instruments, the small car-sized Hera will need to swing past Mars in 2025 for a gravity boost, before arriving at Dimorphos by the end of 2026. It’s a moonlet of Didymos, Greek for twin, a fast-spinning asteroid that’s five times bigger. At that time, the asteroids will be 120 million miles (195 million kilometers) from Earth.

    Controlled by a flight team in Darmstadt, Germany, Hera will attempt to go into orbit around the rocky pair, with the flyby distances gradually dropping from 18 miles (30 kilometers) all the way down to a half-mile (1 kilometer). The spacecraft will survey the moonlet for at least six months to ascertain its mass, shape and composition, as well as its orbit around Didymos.

    Before the impact, Dimorphos circled its larger companion from three-quarters of a mile (1,189 meters) out. Scientists believe the orbit is now tighter and oval-shaped, and that the moonlet may even be tumbling.

    Two shoebox-sized Cubesats will pop off Hera for even closer drone-like inspections, with one of them using radar to peer beneath the moonlet’s boulder-strewn surface. Scientists suspect Dimorphos was formed from material shed from Didymos. The radar observations should help confirm whether Didymos is indeed the little moon’s parent.

    The Cubesats will attempt to land on the moonlet once their survey is complete. If the moonlet is tumbling, that will complicate the endeavor. Hera may also end its mission with a precarious touchdown, but on the larger Didymos.

    Neither asteroid poses any threat to Earth — before or after Dart showed up. That’s why NASA picked the pair for humanity’s first asteroid-deflecting demo.

    Leftovers from the solar system’s formation 4.6 billion years ago, asteroids primarily orbit the sun between Mars and Jupiter in what’s known as the main asteroid belt, where millions of them reside. They become near-Earth objects when they’re knocked out of the belt and into our neck of the woods.

    NASA’s near-Earth object count currently tops 36,000, almost all asteroids but also some comets. More than 2,400 of them are considered potentially hazardous to Earth.

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    The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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  • Stuck NASA astronauts welcome SpaceX capsule that’ll bring them home next year

    Stuck NASA astronauts welcome SpaceX capsule that’ll bring them home next year

    CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — The two astronauts stuck at the International Space Station since June welcomed their new ride home with Sunday’s arrival of a SpaceX capsule.

    SpaceX launched the rescue mission on Saturday with a downsized crew of two astronauts and two empty seats reserved for Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, who will return next year. The Dragon capsule docked in darkness as the two craft soared 265 miles (426 kilometers) above Botswana.

    NASA switched Wilmore and Williams to SpaceX following concerns over the safety of their Boeing Starliner capsule. It was the first Starliner test flight with a crew, and NASA decided the thruster failures and helium leaks that cropped up after liftoff were too serious and poorly understood to risk the test pilots’ return. So Starliner returned to Earth empty earlier this month.

    The Dragon carrying NASA’s Nick Hague and the Russian Space Agency’s Alexander Gorbunov will remain at the space station until February, turning what should have been a weeklong trip for Wilmore and Williams into a mission lasting more than eight months.

    Two NASA astronauts were pulled from the mission to make room for Wilmore and Williams on the return leg.

    NASA likes to replace its station crews every six months or so. SpaceX has provided the taxi service since the company’s first astronaut flight in 2020. NASA also hired Boeing for ferry flights after the space shuttles were retired, but flawed software and other Starliner issues led to years of delays and more than $1 billion in repairs.

    Starliner inspections are underway at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, with post-flight reviews of data set to begin this week.

    “We’re a long way from saying, ‘Hey, we’re writing off Boeing,’” NASA’s associate administrator Jim Free said at a pre-launch briefing.

    The arrival of two fresh astronauts means the four who have been up there since March can now return to Earth in their own SpaceX capsule in just over a week. Their stay was extended a month because of the Starliner turmoil.

    Although Saturday’s liftoff went well, SpaceX said the rocket’s spent upper stage ended up outside its targeted impact zone in the Pacific because of a bad engine firing. The company has halted all Falcon launches until it figures out what went wrong.

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    The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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  • SpaceX launches rescue mission for 2 NASA astronauts who are stuck in space until next year

    SpaceX launches rescue mission for 2 NASA astronauts who are stuck in space until next year

    CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — SpaceX launched a rescue mission for the two stuck astronauts at the International Space Station on Saturday, sending up a downsized crew to bring them home but not until next year.

    The capsule rocketed into orbit to fetch the test pilots whose Boeing spacecraft returned to Earth empty earlier this month because of safety concerns. The switch in rides left it to NASA’s Nick Hague and Russia’s Alexander Gorbunov to retrieve Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams.

