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New York Times
5 hours ago
- Science
- New York Times
Second Time's a Charm for Zena Cardman as She Heads to the Space Station
The last time Zena Cardman was named commander of a NASA mission, her ride to space took off without her. Ms. Cardman is scheduled to finally reach orbit on Thursday, when the next group of astronauts heads to the International Space Station, part of the usual rotation of crew. She is the commander of the Crew-11 mission — the 11th time that SpaceX, the rocket company run by Elon Musk, has launched four astronauts to the space station for NASA as part of a crew rotation. NASA will begin coverage of the launch at 8 a.m. Eastern time, with liftoff from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida expected at 12:09 p.m. Ms. Cardman and her three crewmates — Michael Fincke of NASA, Kimiya Yui of Japan and Oleg Platonov of Russia — will be riding in a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule atop a Falcon 9 rocket. The forecast predicts a 90 percent chance of favorable weather. This is a trip that Ms. Cardman thought she would have made last year as the commander of Crew-9. 'Right now, it still feels a little bit surreal,' she said in an interview three weeks ago. She said she thought it would continue to feel that way until T+1 in the countdown — one second after the rocket had left the launchpad. Last summer, Ms. Cardman's plans were scrambled by the troubled test flight of Boeing's Starliner. NASA decided that Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore, the two astronauts who traveled to the I.S.S. in the Starliner, would return to Earth another way, and that set off a domino effect for the crews of later missions. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Entrepreneur
21 hours ago
- Business
- Entrepreneur
NASA-ISRO's NISAR Mission Marks Turning Point for Indian SpaceTech
Scheduled for liftoff on July 30, 2025, at 5:40 PM IST, the mission will take off aboard the GSLV-F16 rocket from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota. Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own. You're reading Entrepreneur India, an international franchise of Entrepreneur Media. The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), in partnership with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), is gearing up for one of its most ambitious space missions. The launch of the NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) satellite. Scheduled for liftoff on July 30, 2025, at 5:40 PM IST, the mission will take off aboard the GSLV-F16 rocket from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota. NISAR marks a significant milestone in global space cooperation, combining NASA's advanced L-band radar technology with ISRO's state-of-the-art S-band radar system. The mission is set to deliver high-resolution, all-weather, day-and-night imaging of Earth. This capability is said to allow scientists to track crucial environmental changes, including land subsidence, glacier dynamics, and ecosystem health, with exceptional accuracy, making NISAR one of the most sophisticated Earth observation missions ever undertaken. This mission is particularly noteworthy as it represents ISRO's 102nd mission overall and the first GSLV launch dedicated to a radar-based Earth observation satellite. It highlights India's expanding leadership in space science and its capacity to successfully execute intricate international collaborations. The satellite will help scientists better understand processes involved in natural hazards and catastrophic events, such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and landslides. NASA's Launch Services Program at Kennedy Space Center, FL has an advisory role for the NISAR mission.… — NASA's Kennedy Space Center (@NASAKennedy) July 29, 2025 NISAR's goal is to analyze Earth's shifting processes in unparalleled detail, providing essential data for the global scientific community. According to ISRO, the satellite's key objectives are to tracking land and ice deformation to better understand events such as earthquakes, landslides, and glacial melt; mapping terrestrial ecosystems and analyzing forest changes to monitor biodiversity and carbon sequestration and study oceanic zones, including shoreline alterations and rising sea levels, with joint research input from Indian and U.S. teams. Additionally, NISAR is also geared up to monitor seasonal variations in forest coverage, detect terrain shifts in mountainous regions, and track glacial activity in sensitive areas like the Himalayas, Antarctica, and the polar zones. These insights are expected to enhance climate models, strengthen disaster response efforts, and support effective management of natural resources. Yashas Karanam, Co-Founder & COO, Bellatrix Aerospace, said that the collaborative effort shown by ISRO in providing the launch service and the S-band SAR, and NASA providing the L-band SAR on this project, truly exemplifies what global cooperation focused on the well-being of our planet should look like. "For space tech startups, this represents a turning point. NISAR's data will fuel research and drive sustainable development. It's not just a science mission, it's a living laboratory for next-gen EO platforms, where sensing, autonomy, and onboard data processing converge at scale. This mission also signals a potential openness from both the Indian and US governments to pursue similar collaborations between private space companies in their respective nations," said Karanam. The satellite is engineered to scan the Earth's entire surface twice within a 12-day cycle. During its initial three-year mission period, it will generate high-resolution images of the planet every six days, enabling near-real-time monitoring of environmental changes. In contrast to earlier Indian Earth observation satellites focused mainly on national needs, NISAR has a global scope, offering valuable data for researchers, governments, and industries across the world. ISRO said through its X (formerly Twitter), "Two Nations. One Mission. India + USA = One mission to watch Earth. #ISRO #NASA builds, Earth benefits. This marks a key milestone in Earth observation technology. Built across continents in phases, NISAR is a result of global teamwork and tech. NISAR came together through years of integration and testing. NISAR's build journey is a story of teamwork."
