Space: the final frontier January 2024-

Artemis II astronauts: What are they doing now and have they reunited with their families?.
(Globe & Mail) After a successful splashdown on April 10, the crew has been settling back into a more earthly rhythm, reuniting with family members and reminiscing about their time in space. Here’s what the Artemis II astronauts have been doing post-mission.
Jeremy Hansen
Mr. Hansen is married to Dr. Catherine Hansen, an OB/GYN and the Chief Medical Officer at Effica, a virtual menopause clinic. They live in Houston with their three children, Ashley, Katelyn and Devon.
Devon, Mr. Hansen’s son, also shared a special update in a video uploaded to his Instagram page on April 8. In the clip, Devon explains that his dad took five birthstone necklace charms – one for each family member – with him aboard Artemis II. “Once he returns, they’ll get returned to us, and it’ll be like a little piece of us has travelled to the moon with him.”
In the same video, Devon mentioned retired Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield, who commanded the International Space Station (ISS) in 2013, noting that Mr. Hadfield carried the same charms with him while aboard the ISS.
Mr. Hadfield and Jeremy Hansen have a perhaps little-known connection. In 2012, Mr. Hansen was one of Mr. Hadfield’s family escorts as he prepared for his 2013 mission. “Essentially, the family escort is a surrogate spouse: someone who’s available to help out on Earth not only during launch but later, when life has returned to normal but the mission is ongoing,” Hadfield wrote in his 2013 book, An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth.

12 April
Artemis, and the far horizon of human ambition
The return to the moon is the start of a future in space travel whose full heights we will never see
(Globe & Mail Sunday Editorial) … They returned to Earth having crossed new frontiers of human endeavour, gathering new data that will lead to new scientific discoveries, showing how human ingenuity, invention and collective effort can be sustained over time in pursuit of something larger than any one life.
And they returned to a world that has recently experienced one of the deadliest pandemics in history, sharp economic downturns, trade wars and the sudden ubiquity of artificial intelligence – a technology that has generated existential anxiety across the global workforce. For the generations walking the Earth today, this is an era that can’t seem to go a full month without fracture.
And yet.
Decades from now, hundreds of years from now, a moment that feels fractious will be measured against the steps taken by the Artemis crew toward building on the moon, toward using the moon as a launching pad to Mars and to setting humanity on a course of exploration across the cosmos.

11 April
Artemis II’s moon-traveling astronauts return home to cheers after a record-breaking trip
(AP) — Still marveling over their moon mission, the Artemis II astronauts received a thunderous welcome home Saturday from hundreds who took part in NASA’s lunar comeback that set a record for deep space travel.
The crew of four arrived at Ellington Field near NASA’s Johnson Space Center and Mission Control, flying in from San Diego, where they splashed down just offshore the evening before.
After a quick reunion with their spouses and children, commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Canada’s Jeremy Hansen took the hangar stage, surrounded by space center workers and other invited guests. They were introduced by NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman, among the first to greet them aboard the recovery ship Friday.
Their homecoming was poignant: They returned to NASA’s Houston base on the 56th anniversary of the launch of Apollo 13, whose “Houston, we’ve had a problem” refrain turned a near-disaster into triumph.

10-11 April

NASA Says Artemis II Astronauts Are ‘Happy and Healthy’ After Splashdown

Rick Henfling, the Artemis II flight director, offered some key stats: The mission flew 700,237 miles; its peak velocity was 24,664 m.p.h.; and the flight had an entry range of 1,957 miles but landed within one mile of its target.

The crew of three Americans and one Canadian are to return to Houston on Saturday after concluding a journey that sent humans around the moon for the first time since 1972.
(NYT) Welcome home, Reid, Victor, Christina and Jeremy. You returned humanity to the moon, and now you’re back safely on Earth.
The four astronauts aboard Artemis II splashed down at 8:07 p.m. Eastern time in the Pacific Ocean near San Diego on Friday, concluding their historic 10-day mission, the first to send humans around the moon in more than 50 years.
NASA news conference with agency officials about the successful splashdown of the Artemis II moon mission.
You’ll hear from the astronauts tomorrow but “tonight belongs to the team that built the machine that they rode,” said Amit Kshatriya, the associate administrator of NASA. The path to the moon is open, he adds, but the work ahead is greater than the work behind.
Artemis II Splashdown Gives NASA Momentum in Renewed Moon Race
The astronauts captivated the world with their historic mission.
(NYT) Floating in the Pacific Ocean on Friday, the four astronauts of NASA’s Artemis II mission had achieved more than just a historic return to human spaceflight around the moon.
“From the pages of Jules Verne to a modern-day mission to the moon, a new chapter of the exploration of our celestial neighbor is complete,” Rob Navias, who provided NASA commentary during the re-entry, said after splashdown.
The successful conclusion of Artemis II sets NASA on a path to extend the agency’s achievements in space exploration, and, for now at least, the United States is ahead of China in a 21st century space race.

8-9 April
NASA provides update on Artemis II mission as astronauts prepare for re-entry
The crew woke up 322,316 kilometres from Earth Wednesday

7 April
How the Artemis II crew trained to observe and photograph the moon: A NASA science team geologist explains
Gordon Osinski, Professor in Earth and Planetary Science, Western University
(The Conversation) … First, the crew participated in a crash course in lunar geology called “Lunar Fundamentals.” This weeklong, classroom-based training offered them the basics to understand lunar geology and the processes that shape the moon’s surface — primarily impact cratering and volcanism.
However, as somebody who has been teaching for more than 20 years, I know the best place to learn about geology is in the field. That’s why NASA also took the Artemis astronauts to a series of field sites in the United States, Iceland and Canada.
Early in their training, in September 2023, three of the crew members — Hansen, Christina Koch and back-up crew Jenni Gibbons — undertook geology training at the Kamestastin Lake impact structure in northern Labrador. Then the entire crew travelled to Iceland in August 2024.
Kamestastin Lake training expedition
I was honoured to play a leading role in the Kamestastin Lake training. This location was chosen because it offers a similar landscape to the surface of the moon.

