The Hubble Space Telescope was launched into low-earth orbit in 1990 with an even older computer. Over the next 13 years it received upgrades and repairs from astronauts on five different visits from America's Space Shuttle.

But now in 2021, "NASA continues to work on resolving an issue with the payload computer on the Hubble Space Telescope," reports SciTechDaily — though "The telescope itself and science instruments remain in good health." The operations team will be running tests and collecting more information on the system to further isolate the problem. The science instruments will remain in a safe mode state until the issue is resolved...

The computer halted on Sunday, June 13. An attempt to restart the computer failed on Monday, June 14. Initial indications pointed to a degrading computer memory module as the source of the computer halt. When the operations team attempted to switch to a back-up memory module, however, the command to initiate the backup module failed to complete. Another attempt was conducted on both modules Thursday evening to obtain more diagnostic information while again trying to bring those memory modules online. However, those attempts were not successful.

The Earth is trapping nearly twice as much heat as it did in 2005, according to new research, described as an "unprecedented" increase amid the climate crisis. From a report: Scientists from NASA, the US space agency, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa), reported in a new study that Earth's "energy imbalance approximately doubled" from 2005 to 2019. The increase was described as "alarming." "Energy imbalance" refers to the difference between how much of the Sun's "radiative energy" is absorbed by Earth's atmosphere and surface, compared to how much "thermal infrared radiationâ bounces back into space.

"A positive energy imbalance means the Earth system is gaining energy, causing the planet to heat up," NASA said in a statement about this study. Scientists determined there was an energy imbalance by comparing data from satellite sensors -- which track how much energy enters and exits Earth's system -- and data from ocean floats. This system of data-gathering floats, which stretches across the globe, allows for "an accurate estimate of the rate at which the world's oceans are heating up." Because about 90% of excess energy from an imbalance winds up in the ocean, the satellite sensors' data should correspond with temperature changes in oceans.

For something that was to have been done and thrown away three years ago, NASA's Juno spacecraft has a busy schedule ahead exploring Jupiter and its big moons. From a report: The spacecraft entered orbit around Jupiter on July 4, 2016, and has survived bombardment from intense radiation at the largest of the solar system's planets. It is now finishing its primary mission, but NASA has granted it a four-year extension and 42 more orbits. Last week, it zipped past Ganymede, Jupiter's largest moon. "Basically, we designed and built an armored tank," said Scott J. Bolton of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, who is the mission's principal investigator. "And it's worked." Jupiter is essentially a big ball of mostly hydrogen, but it has turned out to be a pretty complicated ball. The mission's discoveries include lightning higher up than thought possible, rings of stable storms at the north and south poles, and winds extending so deep into the interior that they might push around the planet's magnetic fields.

"I think this has been a revelation," said David J. Stevenson, a professor of planetary science at the California Institute of Technology and a co-investigator on the mission. Juno's highly elliptical path, pitched up at almost a 90-degree angle to the orbits of Jupiter's moons, passes over the planet's north and south poles. On each orbit, Juno swoops in, reaching a top speed of 130,000 miles per hour as it passes within a few thousand miles of Jupiter's clouds.

Slashdot reader ytene writes: The BBC are showing the first set of images of NASA's now-assembled "Space Launch System" (SLS) vehicle, noting that NASA intends to use it to launch a human crew back to the moon later this decade. Testing will take place before astronauts are expected to ride the vehicle to space some time in 2023.
It's enormous. From the BBC's report: On Friday, engineers at Florida's Kennedy Space Center finished lowering the 65m (212ft) -tall core stage in-between two smaller booster rockets... Nasa plans to launch the SLS on its maiden flight later this year. During this mission, known as Artemis-1, the SLS will carry Orion — America's next-generation crew vehicle — towards the Moon. However, no astronauts will be aboard...