NHK
4 days ago
- Science
- NHK
Japanese astronaut Yui arrives at Kennedy Space Center
Japanese astronaut Yui Kimiya and the other members of the crew set to depart for the International Space Station have arrived at the launch site in the US state of Florida. A Crew Dragon spacecraft is expected to lift off from Kennedy Space Center as early as Thursday shortly after 12 p.m. local time. The crew is scheduled to spend about six months at the space station. Yui and the other members from the United States and Russia arrived in Florida on Saturday. Yui told reporters that he is very grateful to be there as part of a great team. He added that they respect each other's cultural and linguistic differences, and that they will be able to show a good example of international cooperation. Yui also said the crew is ready just like his hair, which was cut short ahead of the mission's launch. Upon his arrival at the ISS, Yui is expected to take over duties from Japanese astronaut Onishi Takuya, who has been staying at the space station since March.
France 24
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- France 24
'Project Hail Mary' sends Ryan Gosling, and Comic-Con, into outer space
Gosling was joined on a convention panel by directing duo Christopher Miller and Phil Lord, as well as screenwriter Drew Goddard and book author Andy Weir -- whose previous novel "The Martian" was also turned into an Oscar-nominated film starring Matt Damon. Based on Weir's 2021 book of the same title, "Project Hail Mary" follows astronaut Ryland Grace (Gosling), a science teacher waking up to learn he was recruited for a space mission to save Earth from an existential solar threat. Gosling described his character as "a scared guy who has to do something impossible." "I knew it would be brilliant, because it's Andy [Weir]," Gosling told the crowd. "It took me places I've never been. It showed me things I had never seen. It was as heartbreaking as it was funny and I was... not just blown away, but also overwhelmed." Weir for his part said it was "so cool" to see his book come to life and complimented Gosling for giving "many layers to this character I made up." Lord and Miller, the Oscar-winning duo behind the "Spider-Verse" Spider-Man animated films, talked about the challenges of shooting a "crazy ambitious" film which takes place inside a spaceship for the most part. "We had to build an entire spaceship in two modes of gravity, and then we built this entire massive tunnel at scale," Miller said. "This is insane, to build a tunnel that was like 100 feet (30 meters) long, filled up an entire stage." The event also showcased various clips from the film, receiving a positive response from fans, who noted the bond formed between Gosling's character and an alien named Rocky. "The relationship between these two characters is the heart of the movie," Miller said. "I loved it," attendee April Rodriguez, who also read the book, gushed about the film. "I just never, like, envisioned it that way. So that was pretty cool." Star Trek Comic-Con, which bring some 130,000 fans for the convention in San Diego, California, welcomed the Star Trek universe to the main stage earlier in the day Saturday to showcase its upcoming releases. Thousands of fans filled the hall to watch exclusive footage from the fourth season of "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds" before it premieres on Paramount+. One clip showed Captain Christopher Pike played by Anson Mount in an entire episode where the cast is depicted like puppets from Jim Henson's Creature Shop. Fans were also offered a first look of a new Star Trek series, dubbed "Star Trek: Starfleet Academy" starring Holly Hunter. Hunter plays Nahla Ake, the academy's chancellor and captain of the USS Athena, who in a clip shown at Comic-Con welcomes a new class of cadets. "It was really interesting to get the offer to be the captain, but then also to combine that with being the chancellor," Hunter said. "The captain is there to analyze in emergency situations, and then to delegate. And the chancellor is there to guide, to collaborate and to have tremendous empathy. "It was just a wonderful combination of things," she added.
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Science
- Yahoo
NASA crew readies for ISS mission launch on Thursday
July 26 (UPI) -- An international crew of four is readying for Thursday's planned launch of a NASA mission to the International Space Station after arriving at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Astronauts Zena Cardman and Mike Fincke, Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency specialist Kimiya Yui and Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Platonov will travel from Kennedy Space Center's Launch Complex 39A to the ISS while aboard the SpaceX Crew Dragon Endeavour. Cardman is the mission's leader. The crew landed at Space Florida's Launch and Landing Facility at 1:12 EDT after leaving from Houston on Saturday morning. "We are absolutely joyed to be here at Kennedy Space Center," Cardman said upon the crew's landing. "This is the first moment when it's really starting to feel real," she said. "This is the beginning of a week when things will feel progressively more and more real as we approach our launch." Mission pilot Fincke said the mission gives him another chance to fly aboard a spacecraft named Endeavour. "One of the last times I landed at the [Florida launch and landing facility] was on space shuttle Endeavour," Fincke told media. "Now we get to go on another endeavor - a Dragon Endeavour," he said. The Endeavour name honors the HMS Endeavour, which British Capt. James Cook used to explore and chart the South Pacific from 1768 to 1771. A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will deliver the Endeavor into low Earth orbit, which will make the Crew Dragon spacecraft the most flown among SpaceX's fleet. Thursday's launch is scheduled at 12:09 p.m. EDT and would enable the Endeavor to dock at the ISS on Aug. 2 if the launch occurs as planned. The four crew members will join Expedition 73, which already is at the ISS. An Expedition 74 crew is scheduled to replace the Expedition 73 crew while the Crew 11 team is at the ISS. Solve the daily Crossword