NASA’s Artemis II Crew Flies Around the Moon (Official Broadcast)

6 April
Artemis II crew breaks distance record, loops around the moon and heads for home
Astronauts describe the views as ‘spectacular,’ ‘amazing’ and ‘surreal’
(CBC) At 1:57 p.m. ET, Artemis II’s Orion spacecraft broke the distance record for the farthest humans have travelled from Earth.
At about 6:44 p.m. ET, mission control lost contact with the crew for about 40 minutes as the spacecraft passed behind the moon.
Around 7 p.m. ET, the crew reached its closest approach to the moon, when the astronauts became the first humans to see parts of the moon’s far side with the naked eye.
At about 8:32 p.m. ET the spacecraft entered an eclipse, with the sun behind the moon from the crew’s perspective, for about an hour.
The lunar flyby observation period wrapped at about 9:35 p.m. ET. The crew will begin transferring its images to NASA’s team on the ground as they head for home.
NASA’s Artemis II Crew Eclipses Record for Farthest Human Spaceflight
(NASA) On Monday, April 6, 2026, six days into the Artemis II mission, NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch, and CSA (Canadian Space Agency) astronaut Jeremy Hansen surpassed the record for human spaceflight’s farthest distance from Earth, which was previously set by the Apollo 13 mission in 1970.
Editor’s note: This release was updated at 7:28 p.m. EDT on April 6, 2026, to reflect Orion’s final closest approach to the lunar surface from about 4,070 miles to about 4,067 miles. NASA also updated the farthest distance Orion will travel. Finally, NASA also made changes at 10 p.m. to the statements about crew firsts.
… When they fly past the Moon later, crew will come within about 4,067 miles from its surface at the closest approach. The astronauts will be the first to see some parts of the far side of the Moon with human eyes. Finally, they will witness a solar eclipse as the Moon passes in front of the Sun.
NASA is expecting to lose communication with the astronauts for about 40 minutes during a planned blackout period. The break will occur as the Moon blocks signals between the spacecraft and the Earth through the Deep Space Network. When Orion reemerges from behind the Moon, it is expected to quickly reacquire contact with flight controllers in the Mission Control Center at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.
During their lunar flyby, a fleet of cameras will capture imagery of the Moon, including features humans have never directly seen. The astronauts will use a variety of digital handheld cameras to conduct high-resolution photography of the lunar surface.
Artemis II crew breaks distance record, loops around the moon and heads for home (CBC)
At 1:57 p.m. ET, Artemis II’s Orion spacecraft broke the distance record for the farthest humans have travelled from Earth.
At about 6:44 p.m. ET, mission control lost contact with the crew for about 40 minutes as the spacecraft passed behind the moon.
Around 7 p.m. ET, the crew reached its closest approach to the moon, when the astronauts became the first humans to see parts of the moon’s far side with the naked eye.
At about 8:32 p.m. ET the spacecraft entered an eclipse, with the sun behind the moon from the crew’s perspective, for about an hour.
The lunar flyby observation period wrapped at about 9:35 p.m. ET. The crew will begin transferring its images to NASA’s team on the ground as they head for home. …with a landing planned for Friday.

3 April
4 astronauts are now on their path to the moon. Here’s what happens next
(CNN) The Artemis II mission crossed a crucial and historic threshold Thursday when the Orion spacecraft ignited its engine and propelled four astronauts toward the moon, setting them on a days-long slingshot trip that will reach deeper into space than any human has traveled before.
The burn, as these engine firings are called, lasted for a brief 5 minutes and 50 seconds, while Orion was just 115 miles (185 kilometers) above Earth, according to NASA. But the engine firing marked the first time humans — in this case NASA’s Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen — have made a move to leave Earth orbit since 1972 with the Apollo 17 mission. …
Artemis II astronauts pass 100,000 miles from Earth on voyage to the moon
After six-minute firing of capsule’s engine, crew on track to reach farthest distance travelled by humans in space …

1 April

Live Updates: NASA Artemis II Moon Mission Launches Atop Tower of Flame
The crew of four — three Americans and one Canadian lifted off at 6:35 p.m. Eastern on the first crewed journey to the moon since 1972.
Lunar journey begins.
A towering orange-and-white NASA rocket blasted off from Florida on Wednesday evening, lifting four astronauts toward space and transporting spectators’ imaginations to a future in which Americans may again set foot on the moon.
As they did during the heyday of the Apollo program, which first put men on the lunar surface, spectators squeezed onto the beaches along Central Florida’s Space Coast. The crowds cheered when the powerful vehicle launched into the clear, twilight sky at 6:35 p.m. Eastern time. It traveled eastward, over the Atlantic Ocean, on a journey that is to go around the moon but not land there.
The core stage has fallen away. The Orion, still connected to the second stage, is coasting in an elliptical orbit. Over the next hour, the second stage will fire several times to put Orion is a highly elliptical orbit around Earth to allow time to test out critical systems before setting out toward the moon.