The SLS consists of the giant core stage, which houses propellant tanks and four powerful engines, flanked by two 54m (177ft) -long solid rocket boosters.
In early 2020 the BBC reported that "Some in the space community believe it would be better to launch deep space missions on commercial rockets. But supporters of the programme say that NASA needs its own heavy-lift launch capability...

"The SLS was designed to re-use technology originally developed for the space shuttle programme, which ran from 1981-2011."

On Monday, NASA's Juno spacecraft will come within 645 miles of the surface of Jupiter's largest moon, Ganymede. "The flyby will be the closest a spacecraft has come to the solar system's largest natural satellite since NASA's Galileo spacecraft made its penultimate close approach back on May 20, 2000," reports Phys.Org. From the report: Along with striking imagery, the solar-powered spacecraft's flyby will yield insights into the moon's composition, ionosphere, magnetosphere, and ice shell. Juno's measurements of the radiation environment near the moon will also benefit future missions to the Jovian system. Ganymede is bigger than the planet Mercury and is the only moon in the solar system with its own magnetosphere -- a bubble-shaped region of charged particles surrounding the celestial body.

Juno's science instruments will begin collecting data about three hours before the spacecraft's closest approach. Along with the Ultraviolet Spectrograph (UVS) and Jovian Infrared Auroral Mapper (JIRAM) instruments, Juno's Microwave Radiometer's (MWR) will peer into Ganymede's water-ice crust, obtaining data on its composition and temperature. Signals from Juno's X-band and Ka-band radio wavelengths will be used to perform a radio occultation experiment to probe the moon's tenuous ionosphere (the outer layer of an atmosphere where gases are excited by solar radiation to form ions, which have an electrical charge).

NASA is sending water bears and bobtail squid to the International Space Station, "as NASA researchers attempt to learn more about how the conditions of spaceflight can affect biological organisms and, by extension, future astronauts," writes Joe Hernandez via NPR. From the report: Tardigrades are microscopic organisms better known as "water bears" because of their shape and the fact that they commonly live in the water. (They have also been called, endearingly, "moss piglets.") Water bears can survive in conditions that would prove fatal for most other animals, such as exposure to extreme temperatures, pressure, and radiation. The fact that they are basically indestructible, according to NASA, makes them the perfect test subjects for an experiment about the effects of spaceflight on biological survival.

Thousands of microbes live inside the human body and work to keep us healthy. But scientists don't have a clear picture of how microgravity -- which allows the kind of floating weightlessness experienced by astronauts when they travel into space -- affects those microbes. That is the subject of an ongoing NASA research program called the Understanding of Microgravity on Animal-Microbe Interactions, or UMAMI. Scientists will study whether microgravity has an impact on the relationship between newly hatched bobtail squid, or Euprymna scolopes, and their symbiotic bacterium, Vibrio fischeri. The goal is to use what they learn about the relationship between squid and the microbes to help better prepare astronauts for lengthy space missions and preserve their health while they're out there.

sciencehabit shares a report from Science Magazine: Venus can no longer wait. NASA will send two new robotic missions to Earth's hothouse twin, the agency's new administrator, Bill Nelson, announced this afternoon at his "State of NASA" speech here at the agency's headquarters. The missions, together costing up to $1 billion, mark NASA's first visit to the planet since the early 1990s, whereas nearby Mars has seen a host of robotic visitors. They're expected to launch by the decade's end.

The scientific case for exploring Venus has long been strong. No planet has more to say about how Earth came to be. Mars is tiny and frozen, its heat and atmosphere largely lost to space long ago. Venus could host active volcanoes, and it may have once featured oceans and continents, which are critical to the evolution of life. Plate tectonics roughly like Earth's might have held sway there, or might be starting today, hidden under the clouds. Venus also proves by example that orbiting within a star's "habitable zone" doesn't guarantee a planet is suitable for life. Understanding how Venus's atmosphere went bad and turned into a runaway greenhouse, boiling away any oceans and baking the surface, could help astronomers studying other solar systems distinguish truly Earth-like exoplanets from our evil twins.

