Month: February 2020

NASA Mathematician and Racial Trailblazer Katherine Johnson Dies at Age 101

SpaceUpClose.com & RocketSTEM CAPE CANAVERAL, FL –NASA mathematician Katherine Johnson who calculated critical flight trajectories that helped launch America’s first astronauts safely into space and back including Alan Shepard and John Glenn and later helped land NASA’s Apollo 11 astronauts on the Moon and who was also a legendary trailblazing leader in civil rights, racial and gender equality passed away

Nine Finalists Selected for NASA’s Mars 2020 Rover Naming Contest

SpaceUpClose.com & RocketSTEM CAPE CANAVERAL, FL – After conducting a nationwide contest where kindergarten through 12th grade students across the United States submitted essays to “Name the Rover” NASA has selected 9 candidate names as finalists “to come up with a fitting name for NASA’s Mars 2020 rover.” The nine candidate names were selected from over 28,000 essays submitted after

NASA Mars 2020 Rover Arrives at Kennedy Space Center Launch Base for July Blastoff

SpaceUpClose.com & RocketSTEM CAPE CANAVERAL, FL – NASA’s Mars 2020 rover has arrived at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC), Florida launch base for final processing ahead of blastoff slated for July – after departing the only home she has ever known and where she was lovingly created by engineers working at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California. The

Beautiful Blastoff SpaceX Falcon 9 with 5th Batch Starlink Broadband Satellites, Misses Booster Landing: Photos

For SpaceUpClose.com & RocketSTEM CAPE CANAVERAL AIR FORCE STATION, FL – Under foggy skies that enveloped the launch pad in the hours leading up to launch and for a time threatened to postpone liftoff, and after days of delays due to poor weather and technical problems with the SpaceX rocket, a quadruple recycled Falcon 9 booster blasted off successfully into

Solar Orbiter Streaks to Space on ULA Atlas V to Explore Sun’s Polar Region and Space Weather: Photos

ESA/NASA Solar Orbiter mission to study the Sun streaks to space atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida at 11:03 p.m. EST on Feb. 9, 2020 – in this long duration exposure taken from the roof of NASA’s iconic Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) with photographers in the foreground. Credit: Ken Kremer/kenkremer.com/spaceupclose.com