This Week @NASA: First Lucy Asteroid Flyby, Stepping Out for a Spacewalk, and More

NASA astronauts Jasmin Moghbeli (top) and Loral O’Hara (bottom) team up during their first spacewalk for maintenance on the outside of the space station. Credit: NASA TV

Stepping out for a spacewalk at the space station …

The first asteroid flyby for NASA’s Lucy spacecraft …

Signing up for safe and peaceful space exploration …

A few of the stories to tell you about – This Week at NASA!

Stepping out for a spacewalk at the space station.

NASA astronauts Jasmin Moghbeli and Loral O’Hara conducted a November 1 spacewalk outside the International Space Station.

During the outing they worked on some hardware that enables the station’s solar arrays to rotate properly as they track the Sun.

This was the first spacewalk for both Moghbeli and O’Hara.

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, left, NASA Deputy Administrator Pam Melroy, Harm van de Wetering, director of the Netherlands Space Office, Ambassador of the Netherlands to the United States Birgitta Tazelaar, and Chiragh Parikh, executive secretary of the National Space Council, pose for a picture after the signing of the Artemis Accords, Wednesday, November 1, 2023, at the Dutch Ambassador’s Residence in Washington. Netherlands is the 31st country to sign the Artemis Accords, which establish a practical set of principles to guide space exploration cooperation among nations participating in NASA’s Artemis program. Credit: NASA/Joel Kowsky

And signing up for safe and peaceful space exploration.

During a November 1 ceremony at the Dutch Ambassador’s Residence in Washington, the Kingdom of the Netherlands became the 31st country to sign the Artemis Accords.

The Artemis Accords establish a practical set of principles to guide space exploration cooperation among nations, including those participating in NASA’s Artemis program.

This image shows the “moonrise” of the satellite as it emerges from behind asteroid Dinkinesh as seen by the Lucy Long-Range Reconnaissance Imager (L’LORRI), one of the most detailed images returned by NASA’s Lucy spacecraft during its flyby of the asteroid binary. This image was taken at 12:55 p.m. EDT (1655 UTC) on November 1, 2023, within a minute of closest approach, from a range of approximately 270 miles (430 km). From this perspective, the satellite is behind the primary asteroid. Credit: NASA/Goddard/SwRI/Johns Hopkins APL/NOAO

The first asteroid flyby for NASA’s Lucy spacecraft.

NASA’s Lucy spacecraft got a surprise when it flew by asteroid Dinkinesh on November 1 – the first of multiple asteroids Lucy will visit on its 12-year voyage. Images captured by Lucy revealed that Dinkinesh is not just a single asteroid, as we thought, but a binary pair.

The primary aim of the Lucy mission is to survey the Jupiter Trojan asteroids, a never-before-explored population of small bodies that orbit the Sun in two “swarms”that lead and follow Jupiter in its orbit.

This animation shows global sea level data collected by the Surface Water and Ocean Topography satellite from July 26 to August 16. Red and orange indicate higher-than-average ocean heights, while blue represents lower-than-average heights. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Data collected by the Surface Water and Ocean Topography or SWOT satellite during its first full 21-day science orbit was used to compile this animation of global sea surface heights.

SWOT is measuring the height of nearly all water on Earth’s surface, providing one of the most detailed, comprehensive views yet of the planet’s oceans, freshwater lakes, and rivers.

That’s what’s up this week @NASA!