The James Webb Space Telescope, the largest science observatory to ever be placed into space, won't launch as scheduled on Halloween this year due to a "combination of different factors." The new launch date is expected to be pushed into November or possibly early December. Ars Technica reports: During a press briefing with reporters on Tuesday, the telescope's director for launch services, Beatriz Romero, said that there are a "combination of different factors" to consider when setting a new launch date. These factors include shipment of the telescope, the readiness of the Ariane 5 rocket, and the readiness of the spaceport in South America as well. Romero said she did not expect to identify a new launch date until later this summer or early fall.

NASA plans to ship the telescope to the launch site by boat late this summer. (NASA is keeping precise plans vague due to concerns about piracy at sea. Seriously.) The space agency's chief of science, Thomas Zurbuchen, said Tuesday that "we don't have a lot of reserve" left in the schedule to prepare for shipment. However, he added that NASA and Webb's primary contractor, Northrop Grumman, are close to folding up the telescope and putting it into a shipping container. He said that this should happen toward the "end of August." The launch campaign, which begins when the telescope arrives in French Guiana, requires 55 days. Asked whether this means that Webb will not launch until mid-November at the earliest, Zurbuchen said this assessment was correct.

The rocket is also not ready. The Ariane 5 booster, a venerable rocket in service for more than 25 years, has been grounded since August 2020 due to a payload fairing issue. However, officials with Arianespace, which manages launch for the Ariane 5, said the fairing issue's cause has been diagnosed and addressed with a redesign. Two Ariane 5 launches are scheduled before Webb's launch to ensure that the fairing issue has been fixed. (Those launches are scheduled for July and August, but delays are possible.) Finally, there are concerns about the spaceport itself, where operations have been limited by COVID-19. Vaccines are not yet widely available in French Guiana, and officials have said that if virus activity worsens, it could further slow operations.

A user shares a report from ScienceAlert: The inevitable has occurred. A piece of space debris too small to be tracked has hit and damaged part of the International Space Station -- namely, the Canadarm2 robotic arm. The instrument is still operational, but the object punctured the thermal blanket and damaged the boom beneath. It's a sobering reminder that the low-Earth orbit's space junk problem is a ticking time bomb. Canadarm2 -- formally known as the Space Station Remote Manipulator System (SSRMS), designed by the Canadian Space Agency -- has been a fixture on the space station for 20 years. It's a multi-jointed titanium robotic arm that can assist with maneuvering objects outside the ISS, including cargo shuttles, and performing station maintenance.

It's unclear exactly when the impact occurred. The damage was first noticed on 12 May, during a routine inspection. NASA and the CSA worked together to take detailed images of and assess the damage. "Despite the impact, results of the ongoing analysis indicate that the arm's performance remains unaffected," the CSA wrote in a blog post. "The damage is limited to a small section of the arm boom and thermal blanket. Canadarm2 is continuing to conduct its planned operations." Robotics operations on the ISS using the Canadarm2 will continue as planned for the near future, the CSA said. But both space agencies will continue to gather data in order to perform an analysis of the event, both to understand how it occurred, and to assess future risk.

The South China Morning Post reports that China "has reached another milestone in its quest for a fusion reactor, with one of its 'artificial suns' sustaining extreme temperatures for several times longer that its previous benchmark, according to state media." State news agency Xinhua reported that the Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak in a facility in the eastern city of Hefei registered a plasma temperature of 120 million degrees Celsius for 101 seconds on Friday. It also maintained a temperature of 160 million degrees Celsius for 20 seconds, the report said...

The facilities are part of China's quest for fusion reactors, which hold out hope of unlimited clean energy. But there are many challenges to overcome in what has already been a decades-long quest for the world's scientists. Similar endeavours are under way in the United States, Europe, Russia, South Korea. China is also among 35 countries involved in the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) megaproject in France...

