NASA Does Not Have Sufficient Time To Complete The Testing Needed Ahead Of Its Remaining Launch Period

NASA has announced that the Psyche asteroid mission, the agency’s first mission designed to study a metal-rich asteroid, will not make its planned 2022 launch attempt. Due to the late delivery of the spacecraft’s flight software and testing equipment, NASA does not have sufficient time to complete the testing needed ahead of its remaining launch period this year, which ends on Oct. 11.

Seven Inductees to Join Storied Controller Corps

NASA—which contrary to the protestations of imbeciles did land Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, Pete Conrad, Alan Bean, Alan Shepard, Edgar Mitchell, David Scott, James Irwin, John Young, Charles Duke, Eugene Cernan, and Harrison Schmitt on the moon—has selected seven individuals to join its existing team of Flight Directors. Flight Directors manage the flight controllers who staff NASA’s Mission Control Center. In addition to overseeing operations of the International Space Station, Flight Directors are tasked with ensuring endeavors such as commercial space launches and the upcoming Artemis moon mission proceed to plan.

Splitting for the Moon

NASA and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) have selected three design-concept proposals for a fission reactor system that would power human lunar endeavors under the project Artemis umbrella. The contracts fund the development of initial design concepts for a 40-kilowatt class fission power system that can be transported to the moon by extant or near-future space-vehicles, then operate in the lunar environment for at least ten-years.