Artemis II: The first human mission to the moon in 54 years launches soon — with a Canadian on board
Gordon Osinski, Professor in Earth and Planetary Science, Western University
(The Conversation) It’s been 54 years since the last Apollo mission, and since then, humans have not ventured beyond low-Earth orbit. But that’s all about to change with next week’s launch of the Artemis II mission from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
This is the first crewed flight of NASA’s Artemis program and the first time since 1972 that humans have ventured to the moon. Onboard is Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen, who will be the first non-American to fly to the moon and will make Canada only the second country in the world to send an astronaut into deep space.
NASA’s Artemis program, launched in 2017, has the ambitious goal to return humans to the moon and to establish a lunar base in preparation for sending humans to Mars. The first mission, Artemis I, launched in late 2022.
This is an incredibly exciting mission. Artemis II is the first time humans have launched on NASA’s huge SLS (Space Launch System) rocket, and the first time humans have flown in the Orion spacecraft.
SLS is the most powerful rocket NASA has ever built, with the capability to send more than 27 metric tonnes of payload — equipment, instruments, scientific experiments and cargo — to the moon. The Orion spacecraft sits at the very top and is the crew’s ride to the moon. The Artemis II crew named their Orion capsule Integrity, a word they say embodies trust, respect, candour and humility. 29 January 2026

30-31 March
Canada looks to lead in space technology as Artemis II prepares moon launch
(CTV) Canadian Jeremy Hansen is set to make history in many ways this week as the first Canadian and first non-American to leave low-Earth orbit.
… “Part of the process in establishing a greater understanding of operations around and on the moon is rebuilding a lot of the knowledge that was lost for more than 50 years,” said Jonathan Kelly, an aerospace professor at the University of Toronto. “One of the dangers with not pursuing these missions is that you start to lose that knowledge.”
Last week, NASA unveiled an ambitious plan for future space exploration, which includes at least one moon landing per year, starting in 2028, and the construction of a moon base by 2030.
NASA’s plans come at a time when Canada is scaling up its investment in the space industry after years of reduced spending. Earlier this month, Ottawa announced a $200-million investment in a Nova Scotia spaceport to enable sovereign satellite launches. Still, what Canada spends on space significantly lags its peers – Canada is last in public spending among 10 OECD Space Forum Members.
For decades, Canada has led when it comes to space robotics and satellite – leadership that helped, in part, to secure Hansen’s seat on the Artemis II mission.
NASA had intended to use the Canadarm3 to help build the Lunar Gateway, a space station orbiting the moon. While that program is on pause, the Canadian Space Agency said in a statement, “Canada continues discussions will NASA on this change and approach and will pursue collaboration with Canadian industry and international partners to determine the next steps.”
Insiders hope to see this type of investment not only renewed, but expanded.
Proponents of increased investment in the space sector say it could be one solution to Canada’s productivity crisis; labour growth in Canada has been a decades-long problem, and investing in space technology is seen by some as a way to help reverse that metric.

NASA Teams Readying Artemis II Moon Rocket for Launch
As the Artemis II countdown moves steadily toward liftoff no earlier than 6:24 p.m. EDT, Wednesday, April 1, launch teams at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida continue completing a sequence of highly choreographed steps to ready the SLS (Space Launch System) rocket and Orion spacecraft for the crew’s journey around the Moon.
NASA’s first crewed mission under the Artemis program, Artemis II will send NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and CSA (Canadian Space Agency) astronaut Jeremy Hansen on an approximately 10-day journey around the Moon.
Why won’t NASA’s Artemis 2 astronauts land on the moon when they get there?
(Space) … Glover will be the first Black astronaut ever to fly a moon mission, while Koch will be the first woman and Hansen the first non-American to do so. They will become the humans to visit the moon’s neighborhood since Apollo 17 did so in 1972.
… The first moon landing of the Artemis program is expected to take place on Artemis 4, no earlier than 2028. That’s because, simply put, the Artemis program isn’t built to put Artemis 2 on the moon. The Orion spacecraft the astronauts will use has no landing capability, and NASA is taking a staged testing approach before committing to a moon landing.
Artemis 1 successfully sent an uncrewed Orion spacecraft to lunar orbit and back in late 2022, on the first-ever launch of the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket. It was the second mission for Orion, which had launched on a United Launch Alliance Delta IV on an uncrewed Earth-circling trip in December 2014.
Artemis 2 is also a test mission to the moon, but this time with crew. Orion will carry life-support systems for the first time, and the crew will test their ability to maneuver the capsule in Earth orbit before committing to an engine burn to reach the moon.
Artemis 2 “will confirm all the spacecraft’s systems operate as designed with crew aboard in the actual environment of deep space,” NASA wrote in a mission description. “The mission will pave the way for lunar surface missions, establishing long-term lunar science and exploration capabilities and inspire the next generation of explorers.”
30 March
Here’s what astronauts could find in their upcoming 10-day mission around the moon
(CNN) As the astronauts fly by the mysterious lunar far side, which always faces away from Earth, they will view a part of the moon that Apollo astronauts were unable to see due to the orbits of their capsules.
The upcoming historic mission, expected to lift off as soon as Wednesday, will mark the first time humans have ventured to the moon’s vicinity in more than 50 years — and kick-start a new wave of lunar exploration that could answer enduring questions about Earth’s natural satellite.
“We’ve been looking at the moon throughout human history, and the moon has been visited by astronauts and a number of robotic missions,” said Jeff Andrews-Hanna, a professor in the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory at the University of Arizona. “Yet there’s still so many things we don’t understand about the moon on a very first order level.”
NASA’s Artemis II Launch Mission Countdown Begins
(NASA) The countdown for NASA’s Artemis II test flight is underway at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, with members of the launch team arriving at their consoles inside the Rocco Petrone Launch Control Center. The onsite countdown clock started ticking down at 4:44 p.m. EDT [30 March] to a targeted launch time of 6:24 p.m. on Wednesday, April 1. Artemis II is the first crewed launch of NASA’s SLS (Space Launch System) rocket and Orion spacecraft.
NASA and weather officers with the U.S. Space Force’s Space Launch Delta 45 continue to pay close attention to weather conditions ahead of tanking operations. The weather forecast for launch day shows an 80% chance of favorable weather conditions with primary concerns being cloud coverage and the potential for high winds in the area. Teams will continue to monitor the weather in the coming days.