Despite the progress made, fusion reactors are still a long way from reality. Song Yuntao, director of the Institute of Plasma Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said the latest results were a major achievement for physics and engineering in China. "The experiment's success lays the foundation for China to build its own nuclear fusion energy station," Song was quoted as saying.
NASA notes that the core of the Sun is only about 15 million degrees Celsius.

So for many seconds China's fusion reactor was more than 10 times hotter than the sun.

A navigation timing error sent Nasa's Mars helicopter on a lurching ride, its first major problem since it took to the Martian skies last month. The Associated Press reports: The experimental helicopter, named Ingenuity, managed to land safely after the problem occurred, officials at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory said on Thursday. The trouble cropped up about a minute into the helicopter's sixth test flight on Saturday at an altitude of 10 meters (33ft). One of the numerous pictures taken by an onboard navigation camera did not register in the system, confusing the craft about its location. Ingenuity began tilting back and forth by as much as 20 degrees and suffered power consumption spikes, according to Havard Grip, the helicopter's chief pilot.

A built-in system to provide extra margin for stability "came to the rescue," he wrote in an online status update. The helicopter landed within five meters (16ft) of its intended touchdown site. Grip wrote: "Ingenuity muscled through the situation, and while the flight uncovered a timing vulnerability that will now have to be addressed, it also confirmed the robustness of the system in multiple ways. While we did not intentionally plan such a stressful flight, Nasa now has flight data probing the outer reaches of the helicopter's performance envelope."

Who wants to be an astronaut? If the answer is you, there's a reality TV show, appropriately titled "Who Wants to Be an Astronaut?", that you ought to apply for. From a report: The Discovery Channel is seeking to cast about 10 would-be astronauts to compete during the series' eight-episode run next year for a seat on a real-life trip to the International Space Station, followed by live coverage of the launch of the winner on a SpaceX rocket. "We'd like a diverse group of people that each have their own story, why they want to go to space, why they're worthy of going to space, what their back story is," said Jay Peterson, president of Boat Rocker Studios, Unscripted, one of the companies producing the show for Discovery. That person will not be the only amateur astronaut destined for the space station next year. So many tourism and entertainment efforts are preparing trips there that it could begin to look more like a soundstage for television shows and a hotel for the wealthy than an orbiting research laboratory.

Many who work in the business of space believe that is a good thing, even if trips to orbit will remain out of reach of all but the wealthiest passengers in the near term. "This is a real inflection point, I think, with human spaceflight," Phil McAlister, NASA's director of commercial spaceflight development, said during a news conference this month announcing that the agency had signed an agreement with Axiom Space, a Houston-based company, to fly the first mission of private astronauts to the space station. "I'm very bullish on the tourism market and the tourism activity," Mr. McAlister said. "I think more people that are going to fly, they're going to want to do more things in space." Although the International Space Station may stay up in orbit at least until 2028, in the future it will not be only space station. Russian space authorities last month declared their intention to leave the I.S.S. in the coming years and build a station of their own. A Chinese orbital outpost is expected to come online in the next year or two.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Intercept: Now that Jeff Bezos's space flight company Blue Origin has lost a multibillion contract to Elon Musk's SpaceX, Congress is prepping the ground for Bezos to win a contract anyway, ordering NASA to make not one but two awards. The order would come through the Endless Frontier Act, a bill to beef up resources for science and technology research that's being debated on the Senate floor this week. An amendment was added to that legislation by Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., to hand over $10 billion to NASA -- money that most likely would go to Blue Origin, a company that's headquartered in Cantwell's home state.