    Since NASA rotates space station crews approximately every six months, this newly launched flight with two empty seats reserved for Wilmore and Williams won’t return until late February. Officials said there wasn’t a way to bring them back earlier on SpaceX without interrupting other scheduled missions.

    By the time they return, the pair will have logged more than eight months in space. They expected to be gone just a week when they signed up for Boeing’s first astronaut flight that launched in June.

    NASA ultimately decided that Boeing’s Starliner was too risky after a cascade of thruster troubles and helium leaks marred its trip to the orbiting complex. The space agency cut two astronauts from this SpaceX launch to make room on the return leg for Wilmore and Williams.

    Williams has since been promoted to commander of the space station, which will soon be back to its normal population of seven. Once Hague and Gorbunov arrive this weekend, four astronauts living there since March can leave in their own SpaceX capsule. Their homecoming was delayed a month by Starliner’s turmoil.

    Hague noted before the flight that change is the one constant in human spaceflight.

    “There’s always something that is changing. Maybe this time it’s been a little more visible to the public,” he said.

    Hague was thrust into the commander’s job for the rescue mission based on his experience and handling of a launch emergency six years ago. The Russian rocket failed shortly after liftoff, and the capsule carrying him and a cosmonaut catapulted off the top to safety.

    Rookie NASA astronaut Zena Cardman and veteran space flier Stephanie Wilson were pulled from this flight after NASA opted to go with SpaceX to bring the stuck astronauts home. The space agency said both would be eligible to fly on future missions. Gorbunov remained under an exchange agreement between NASA and the Russian Space Agency.

    “I don’t know exactly when my launch to space will be, but I know that I will get there,” Cardman said from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, where she took part in the launch livestream. Wilson joined her there for the early afternoon liftoff.

    Moments before liftoff, Hague paid tribute to his two colleagues left behind: “Unbreakable. We did it together.” Once in orbit, he called it a ”sweet ride” and thanked everyone who made it possible.

    Earlier, Hague acknowledged the challenges of launching with half a crew and returning with two astronauts trained on another spacecraft.

    “We’ve got a dynamic challenge ahead of us,” Hague said after arriving from Houston last weekend. “We know each other and we’re professionals and we step up and do what’s asked of us.”

    SpaceX has long been the leader in NASA’s commercial crew program, established as the space shuttles were retiring more than a decade ago. SpaceX beat Boeing in delivering astronauts to the space station in 2020 and it’s now up to 10 crew flights for NASA.

    Boeing has struggled with a variety of issues over the years, repeating a Starliner test flight with no one on board after the first one veered off course. The Starliner that left Wilmore and Williams in space landed without any issues in the New Mexico desert on Sept. 6, and has since returned to Kennedy Space Center. A week ago, Boeing’s defense and space chief was replaced.

    Delayed by Hurricane Helene pounding Florida, the latest SpaceX liftoff marked the first for astronauts from Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. SpaceX took over the old Titan rocket pad nearly two decades ago and used it for satellite launches, while flying crews from Kennedy’s former Apollo and shuttle pad next door. The company wanted more flexibility as more Falcon rockets soared.

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    The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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  • NASA, Boeing and Coast Guard representatives to testify about implosion of Titan submersible

    NASA, Boeing and Coast Guard representatives to testify about implosion of Titan submersible

    Representatives for NASA, Boeing Co. and the U.S. Coast Guard are slated to testify in front of investigators Thursday about the experimental submersible that imploded en route to the wreckage of the Titanic.

    OceanGate co-founder Stockton Rush was among the five people who died when the submersible imploded in June 2023. The design of the company’s Titan submersible has been the source of scrutiny since the disaster.

    The Coast Guard opened a public hearing earlier this month that is part of a high level investigation into the cause of the implosion. Some of the testimony has focused on the troubled nature of the company.

    Thursday’s testimony is scheduled to include Justin Jackson of NASA; Mark Negley of Boeing Co.; John Winters of Coast Guard Sector Puget Sound; and Lieutenant Commander Jonathan Duffett of the Coast Guard Office of Commercial Vessel Compliance.

    Earlier in the hearing, former OceanGate operations director David Lochridge said he frequently clashed with Rush and felt the company was committed only to making money. “The whole idea behind the company was to make money,” Lochridge testified. “There was very little in the way of science.”

    Lochridge and other previous witnesses painted a picture of a company that was impatient to get its unconventionally designed craft into the water. The accident set off a worldwide debate about the future of private undersea exploration.

    The hearing is expected to run through Friday and include more witnesses.