4 February
NASA Webb Pushes Boundaries of Observable Universe Closer to Big Bang
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has topped itself once again, delivering the confirmation of a bright galaxy that existed a mere 280 million years after the Big Bang; so close to the beginning of the universe as we understand.
GNN reported on the last such discovery, a galaxy 300 million years after, and scientists are now certain that James Webb will break every such record until the earliest observable light is eventually detected.
The newly confirmed galaxy, MoM-z14, holds intriguing clues to the universe’s historical timeline and just how different a place the early universe was than astronomers expected.
“With Webb, we are able to see farther than humans ever have before, and it looks nothing like what we predicted, which is both challenging and exciting,” said Rohan Naidu of the MIT’s Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research and lead author of a paper on galaxy MoM-z14 published in the Open Journal of Astrophysics.

3 February
NASA document reveals new Artemis II moon mission target launch dates for March
(Scientific American) NASA quietly updated its potential launch windows for its delayed moon mission. The agency is apparently now targeting March 6 to 11
NASA had already indicated that Artemis II would slip to a March launch date after a critical test of the mission’s spacecraft—the so-called wet dress rehearsal—went awry on Monday. In response to a request for comment, the agency confirmed the updated document detailing the early March dates was accurate.
During the test, the Space Launch System (SLS) sprang hydrogen fuel leaks—a problem that plagued the mission’s predecessor, Artemis I. Despite trying to stem the leaks using techniques learned from Artemis I, however, NASA engineers still have some work ahead to fix the SLS problem. And the spacecraft’s capsule, designed to ferry a crew of four astronauts in a loop around the moon and back, encountered problems with a recently replaced valve.
When, exactly, Artemis II will launch depends on a successful rehearsal in which NASA will attempt to fuel the rocket again and test its systems without the crew onboard. The rehearsal’s date is yet to be determined.
30  January
NASA pushes Artemis 2 launch date to NET February 8
In update from NASA this morning the agency said that “Managers have assessed hardware capabilities against the projected forecast given the rare arctic outbreak affecting the state and decided to change the timeline.”
“Teams and preparations at the launch pad remain ready for the wet dress rehearsal. However, adjusting the timeline for the test will position NASA for success during the rehearsal, as the expected weather this weekend would violate launch conditions.”
How to View the Artemis II Moon Launch
The first crewed mission around the moon in more than 50 years is coming up.
In one of the most anticipated space missions of the decade, NASA is preparing to send four astronauts on a flyby of the moon during its Artemis II mission. If successful, it will be the first crewed flight to venture around the moon since the last Apollo mission more than 50 years ago.
The 322-foot Space Launch System and Orion capsule were transported to the launchpad at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida in mid-January

8 January
An Act of Cosmic Sabotage
How Donald Trump tried to ground NASA’s science missions
Ross Andersen
(The Atlantic) Last spring, President Donald Trump bluntly expressed his vision for science at NASA in his first budget request. Along with extensive layoffs, he called for 40 of the agency’s 124 science missions, including Mars Sample Return, to be defunded, and for the surviving missions to make do with less. Among NASA scientists, the request was demoralizing; within months, its major science centers lost thousands of staffers to buyouts and cutbacks.
Only the governments of rich countries send robotic explorers to other planets. And only the United States has sent them past the asteroid belt to Jupiter and beyond. For decades, this has been a part of America’s global cultural role: to fling the most distant probes into the solar system, and to build the space telescopes that see the farthest into the cosmos. The U.S. has led an unprecedented age of cosmic discovery. Now Trump is trying to bring that age to an end, and right at the moment when answers to our most profound existential questions finally seem to be within reach.

2025

12 December
Next stop, the moon! Artemis II starting to feel ‘very real’ for astronaut Jeremy Hansen (audio)
Astronauts expected to be first humans to see entirety of Earth and moon, in one view
(CBC) In just a few short months, Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen will make history.
Hansen sat down with Quirks & Quarks host Bob McDonald to discuss the mission, which could launch as soon as February. Here is part of their conversation:
How does it feel to be this close to launch after all this wait?
Oh my gosh, some mixed emotions. There’s some days where we’re finalizing a certain part of the training and it’s the last time we’re going to touch it before launch, and it starts to feel very real. And then there’s other moments where I’m like, “OK, there’s still a lot to do, I’ve got to get back to work.”
You’re a former jet fighter pilot, so how does that factor into your training?
The [NASA] Astronaut Corps, just in general, we embrace aviation training because it’s one of the few things that we do that can actually kill you. We have these amazing simulators, but when you’re in a simulator, you’re going home at the end of the day, even if you make a mistake. And space is not like that. And so managing real risk is an important skill set that you want to exercise.
I find myself now … spending more evenings and weekends in the simulator by myself and just trying things, things that aren’t necessarily the approved method. But I want to know what truly does work and what doesn’t work. And I want to have absolute confidence in that.

17 October
The Artemis II mission
(CSA) Canada will make history when Canadian Space Agency (CSA) astronaut Jeremy Hansen becomes the first Canadian – and first non-American – to ever participate in a lunar mission as part of Artemis II, the first crewed mission to the Moon since the Apollo missions over 50 years ago.
The four-person crew will launch from Florida on the SLS rocket and fly aboard the Orion spacecraft, testing all of its life-support, navigation, and other systems in deep space to make sure everything works properly in preparation for future missions. They will venture beyond the far side of the Moon before completing a lunar flyby. After travelling for nearly 10 days and over 1 million kilometres, Orion will splash down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of San Diego.