Cantwell's amendment is no sure bet though: Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., introduced a last-minute amendment Monday to eliminate the $10 billion. "It does not make a lot of sense to me that we would provide billions of dollars to a company owned by the wealthiest guy in America," Sanders told The Intercept Tuesday. Cantwell's measure wouldn't rescind the grant to SpaceX but would create an additional contract that Bezos's company would be in line to win. A third company, Dynetics, had also bid for the moonshot, but the author of the new amendment offers a strong suggestion of which company it's likely to benefit. The measure has been attached to the Endless Frontier Act as part of a manager's amendment and authorizes $10.032 billion through the year 2026 for the moon program. Authorization alone does not fund the program, and Congress would still need to appropriate the money, or the executive would need to find other appropriated funds.

The space-news web site NASASpaceFlight writes: While organic compounds have been confirmed on the Martian surface and near-surface areas since 2018, new Earth-based experiments point to a potentially tantalizing series of signatures from Curiosity's Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument that could indicate the presence of organic salts at the rover's Gale Crater location. What's more, the new research from a team led by J. M. T. Lewis, an organic geochemist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, points to further potential evidence that organic salts might be prevalent across the Martian terrain. The hard part is conclusively detecting them.

For decades, scientists theorized that organic compounds were almost certainly to have been preserved to some detectable degree in the Martian surface environment. In 2018, Curiosity's instruments allowed Eigenbrode et al. to conclusively prove that they were in fact there. In turn, if organic compounds were present at one time, their by-products — organic salts — would still be around as well, even given the harsh radiation environment of Mars compared to Earth.

While organic compounds and organic salts can form from the presence of microbial life, they can also form from geologic processes. Though not confirmed, organic salts would be further evidence that organic matter once existed on Mars' surface, and, if they are still present, could support hypothetical microbial life on Mars today, as some life on Earth uses organic salt as food/energy.

"60 seconds of rocket burn, straight into space," Virgin Galactic tweeted today, sharing a video of their historic launch.

CNN reports: Virgin Galactic's rocket-powered plane, carrying two pilots, soared into the upper atmosphere on its third mission to reach space Saturday morning. The success cues up Virgin Galactic to begin launching paying customers within the next year as the company works to finish its testing campaign at its new headquarters in New Mexico.

Spaceplane VSS Unity reached an altitude of 55.45 miles, according to the company. The U.S. government recognizes the 50-mile mark as the edge of space. The company tweeted Saturday morning that the spaceflight carried technology experiments for NASA's Flight Opportunities Program...

Saturday's flight comes after Virgin Galactic's last spaceflight attempt ended abruptly when the rocket engine that powers the space plane, called VSS Unity, failed to ignite, setting the company's testing schedule back by months. Virgin Galactic, founded by British billionaire Richard Branson in 2004, has spent years pledging to take groups of customers on brief, scenic flights to suborbital space. But the company has faced a series of complications and delays, including a 2014 test flight crash that left one pilot dead.

Nonetheless, Virgin Galactic has already sold tickets for $200,000 to $250,000 to more than 600 people.
The company said it also collected data "to be used for the final two verification reports that are required as part of the current FAA commercial reusable spacecraft operator's license." Virgin Galactic's CEO called it "a major step forward for both Virgin Galactic and human spaceflight in New Mexico. Space travel is a bold and adventurous endeavor, and I am incredibly proud of our talented team for making the dream of private space travel a reality."

In fact, this was the first ever spaceflight from Spaceport America, New Mexico, making it the third U.S. state to launch humans into space. New Mexico Governor Lujan Grisham said proudly in the company's statement that "After so many years and so much hard work, New Mexico has finally reached the stars." To commemorate the moment, the flight carried New Mexico's traditional green chile seeds, and featured the Zia Sun Symbol from the state flag on the outside of the spaceship. "The crew experienced extraordinary views of the bright, blue-rimmed curvature of the earth against the blackness of space," reads the statement from Virgin Galactic, adding that New Mexico's White Sands National Park "sparkled brilliantly below."

And pilot-in-command CJ Sturckow now becomes the first person ever to have flown to space from three different states.

Which country will shoot the first movie in outer space? Russia is now "in a race with the United States to claim the achievement," reports NBC News.

