America’s Rocket is on the Move

In this week’s newsletter, discover how engineers are preparing the agency’s Space Launch System rocket core stage for its journey to Florida from New Orleans; register to attend the launch of NASA’s SpaceX Crew-9 mission to the International Space Station and the 2024 NASA Space Apps Challenge; and celebrate the 55th Anniversary of Apollo 11. Plus, more stories you might have missed.

HUMANS IN SPACE

On Tuesday, July 16, the first core stage of NASA’s Space Launch System rocket for the agency’s Artemis II mission began a journey from the Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans. The core stage was moved onto the agency’s Pegasus barge, where it will be ferried 900 miles to Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Once at Kennedy, engineers will prepare it in the Vehicle Assembly Building for attachment to other rocket and Orion spacecraft elements.

MOVING ARTEMIS FORWARD

SCIENCE

VIPER Project to End

On Wednesday, July 17, NASA announced its intent to discontinue the development of the VIPER (Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover) project. Moving forward, the agency is planning to disassemble and reuse VIPER’s instruments and components for future Moon missions.

LEARN MORE

NASA SOCIAL

Experience a Live Launch

Digital content creators are invited to register to attend the launch of the ninth SpaceX Dragon spacecraft and Falcon 9 rocket that will carry astronauts to the International Space Station. The deadline to apply is 10 a.m. EDT on Monday, July 22.

APPLICATION DETAILS

SCIENCE

AI and the Red Planet

For almost three years, the Perseverance Mars rover has been testing a form of artificial intelligence that seeks out minerals in the Red Planet’s rocks. This marks the first time AI has been used on Mars to make autonomous decisions based on real-time analysis of rock composition.

MAKING A MINERAL MAP

SCIENCE

Caves on the Moon

An international team of scientists using data from NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has discovered evidence of caves beneath the Moon’s surface. Scientists have suspected for decades that there are subsurface caves on the Moon, just like there are on Earth.

TAKE A CLOSER LOOK

SCIENCE

NASA invites a global community of innovators, technologists, storytellers, and problem solvers to register for the 2024 NASA Space Apps Challenge, the largest annual global hackathon.

During this annual event, participants worldwide gather at hundreds of simultaneous in-person and virtual local events to address challenges submitted by subject matter experts across NASA divisions.

These challenges range in complexity and topic, tasking participants with everything from creating artistic visualizations of NASA data to conceptualizing and developing informational apps and software programs.

BEGIN YOUR HACKATHON JOURNEY

More NASA News

National Intern Day is celebrated annually to recognize and highlight the contributions of interns throughout different industries and fields of work. At every NASA center nationwide, interns play a critical role in our mission success, so the agency is celebrating them all week long.

On the latest episode of Houston, We Have a Podcast, the system designer for NASA's first tabletop role-playing game, Christina Mitchell, discusses her inspirations and the science included in The Lost Universe, an adventure designed to take players to a rogue planet to find the missing Hubble Space Telescope.

Europa, a moon of Jupiter, and Enceladus, a moon of Saturn, have evidence of oceans beneath their ice crusts. A NASA experiment suggests that if these oceans support life, signatures of that life in the form of organic molecules could survive just under the surface ice despite the harsh radiation on these worlds.

NASA HISTORY

55th Anniversary of Apollo 11

“Houston, Tranquility Base here, the Eagle has landed.”

“That’s one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind.”

“Magnificent desolation.”

Three phrases that recall humanity’s first landing on and exploration of the lunar surface. In July 1969, Apollo 11 astronauts Neil A. Armstrong, Michael Collins, and Edwin E. “Buzz” Aldrin completed humanity’s first landing on the Moon. They fulfilled President John F. Kennedy’s national goal, set in May 1961, to land a man on the Moon and return him safely to Earth before the end of the decade.

Scientists began examining the first Moon rocks two days after the Apollo 11 splashdown while the astronauts began a three-week postflight quarantine.

EXPLORE APOLLO 11

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