Updated August 18
Concordia students’ rocket launch in northern Quebec makes history
Concordia University’s rocketry club made history early Friday morning, launching the most-powerful student-built liquid-fuelled rocket ever made toward space. It was the first space-bound rocket launch in more than 25 years on Canadian soil, and the first time Transport Canada has given permission to a student group to attempt the launch of a rocket into sub-orbital space. As Canada struggles to enter the global race to launch rockets and gain a foothold in the expanding universe of space technology, a group of engineering students from Concordia who refused to give up on a quest that took seven years watched their dreams blast skyward in the early light of dawn.
Students who had driven more than 1,000 kilometres from Montreal to the launchpad north of the Cree village of Mistissini cheered and whooped as the 42-foot-long Starsailor rocket blasted off at 5:34 a.m. More than 40 current and former students who had worked on the development of the rocket travelled to the region to be part of the historic moment. Members of the Cree community helped with the sendoff, supplying the land for the launch and constructing makeshift homes for the students to live in for weeks while they prepared.
15 August
Concordia students send Starsailor rocket flying and enter the history books
Starsailor is the most powerful student-built rocket engine to be launched, says Transport Canada
The mission is a collaborative effort between the Space Concordia Rocketry Division and members of the local Cree community.
The rocket was designed by students from Space Concordia Rocketry Division and manufactured at the university. They then had to transport it to Mistissini, about a nine-hour drive north from Montreal

8 August
James A. Lovell Jr., Commander of Apollo 13, Is Dead at 97
He led the three-man crew that survived a near catastrophic explosion in space in 1970, and was later immortalized by Tom Hanks in the movie “Apollo 13.”
Captain Lovell, a former Navy test pilot, flew for some 715 hours in space, the most of any astronaut in the pioneering Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs forged by the United States as it vied with the Soviet Union to put a man on the moon by the end of the 1960s.
He took part in two Gemini missions that orbited Earth and was one of the three astronauts aboard Apollo 8, the first spaceflight to orbit the moon, before he was chosen by NASA for Apollo 13.
… The phrase “Houston, we have a problem,” Mr. Hanks’s version of Captain Lovell’s call to NASA ground control when an explosion rocked his spaceship, became a part of the American lexicon, a wry way of signaling that something was amiss.
But the movie engaged in some artistic license.
In the real-life Apollo 13, it was the command module pilot, Mr. Swigert, who first told NASA that there was trouble. Captain Lovell echoed his words when NASA asked for the message to be repeated. Both of the men had said, “Houston, we’ve had a problem.”
Mr. Swigert’s alert was not in the movie, and Captain Lovell’s exact wording was altered to provide a more dramatic sense of immediacy.

5 June
Houston, We Have a Breakup
The end of the Trump-Musk bromance could be even worse for space than major cuts to NASA’s budget.
President Donald Trump sure has a unique way of putting “America First in Space.” His team wants to slash NASA’s budget by 25% and shrink its science funding by 47% — “the smallest White House allocation request for NASA since 1961, the year that the first American flew into space,” notes Adam Minter. Trump also withdrew the nomination of Jared Isaacman, who was hailed on one of those Trump-friendly bro-casts as “a visionary leader.” And just this afternoon, he threatened to terminate the government contracts of all of Elon Musk’s companies, including SpaceX:
30 May
NASA budget would cancel dozens of science missions, lay off thousands
(SpaceNews) NASA released more information about its proposed fiscal year 2026 budget May 30, outlining new investments in exploration at the expense of canceling dozens of science missions and cutting thousands of jobs.
The documents provide greater detail about the top-level budget proposal from what the White House’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) disclosed in its “skinny” budget released four weeks earlier. NASA published the budget documents on its website late on a Friday with no fanfare and without the traditional budget briefing by agency leadership.
That top-level budget of $18.8 billion would be a cut of about a quarter from the nearly $24.9 billion it received in fiscal year 2025. That is the sharpest year-over-year cut proposed for NASA and would bring the agency’s budget down to levels last seen in 1961 when corrected for inflation.
With the budget cuts will come jobs cuts at NASA. A table in the budget document notes that NASA has 17,391 direct-funded civil servants in fiscal year 2025, but that would drop to 11,853 under the fiscal year 2026 proposal, a cut of one-third.
The documents confirm steep cuts in NASA’s science programs. NASA is proposing $3.9 billion for all of NASA science in fiscal year 2026, a 47% cut from what the agency received in 2025.
Those reductions come in large part from canceling many science missions still in development or in extended operations after completing their primary missions. Casey Dreier, chief of space policy at The Planetary Society, said in an interview that more than 40 science projects, including standalone missions and contributions to other missions, were zeroed out in the budget.

31 March
Astronauts Emphasize Gratitude as NASA Contends With Uncertainty
Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore spoke in their first news conference since returning to Earth two weeks ago from an unexpectedly long I.S.S. stay that lasted more than nine months.
Ms. Williams and her fellow astronaut Butch Wilmore repeatedly expressed gratitude. During Ms. Williams’s remarks, she thanked the two astronauts who had shared the SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule that gave them a ride back to Earth. She thanked NASA. She thanked SpaceX. She thanked Boeing. She thanked the medical team that helped them get accustomed to gravity again.
Those words of gratitude may have been appreciated by people at the space agency who — like many federal workers — are uncertain about their mission, their direction or even their continued employment since President Trump’s inauguration.
Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency aim to demolish swaths of the federal bureaucracy. At the same time, Mr. Musk, the chief executive of SpaceX, also dreams of sending colonists to Mars, fueling speculation that NASA’s current centerpiece — the Artemis program, which is focused on sending astronauts back to the moon — could pivot to Mr. Musk’s preferences and that other parts of the agency working on climate change, planetary science and astrophysical research could be slashed.
18 March
Welcome Home! NASA’s SpaceX Crew-9 Back on Earth After Science Mission
(NASA) NASA’s SpaceX Crew-9 completed the agency’s ninth commercial crew rotation mission to the International Space Station on Tuesday, splashing down safely in a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft off the coast of Tallahassee, Florida, in the Gulf of America Mexico.
NASA astronauts Nick Hague, Suni Williams, and Butch Wilmore, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov, returned to Earth at 5:57 p.m. EDT. Teams aboard SpaceX recovery vessels retrieved the spacecraft and its crew as a pod of dolphins celebrated around the fast boats and Dragon.
NASA Astronauts Finally Head Home After Nine Months in Orbit
Summary by Bloomberg AI
Two NASA astronauts, Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, are returning home in a SpaceX craft after being stuck in orbit for nine months.
The astronauts undocked from the International Space Station and are expected to splash down off the Florida coast, where they will undergo medical checks and be reunited with their families.
The situation highlighted NASA’s dependence on SpaceX and was a setback for Boeing’s space business, which has faced technical issues and leadership changes.
Wilmore and Williams arrived at the ISS last June on a Boeing spacecraft with plans to spend roughly a week in space. But that brief trip turned into roughly nine months when NASA decided in August the pair would come home on a rival SpaceX capsule instead, due to technical issues with their Boeing vehicle.
Their saga became an international spectacle, with some media outlets dubbing them the “stranded” astronauts — a nod to NASA’s reluctance to have them fly home in their original spacecraft. The ordeal put an embarrassing spotlight on Boeing’s struggling space business after the company was rocked by a series of crises that forced a change in senior leadership.