36-year-old actress Yulia Peresild and 37-year-old director Klim Shepenko will complete Russia's cosmonaut-training program, ultimately taking two of the three seats aboard the October launch of Russia's Soyuz mission to the International Space Station: The Russian space agency, Roscosmos, announced Thursday that it had selected its crew to headline the film, which will be called "Challenge..."

Very little is known about the plot, which in many ways seems secondary to the spectacle. When Russia announced the project last year, Konstantin Ernst, the head of Russia's Channel One — which is working with Roscosmos on the film — said that it would not be a science fiction film, but a realistic depiction of near-term space travel. "It's a movie about how a person in no way connected with space exploration, due to various reasons and personal debt, ends up a month later in orbit," Ernst said in a September 2020 interview. "That's all I can tell you...."

The decision to fill the October Soyuz flight with a movie crew comes at an uncertain time for Russia's space program... In October, NASA paid for its final flight aboard Soyuz... Russia is now left to look for other means to help subsidize launch costs. One of those obvious sources — beyond funding from the state television network Channel One — is space tourism. Another Soyuz will launch in December, and rather than fill those seats with Russian cosmonauts, Moscow announced Thursday that two Japanese space tourists will take the ride.

China just successfully landed its first rover on Mars, becoming only the second nation to do so. Space.com reports: The Tianwen-1 mission, China's first interplanetary endeavor, reached the surface of the Red Planet Friday (May 14) at approximately 7:11 p.m. EDT (2311 GMT), though Chinese space officials have not yet confirmed the exact time and location of touchdown. Tianwen-1 (which translates to "Heavenly Questions") arrived in Mars' orbit in February after launching to the Red Planet on a Long March 5 rocket in July 2020. After circling the Red Planet for more than three months, the Tianwen-1 lander, with the rover attached, separated from the orbiter to begin its plunge toward the planet's surface. Once the lander and rover entered Mars' atmosphere, the spacecraft endured a similar procedure to the "seven minutes of terror" that NASA's Mars rovers have experienced when attempting soft landings on Mars.

A heat shield protected the spacecraft during the fiery descent, after which the mission safely parachuted down to the Utopia Planitia region, a plain inside of an enormous impact basin in the planet's northern hemisphere. Much like during NASA's Perseverance rover landing, Tianwen-1's landing platform fired some small, downward-facing rocket engines to slow down during the last few seconds of its descent. China's Mars rover, called Zhurong after an ancient fire god in Chinese mythology, will part ways with the lander by driving down a foldable ramp. Once it has deployed, the rover is expected to spend at least 90 Mars days (or about 93 Earth days; a day on Mars lasts about 40 minutes longer than a day on Earth) roving around on Mars to study the planet's composition and look for signs of water ice. Utopia Planitia is believed to contain vast amounts of water ice beneath the surface. It's also where NASA's Viking 2 mission touched down in 1976.

China is all set to attempt its first landing on another planet. After months in orbit around Mars, the Tianwen-1 spacecraft will deposit a rover called Zhurong on the surface of Mars. If successful, China will become the second country in history to explore the Martian surface with a rover. From a report: Tianwen-1 arrived at Mars on February 10, marking the arrival of China's first independent interplanetary mission. Since then, Tianwen-1 has been making close approaches to Mars every 49 hours as it flies in an elliptical orbit around the planet, each time taking high-resolution images of the landing site in Utopia Planitia, a vast plain that may once have been covered by an ancient Martian ocean. Chinese officials have said the landing attempt would take place in mid-to-late May, and a report on Twitter quoted Ye Peijian of the China Association for Science and Technology saying the landing will take place on May 14 at 7:11 p.m. ET. This aligns with estimates from amateur radio astronomers tracking the spacecraft.

