| In this week’s newsletter, get the latest updates on the Artemis II mission—the first crewed Artemis flight paving the way for a long‑term return to the Moon and future journeys to Mars; discover the earliest opportunity for NASA’s SpaceX Crew-12 to launch to the International Space Station; and learn how agencies responding to this month’s powerful winter storm are getting help from NASA’s Disaster Response Coordination System. Plus, more stories you might have missed. |
| ARTEMIS Moonbound: Artemis II Mission Updates  |
| NASA is now aiming for Monday, Feb. 2, as the tanking day for the Artemis II wet dress rehearsal at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The shift is due to weather, and it means the earliest possible launch opportunity is no earlier than Sunday, Feb. 8. Over the past several days, teams have been keeping a close eye on the cold temperatures and strong winds moving through Florida. With a rare arctic outbreak in the forecast, managers have assessed hardware capabilities against the projected forecasts and decided it was best to adjust the schedule. Teams and preparations at the launchpad remain ready for the wet dress rehearsal, but the updated timeline will position NASA for success during the rehearsal, as the expected weather this weekend would violate launch conditions. The simulated launch window for the wet dress rehearsal begins at 9 p.m. EST on Feb. 2, with the countdown starting about 49 hours earlier. NASA will continue watching the weather as the test approaches. A 24/7 livestream of the rocket at the pad is available on YouTube, and the Artemis II crew remains in quarantine in Houston. ARTEMIS II MISSION BLOG |
ARTEMIS
Who Is Your #NASAMoonCrew?
NASA will launch the Artemis II mission this year, sending four astronauts on an approximately 10-day journey around the Moon. All four astronauts not only bring different strengths to the mission, but they also must work well together. That’s why we want to know: who you would choose to go with you on a trip around the Moon.
HOW TO PARTICIPATE
| THE UNIVERSE Pushing Boundaries The James Webb Space Telescope has topped itself once again, delivering on its promise to push the boundaries of the observable universe closer to cosmic dawn with the confirmation of a bright galaxy that existed 280 million years after the Big Bang. 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. DISCOVER MoM-z14 |  |
 THE SOLAR SYSTEM Measuring Europa’s Ice Shell Data from the Juno mission has provided new insights into the thickness and subsurface structure of the icy shell encasing Jupiter’s moon Europa. Using the spacecraft’s Microwave Radiometer, mission scientists determined that the shell averages about 18 miles thick in the region observed during Juno’s 2022 flyby of Europa. LEARN MORE |  HUMANS IN SPACE NASA’s SpaceX Crew-12 The four crew members of NASA’s SpaceX Crew-12 mission—NASA astronauts Jessica Meir and Jack Hathaway, ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Sophie Adenot, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev—began their routine two-week quarantine on Jan. 28 at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston ahead of their upcoming launch to the International Space Station. The earliest opportunity for Crew-12 to launch to the orbital complex is 6 a.m. EST Wednesday, Feb. 11. LEARN MORE |
| More NASA News |
 | A team of astronomers has employed a cutting-edge, artificial intelligence-assisted technique to uncover rare astronomical phenomena within archived data from the Hubble Space Telescope. The team identified more than 1,300 objects with an odd appearance in just two and a half days—more than 800 of which had never been documented in scientific literature. |
 | A new discovery using the Chandra X-ray Observatory and James Webb Space Telescope captures the cosmic moment when a galaxy cluster—among the largest structures in the universe—started to assemble only about a billion years after the Big Bang, one or two billion years earlier than previously thought. This result will lead astronomers to rethink when and how the largest structures in the universe formed. |
 | A powerful winter storm blanketed a broad swath of the country, from the U.S. Southwest to New England, in late January. NASA’s Disaster Response Coordination System has been activated to support agencies responding to the event, and will publish maps and data products as information becomes available. |
 | On Jan. 24, a team of NASA scientists deployed on the North American Upstream Feature- Resolving and Tropopause Uncertainty Reconnaissance Experiment, or NURTURE, to improve understanding of severe winter weather, including cold air outbreaks, snow and ice storms, and extreme precipitation. Data collected during the mission will help provide earlier insights to first responders, decision makers, and the public, while also demonstrating the potential for NASA’s remote weather‑sensing capabilities. |
 | NASA-supported scientists have resurrected an enzyme first used by organisms on Earth 3.2-billion years ago and, in the process, have validated a chemical biosignature in rocks that is used to understand ancient life on Earth. The research provides a new understanding of what Earth’s biosphere was like early in our planet’s history. |
| Do You Know? |
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| 55 years ago on Jan. 31, 1971, Apollo 14 lifted off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center for the world’s third crewed lunar landing mission. Alan Shepard, who had become America’s first person to fly in space almost 10 years earlier, made history again as he became the fifth person to walk on the Moon. Near the end of the mission’s second and final moonwalk, Shepard famously attached a 6-iron golf club head to a lunar sampling tool and golfed on the Moon. |
| Find out the answer in next week’s NASA newsletter! |
 | Last week, we asked which mission first used a crawler transporter to deliver a space vehicle to the launchpad. The answer? Apollo 4. A pair of crawlers became operational 60 years ago in 1966, and the Crawler-Transporter 1 carried the Apollo 4/Saturn V rocket to Pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida in August 1967. These two behemoth machines delivered the rockets for every Apollo, Skylab, Shuttle–and now Artemis–mission to their launch pads over the last 6 decades. |
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| During Artemis II, humans will fly Orion—NASA’s next-generation spaceship designed to take us to the Moon and beyond—for the first time. In the latest episode of NASA’s Curious Universe podcast, take a tour of the spacecraft with Branelle Rodriguez, vehicle manager for Artemis II, and hear about the support systems that keep astronauts alive. Then, pop the hood of NASA’s most powerful rocket, the Space Launch System, with David Beaman, one of the rocket’s key architects. Four astronauts will venture around the Moon on Artemis II, the first crewed mission on NASA’s path to establishing a long-term presence at the Moon for science and exploration through Artemis. The approximately 10-day flight will help confirm systems and hardware needed for early human lunar exploration missions. RETURN TO THE MOON |
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