2024

NASA 2024: Onward and Upward (YouTube)
Aerospace And Defense In 2024: What To Watch For
Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI)
Key People To Watch In The Space Sector In 2024

NASA 2024: Onward and Upward (YouTube)
Landing science on the Moon, demonstrating quiet supersonic aircraft, and launching two new Earth climate satellites, plus a mission to Europa, one of Jupiter’s icy moons, are just a FEW of the milestones we have planned for 2024.
How Sarah Al Amiri Is Launching the UAE Into the Asteroid Belt
She helped lead a young space agency to Mars. Now she has her sights set further into the galaxy. (Sept. 2023)
UAE launches space academy for Emiratis to boost growing sector
Sarah Al Amiri, chairwoman of the Space Agency, says centre will equip citizens with vital skills
The UAE has established a dedicated academy to help future generations of Emiratis build careers in the growing space sector.
The academy will offer an educational, research and practical environment allowing Emirati students to explore and create new technology, including learning how to design spacecraft and plan for missions.
The project is part of a Dh3 billion ($820 million) space fund that was announced last year. (Nov 2023)

18-19 December
Drones banned in parts of New Jersey for one month unless issued permission
Federal Aviation Administration issues ban following dozens of night-time drone sightings reported across the state

Drone detectors in New Jersey have found ‘little or no evidence’ of wrongdoing, governor says
(AP) — Drone-detecting devices deployed in New Jersey in the past week have found “little to no evidence” of anything nefarious or threatening, Gov. Phil Murphy said Monday as calls grew for action to address the mysterious nighttime sightings of suspected unmanned flights across the northeastern U.S.
Drone sightings unsettle New Jersey residents: ‘It’s been super-scary’
As reports of lights in the sky inundate state police, some dismiss them as much ado about nothing. Others think there must be a more detailed explanation.
New Jersey State Police have been inundated with reports of drones since Nov. 18. Federal authorities said in a Saturday briefing to reporters that many are likely commercially available drones, and many others were misidentified planes flying much higher than hobbyists’ drones could hope to.

13-14 November
New Pentagon report on UFOs includes hundreds of new incidents but no evidence of aliens
(AP) — The Pentagon’s latest report on UFOs has revealed hundreds of new reports of unidentified and unexplained aerial phenomena but no indications suggesting an extraterrestrial origin.
The review includes hundreds of cases of misidentified balloons, birds and satellites as well as some that defy easy explanation, such as a near-miss between a commercial airliner and a mysterious object off the coast of New York.
While it isn’t likely to settle any debates over the existence of alien life, the report reflects heightened public interest in the topic and the government’s efforts to provide some answers. Its publication comes a day after House lawmakers called for greater government transparency during a hearing on unidentified anomalous phenomena, or UAPs — the government’s term for UFOs.
Federal efforts to study and identify UAPs have focused on potential threats to national security or air safety and not their science fiction aspects. Officials at the Pentagon office created in 2022 to track UAPs, known as the All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office, or AARO, have said there’s no indication any of the cases they looked into have unearthly origins.

Congressional UFO Hearing Features Eye-Opening UAP Claims
(Forbes) There was a very X-Files vibe to a congressional hearing into unidentified anomalous phenomena on Wednesday. Witness testimony included eyebrow-raising claims about the existence of UAPs and alien technology on Earth. The hearing was focused on testimony with little substantive evidence behind some of the more extraordinary claims.
The House Oversight Committee joint subcommittee hearing was called “Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena: Exposing the Truth.” The hearing aimed “to further pull back the curtain on secret UAP research programs conducted by the United States government, and undisclosed findings they have yielded.” The four witnesses were retired U.S. Navy Rear Admiral Tim Gallaudet, former Department of Defense official Luis Elizondo, NASA UAP independent study team member Michael Gold and journalist Michael Shellenberger.
UAP is the hot new term that encompasses unidentified flying objects, better known as UFOs. UAP tries to avoid some of the alien-soaked stigma of the term “UFO.” In its broadest sense, it can also include objects or activities spotted in the sea or in space.
UAP does not necessarily imply a connection to aliens from beyond our planet. A Pentagon UAP probe earlier in the year found no evidence of extraterrestrials or government cover-ups of extraterrestrial technology or contact. Still, the report noted many UAP sightings remain unidentified. The Pentagon has taken some steps to be more transparent about UAPs in recent years, including releasing videos of Navy pilot encounters with unidentified objects.
Hearing on Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena
Subcommittees of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee held a joint hearing on alleged government research of Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena. Independent journalist Michael Shellenberger testified on an allegedly secret government program, “Immaculate Constellation,” and he submitted a report by an anonymous whistleblower alleging that the Defense Department and intelligence community withheld evidence to the public about UAPs. Other witnesses included former Defense Department and NASA officials.
Experts testify before lawmakers that the U.S. is running secret UAP programs
(NPR) Is intelligent alien life darting around in space — and even in the skies above us here on Earth? Has the U.S. government been covering up unexplained phenomena, and using secret extraterrestrial discoveries to boost its own technology?
Those are among the questions members of Congress discussed Wednesday in a joint hearing by subcommittees of the House Oversight Committee. Its title: “Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena: Exposing the Truth.”

