美国宇航局本周从太空站安全返回地球Safe Return to Earth from the Space Station

Greeting the astronauts of the next Commercial


Crew flight …


And an update on development of a human lunar


landing system … a few of the stories to


tell you about – This Week at NASA!


On April 16, the International Space Station’s


Expedition 64 crew, including our Kate Rubins,


closed out its time on the station.


After saying farewell to those remaining onboard


the orbital outpost, Rubins, Sergey Ryzhikov


and Sergey Kud-Sverchkov, both of the Russian


Space Agency Roscosmos, climbed aboard their


Soyuz spacecraft and headed back to Earth.


The trio touched down safely in Kazakhstan,


on the morning of April 17, after spending


185 days conducting research and maintenance


aboard the space station.


On April 16, the astronauts for NASA’s SpaceX


Crew-2 mission to the space station arrived


at our Kennedy Space Center for final prelaunch


activities, ahead of their flight to the station.


Crew-2 is currently targeted for launch April


22 from Kennedy’s Launch Complex 39A.


“We come in on the plane over here and we


got to fly by the pad and see our rocket getting


ready to go and that’s just an amazing feeling;


I’ve gotten to do that before and really


there’s nothing like it when you look out


the window and see a spaceship getting prepared


and realize that you’re going to be riding


on it in a few days.”


Crew-2 is the second crew rotation flight


of SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft and the


first with two international partners.


The flight follows certification by NASA for


regular flights to the space station as part


of the agency’s Commercial Crew Program.


Also, on April 16, NASA picked SpaceX to develop


its commercial human landing system for the


Artemis program.


Their design was one of three competing for


a crewed demonstration mission to the lunar


surface.


This system will help NASA complete the final


leg of its lunar journey and land the next


two American astronauts on the Moon.


Former NASA astronaut, Pam Melroy has been


nominated by President Biden to serve as the


agency’s deputy administrator.


The nomination must be confirmed by the Senate.


In a statement released in response to the


nomination, Acting NASA Administrator Steve


Jurczyk said Melroy is a proven leader with


a bold vision, who is driven by a desire to


solve the biggest issues here on Earth, throughout


the solar system, and beyond.


A veteran of three spaceflights, and one of


only two women to command a space shuttle,


Melroy logged more than 38 days in space.


Our Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will


use gravitational microlensing to find thousands


of new planets beyond our solar system.


This quirk of gravity makes it possible to


locate planets by observing how a planet’s


gravity distorts distant starlight.


Turns out that because solitary small black


holes, known as stellar-mass black holes,


produce the same effects, the mission will


also provide the best opportunity yet to definitively


detect these black holes for the first time.


The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is currently


targeted for launch in the mid-2020s.


April 12 marked the 40-year anniversary of


STS-1, the first spaceflight of the nation’s


Space Shuttle Program.


On that date in 1981, NASA astronauts John


Young and Bob Crippen launched aboard space


shuttle Columbia on a two-day test mission


that began a new era of human spaceflight.


“It allowed us to fly a diverse group of


people into space to become astronauts.


We didn’t need just test pilots anymore.


So, it opened up the field of the astronauts


in a much broader range than we’d ever had


before.”


STS-1 was NASA's first crewed mission since


the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project in 1975.


The launch also occurred 20 years to the day


after cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first


human to orbit Earth on April 12, 1961.


That’s what’s up this week @NASA … For


more on these and other stories, follow us


on the web at nasa.gov/twan.