    The co-founder of the company told the Coast Guard panel Monday that he hoped a silver lining of the disaster is that it will inspire a renewed interest in exploration, including the deepest waters of the world’s oceans. Businessman Guillermo Sohnlein, who helped found OceanGate with Rush, ultimately left the company before the Titan disaster.

    “This can’t be the end of deep ocean exploration. This can’t be the end of deep-diving submersibles and I don’t believe that it will be,” Sohnlein said.

    Coast Guard officials noted at the start of the hearing that the submersible had not been independently reviewed, as is standard practice. That and Titan’s unusual design subjected it to scrutiny in the undersea exploration community.

    OceanGate, based in Washington state, suspended its operations after the implosion. The company has no full-time employees currently, but has been represented by an attorney during the hearing.

    During the submersible’s final dive on June 18, 2023, the crew lost contact after an exchange of texts about Titan’s depth and weight as it descended. The support ship Polar Prince then sent repeated messages asking if Titan could still see the ship on its onboard display.

    One of the last messages from Titan’s crew to Polar Prince before the submersible imploded stated, “all good here,” according to a visual re-creation presented earlier in the hearing.

    When the submersible was reported overdue, rescuers rushed ships, planes and other equipment to an area about 435 miles (700 kilometers) south of St. John’s, Newfoundland. Wreckage of the Titan was subsequently found on the ocean floor about 330 yards (300 meters) off the bow of the Titanic, Coast Guard officials said. No one on board survived.

    OceanGate said it has been fully cooperating with the Coast Guard and NTSB investigations since they began. Titan had been making voyages to the Titanic wreckage site going back to 2021.

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  • Boeing will fly its empty capsule back to Earth soon. Two NASA astronauts will stay behind

    Boeing will fly its empty capsule back to Earth soon. Two NASA astronauts will stay behind

    CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Boeing will attempt to return its problem-plagued capsule from the International Space Station later this week — with empty seats.

    NASA said Wednesday that everything is on track for the Starliner capsule to undock from the space station Friday evening. The fully automated capsule will aim for a touchdown in New Mexico’s White Sands Missile Range six hours later.

    NASA’s two stuck astronauts who flew up on Starliner will remain behind at the orbiting lab. They’ll ride home with SpaceX in February, eight months after launching on what should have been a weeklong test flight. Thruster trouble and helium leaks kept delaying their return until NASA decided that it was too risky for them to accompany Starliner back as originally planned.

    “It’s been a journey to get here and we’re excited to have Starliner return,” said NASA’s commercial crew program manager Steve Stich.

    NASA’s Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams will close the hatches between Starliner and the space station on Thursday. They are now considered full-time station crew members along with the seven others on board, helping with experiments and maintenance, and ramping up their exercise to keep their bones and muscles strong during their prolonged exposure to weightlessness.

    To make room for them on SpaceX’s next taxi flight, the Dragon capsule will launch with two astronauts instead of the usual four. Two were cut late last week from the six-month expedition, which is due to blast off in late September. Boeing has to free up the parking place for SpaceX’s arrival.

    Boeing encountered serious flaws with Starliner long before its June 5 liftoff on the long-delayed astronaut demo.

    Starliner’s first test flight went so poorly in 2019 — the capsule never reached the space station because of software errors — that the mission was repeated three years later. More problems surfaced, resulting in even more delays and more than $1 billion in repairs.

    The capsule had suffered multiple thruster failures and propulsion-system helium leaks by the time it pulled up at the space station after launch. Boeing conducted extensive thruster tests in space and on the ground, and contended the capsule could safely bring the astronauts back. But NASA disagreed, setting the complex ride swap in motion.

    Starliner will make a faster, simpler getaway than planned, using springs to push away from the space station and then short thruster firings to gradually increase the distance. The original plan called for an hour of dallying near the station, mostly for picture-taking; that was cut to 20 or so minutes to reduce the stress on the capsule’s thrusters and keep the station safe.

    Additional test firings of Starliner’s 28 thrusters are planned before the all-important descent from orbit. Engineers want to learn as much as they can since the thrusters won’t return to Earth; the section containing them will be ditched before the capsule reenters.

    The stuck astronauts — retired Navy captains — have lived on the space station before and settled in just fine, according to NASA officials. Even though their mission focus has changed, “they’re just as dedicated for the success of human spaceflight going forward,” flight director Anthony Vareha said.

    Their blue Boeing spacesuits will return with the capsule, along with some old station equipment.

    NASA hired Boeing and SpaceX a decade ago to ferry its astronauts to and from the space station after its shuttles retired. SpaceX accomplished the feat in 2020 and has since launched nine crews for NASA and four for private customers.

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    The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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