6 August
China launches rocket carrying new constellation of satellites
China says it launched a rocket Tuesday carrying a constellation of 18 satellites as part of its efforts to assert its presence in space. The satellites were launched early Tuesday afternoon from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center in north China’s Shanxi Province aboard a Long March-6 carrier rocket. The official Xinhua News Agency said the rocket had reached its pre-programmed orbit without incident. China’s space program has launched numerous crewed missions, put a space station into orbit with a revolving crew of three astronauts aboard and sent a rover to the moon that has brought back rocks and soil. It has also launched the Beidou System of satellites for national security, communications and scientific purposes, seen as an alternative — or possible competitor — to the GPS system widely used for navigation that is mainly helmed by China’s strategic rival, the United States.

5 June
LIFTOFF! NASA Astronauts Pilot First Starliner Crewed Test to Station
(NASA) A United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket with Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft aboard launched from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. NASA’s Boeing Crew Flight Test is the first launch with astronauts of the Boeing spacecraft and United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket to the International Space Station as part of the agency’s Commercial Crew Program.
NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams are safely in orbit on the first crewed flight test aboard Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft bound for the International Space Station.

10 May
Aurora borealis lights up the night sky (photos)
A solar storm is bringing spectacular displays of the northern lights, also known as aurora borealis, to the night sky.

No blackouts reported as Quebecers take in spectacular solar storm
The geomagnetic storm currently affecting the Earth did not cause any power outages in Quebec, leaving its mark on the sky instead, as aurora borealis were spotted in several locations across the province on Friday night. CTV Solar storm lights up Quebec skies with northern lights with Photo gallery.

Solar storm hits Earth, producing colorful light shows across Northern Hemisphere
The aurora borealis has lit up the night sky with rare sightings across the UK, Europe and the northern hemisphere.
(AP) — An unusually strong solar storm hitting Earth produced stunning displays of color in the skies across the Northern Hemisphere early Saturday, with no immediate reports of disruptions to power and communications.
The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration issued a rare severe geomagnetic storm warning when a solar outburst reached Earth on Friday afternoon, hours sooner than anticipated. The effects of the Northern Lights, which were prominently on display in Britain, were due to last through the weekend and possibly into next week.
Aurora displays occur when charged particles collide with gases in the Earth’s atmosphere around the magnetic poles.
In the northern hemisphere, most of this activity takes place within a band known as the aurora oval, covering latitudes between 60 and 75 degrees. When activity is strong, this expands to cover a greater area – which is why displays can be occasionally seen further south.

23 April
Voyager 1 transmitting data again after Nasa remotely fixes 46-year-old probe
Engineers spent months working to repair link with Earth’s most distant spacecraft, says space agency

6-8 April
CTV National News: An awe inspiring eclipse
People in North America gathered at spots across the path of totality to watch the solar eclipse.
Total solar eclipse 2024 thrills millions across North America (video, photos)
The total solar eclipse was one of the most-watched eclipses ever.
The path of totality crossed four states in Mexico (Sinaloa, Nayarit, Durango and Coahuila) before sweeping over 15 U.S. states (Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine) and seven Canadian Provinces (Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland).
Some 31.6 million people live in the totality path in the U.S. alone, NASA officials have said.
The off-the-beaten-path faces and places of the total eclipse in Montreal
While Montreal’s downtown may have been in the path of totality of Monday’s eclipse, it certainly wasn’t destination No. 1 for many viewers.
Shortly after noon, streets near the city’s bridges began to fill with cars leaving the island for the viewing experience.
Hundreds of thousands headed off-island — where they could see the eclipse outside of a busy city, free of skyscrapers and noise from construction crews — or to nearby landmarks, such as Sainte-Hélène Island on the St. Lawrence River, where activities had been planned for months.
Solar eclipse inspires awe in Quebec’s Eastern Townships, which had one of best views on Earth
The moon’s shadow bathed Sherbrooke in darkness for nearly three and a half minutes, making it one of the areas that experienced the longest totality, the full blocking of the sun’s light.
It made parts of southern Quebec a hub for those looking skyward

The April 8 solar eclipse will bring weird sights, sounds and feelings
The darkening of the sky on April 8 will bring with it a plethora of strange phenomena.
(Space) On Monday (April 8), the sky over a swathe of North America will briefly darken as the moon covers the sun completely during a total solar eclipse.
For a maximum of 4 minutes and 28 seconds along a 115-mile-wide (185 kilometers) and 10,000-mile-long (16,000 km) path passing through Mexico, the United States and Canada, the moon will completely cover the sun, and the sky will fall dark. And, outside this path of totality, observers will be treated to a partial solar eclipse, which is still a sight to behold.
It’s not surprising that our ancient ancestors viewed total solar eclipses with trepidation and fear. They were often thought to be dire portents from the gods, indicating the deities’ displeasure — or observations of the sun being consumed by fearsome creatures like dragons, which needed to be scared away with loud noises.

