This Week @NASA: New Boeing Starliner Launch Date, Gateway Hardware, Event Horizon Visualization

Illustration showing a close-up of the Habitation and Logistics Outpost (HALO), one of the elements of Gateway. Credit: NASA

A new target launch date for NASA’s Boeing Crew Flight Test …

Making progress on major hardware for Gateway …

And presidential honors for helping to advance NASA’s mission …

A few of the stories to tell you about – This Week at NASA!

A New Target Launch Date for NASA’s Boeing Crew Flight Test

NASA, Boeing, and United Launch Alliance are now targeting no earlier than May 17th for the launch of NASA’s Boeing crew flight test to the International Space Station.

NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Sunny Williams will be the first astronauts to fly to the station aboard Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft. After the successful completion of the mission, NASA could certify Starliner for rotational crewed missions to the space station.

Gateway’s Lunar I-Hab and HALO modules under construction at a Thales Alenia Space industrial plant in Turin, Italy. Credit: ESA/Stephane Corvaja

Making Forward Progress on Gateway Ahead of Artemis IV

NASA’s Artemis IV Mission is taking shape with teams in Italy making progress on major hardware for Gateway — Humanity’s first space station to orbit the Moon. The first two elements of Gateway, the habitation and Logistics Outpost, or Halo, and the power and propulsion element will launch to lunar orbit ahead of Artemis IV. Halo is one of the Gateway modules where astronauts will live, conduct science, and prepare for lunar surface missions.

President Joe Biden presented Dr. Ellen Ochoa, former center director and astronaut at the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, and Dr. Jane Rigby, senior project scientist for NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, each with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in a ceremony at the White House in Washington. Credit: The White House

Former NASA Center Director, Scientists Receive Presidential Medals

Dr. Ellen Ochoa, former center director and astronaut at NASA’s Johnson Space Center, and Dr. Jane Rigby, senior project scientist for NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope were each presented with a presidential medal of freedom recently by President Joe Biden.

Ochoa was recognized for her leadership at NASA Johnson and for being the first Hispanic woman in space, and Rigby was recognized for her work leading Webb, NASA’s transformational Space Telescope.

In this visualization of a flight toward a supermassive black hole, labels highlight many of the fascinating features produced by the effects of general relativity along the way. Produced on a NASA supercomputer, the simulation tracks a camera as it approaches, briefly orbits, and then crosses the event horizon — the point of no return — of a monster black hole much like the one at the center of our galaxy. Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/J. Schnittman and B. Powell

Black Hole Visualization Takes Viewers Beyond the Brink

A new immersive visualization made with a NASA supercomputer takes viewers inside the Event Horizon — a black hole’s point of no return. There are multiple versions of the visualization including a 360° version.

The project generated about 10 terabytes of data and took the supercomputer about 5 days to make. For comparison, it would take a typical laptop computer more than a decade to make.

That’s what’s up this week @NASA!