Mission scientists have been analyzing the topography and geology of Utopia Planitia to guide the spacecraft's landing attempt, and if they decide not to attempt a landing on May 14, they will have additional opportunities on May 16 and May 18. Named for an ancient Chinese fire god, the 529-pound Zhurong rover is similar in size to NASA's Spirit and Opportunity rovers, which landed on the red planet in 2004 and sent back exciting images and data about the planet's surface conditions. China's rover could make additional important discoveries concerning water and past habitability on the planet, paving the way for future human missions to Mars.

NASA and Houston-based Axiom Space have signed a "mission order" setting the stage for four civilians to visit the International Space Station early next year, the first fully commercial flight to the orbiting lab complex, agency managers said Monday. CBS News reports: Axiom's "AX-1" mission and an upcoming charity-driven flight to low-Earth orbit, both aboard SpaceX Crew Dragon capsules, represent "a renaissance in U.S. human spaceflight," said Phil McAlister, NASA's director of commercial spaceflight development. "I think that's the perfect word for what we're experiencing," he said of the growing commercial space market, which includes the anticipated certification of Boeing's CST-100 Starliner and upcoming sub-orbital flights by Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic. "This is a real inflection point, I think, with human spaceflight."

Axiom Space, led by Mike Suffredini, NASA's former space station program manager, announced last year that it plans to launch a four-man crew to the space station aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule. The launch is currently targeted for a January timeframe. Axiom Vice President Mike Lopez-Alegria, a former NASA astronaut and space station commander, will serve as commander of the AX-1 mission, which is expected to last about 10 days. Joining him will be Larry Connor, an American entrepreneur, Canadian investor and philanthropist Mark Pathy and Israeli investor Eytan Stibbe, a former fighter pilot.

Lopez-Alegria on Monday told reporters that the crew will participate in centrifuge training and flights to simulate weightlessness starting next week, followed by a camping trip to Alaska in July for "bonding and leadership training." Lopez-Alegria and Connor, the mission pilot, will begin SpaceX flight training shortly thereafter before the entire crew begins space station familiarization at the Johnson Space Center in October. [...] Axiom is not paying list price for the AX-1 mission, in part because planning began before the new price guidelines were determined and because the company will be providing services to NASA that the agency would otherwise have to pay for. The mission order announced Monday covers just $1.69 million. Additional agreements remain to be negotiated.

NASA engineers are getting one last look at the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST): a final test to show that its 18 gold-tinted mirror segments can unfold into a precise honeycomb configuration. From a report: After the test concludes this week, the giant instrument will be folded up, packed into a shipping container, and shipped off to French Guiana, where it will launch into space on 31 October. The 6.5-meter-wide JWST is the agency's next great observatory, the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope.

In a NASA briefing this week, Program Scientist Eric Smith told reporters it was born out of a realization in the mid-1990s that, no matter how long it stared into deep space, Hubble would never be able to see the universe's very first stars and galaxies and learn how they formed and evolved. The expanding universe has "redshifted" the light of those primordial objects out of the visible spectrum; NASA needed a space telescope that worked in the infrared. "So the idea of Webb was born," Smith says. Since then, astronomers have discovered thousands of exoplanets. Smith says JWST will be able to probe their atmospheres for molecules such as carbon dioxide, water, methane, and others that could suggest the presence of life.

Getting the $9 billion contraption to the point of departure has taken NASA much more time and money than it or Congress ever suspected. The construction of JWST proved to be the most complex and difficult science project in the agency's history. The process of testing the telescope's folding mirror, multilayered sunshield, and cryogenically cooled instruments has stretched years longer than planned. But come late August, all that will be over as JWST, in a protective cocoon, will be taken from Northrop Grumman's facility in Redondo Beach, California, and put onto a ship. The telescope will sail through the Panama Canal to Europe's spaceport near Kourou. Unlike the 2.4-meter-wide Hubble, which fit comfortably inside the bay of the Space Shuttle, JWST's mirror is much larger than the fairing on top of an Ariane 5 rocket, so it is elaborately folded to fit inside it.