8 March
Pentagon finds ‘no evidence’ of alien technology in new UFO report
The Pentagon says it found no evidence of extraterrestrial spacecraft, in a new report reviewing nearly eight decades of UFO sightings.
The 63-page, unclassified document published on Friday is the most comprehensive report the Pentagon has produced on the topic, and yet another instance in which it has batted down claims of alien spaceships.
The Pentagon’s All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) issued the report, which covers claims of unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP) — the military’s term for UFOs — dating from 1945 through October 2023. The AARO was created in 2022 to identify and resolve reports of UAPs.

22 February
Odysseus: The Moon mission to prevent ‘spaceship sandblasting’
(BBC) Lunar exploration is heating up once more, and it is also changing. Intuitive Machines, a firm based in Houston, Texas, has become the first commercial company to successfully land on the Moon, near the lunar south pole.
The mission is the first American lunar landing in more than 50 years, since the crewed Apollo 17 mission in December 1972. It’s part of Nasa’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative intended to support the agency’s Artemis programme that is aiming to send astronauts back to the Moon and even build a permanent base there. Just 12 men have set foot on the Moon, so Artemis will also aim to land the first woman on the lunar surface. Sending robotic missions like Odysseus are essential steps torwards the next giant leap.
…landing on the lunar surface is only the beginning for Odysseus. The lander will begin a suite of experiments that will hopefully provide data useful for a wave of future missions and help to ensure the safety of humans when they eventually return to set foot on the lunar regolith.
Intuitive Machines lands on moon in nail-biting descent of private Odysseus lander, a 1st for US since 1972
Odysseus is the first private spacecraft ever to land softly on Earth’s nearest neighbor.
(Space) In December 2017, then-President Donald Trump ordered NASA to return astronauts to the moon in the relatively near future. This directive gave rise to a broad and ambitious program called Artemis, which aims to establish a long-term, sustainable human presence on and around the moon by the end of the 2020s — and to use the knowledge gained in doing so to help get astronauts to Mars by the late 2030s or early 2040s.
NASA plans to set up one or more Artemis bases in the moon’s southern polar region, which is thought to harbor lots of water ice. Before sending astronauts there, however, the agency wants to collect more data about this little-explored area — to help determine, for example, just how much water it contains and how easy this crucial resource is to access.
Intuitive Machines makes first U.S. moon landing in 51 years
(WaPo) For the first time since the last of the Apollo missions in 1972, an American spacecraft reached the surface of the moon Thursday, a significant step toward NASA’s plan to eventually return astronauts to Earth’s closest celestial neighbor.
After a tense several minutes in which ground controllers were unsure about the health of the spacecraft, designed and operated by Houston-based Intuitive Machines, company officials declared it had landed successfully and was communicating with Earth. About two hours after the landing, the company confirmed that “after troubleshooting communications” the spacecraft was indeed standing upright, a momentous feat for the growing commercial space industry.
… Under its Artemis program, NASA intends to establish an enduring presence at the lunar south pole. …and in 2019 then-vice president Pence directed NASA to return astronauts to the moon by this year. That won’t happen. But the program was embraced by the Biden administration, the first time a deep-space, human-exploration campaign has survived subsequent presidential administrations since the Apollo era.

Thursday, Jan. 25
NASA to Observe Day of Remembrance, Host Employee Safety Town Hall
In honor of the members of the NASA family who lost their lives while furthering the cause of exploration and discovery for the benefit of all, the agency will host its annual Day of Remembrance Thursday, Jan. 25. Traditionally held on the fourth Thursday in January each year, NASA Day of Remembrance will commemorate the crews of Apollo 1 and space shuttles Challenger and Columbia.

19 January
Japan’s SLIM moon craft short on power after successful lunar landing
(Reuters) – Japan on Saturday became the fifth country to put a spacecraft on the moon, but solar power issues threatened to cut short the nation’s mission to prove a “precision” landing technology and revitalise a space programme that has suffered setbacks.
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) said its Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) landed the moon’s surface at around 12:20 a.m. (1520 GMT Friday), but its solar panels were not able to generate electricity, possibly because they are angled wrong.

NASA Continues Artemis Moon Rocket Engine Tests with 1st Hot Fire of 2024
NASA continued a critical test series for future flights of NASA’s SLS (Space Launch System) rocket in support of the Artemis campaign on Jan. 17 with a full-duration hot fire of the RS-25 engine on the Fred Haise Test Stand at NASA’s Stennis Space Center near Bay St. Louis, Mississippi.
Data collected from the test series will be used to certify production of new RS-25 engines by lead contractor Aerojet Rocketdyne, an L3Harris Technologies company, to help power the SLS rocket on future Artemis missions to the Moon and beyond, beginning with Artemis V.

11 January
SETI scientists begin huge new hunt for intelligent aliens
The search for alien technosignatures has dramatically expanded, thanks to a new experiment involving an alliance between the SETI Institute, Breakthrough Listen and the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO).
The new project is called COSMIC (“Commensal Open-Source Multimode Interferometer Cluster”) and is in operation at the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) of radio telescopes in New Mexico.
COSMIC makes this possible and delivers a huge jump in coverage.

9 January
NASA delays first Artemis astronaut flight to late 2025, moon landing to 2026
(CBS) NASA’s first crewed Artemis mission, a flight to send four astronauts on a voyage around the moon and back, is being delayed nearly a year, from late 2024 to at least September 2025, NASA announced Tuesday. Likewise, the first astronaut moon landing is slipping from late 2025 to September 2026.
“We are adjusting our schedule to target Artemis 2 for September of 2025 and September of 2026 for Artemis 3, which will send humans for the first time to the lunar south pole. Artemis 4 remains on track for September 2028, and though challenges are clearly ahead, our teams are making incredible progress.”
NASA launched the Artemis program’s first test flight, Artemis 1, in November 2022, using the agency’s powerful Space Launch System heavy lift rocket to send an unpiloted Orion crew capsule on a flight around the moon and back.