34 Meters in the Morning Light

Before sunrise at NASA’s Deep Space Network (DSN) in Goldstone, CA, December 2024: a crane looms over the 34-meter steel framework ahead of the installation of a 133-ton reflector dish - a major milestone for the new Deep Space Station 23 antenna. (Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech. Dec 2024)

Earth as it really is...

Several years ago, I was fortunate to spend time with Captain Jim Lovell at the Cosmosphere (where the Apollo 13 command module "Odyssey” remains on display). He was kind, quick-witted, humble, and genuinely inspirational. 

Capt. Lovell flew in space four times:

• Gemini VII was a 14-day mission built to learn about long-duration space flight.
• Gemini XII focused on rendezvous and docking.
• Apollo 8 was the first crewed mission to orbit the Moon.
• Apollo 13 taught us countless lessons about space exploration, innovative problem solving, and grace under pressure.

One time, I asked Capt. Lovell about Apollo 8’s famed “Earthrise” photograph, and what he thinks about when he sees it.

He replied: “I see the Earth as it really is: an oasis where life exists in the vastness of space.”

📸 1: Astronaut James A. Lovell Jr. pauses for a quick photo while training for the Apollo 13 mission (April 1970). Credit: NASA

Quality Time with NEO Surveyor

Quality time with NEO Surveyor, NASA’s future asteroid hunting telescope, on the High Bay 1 clean room floor at JPL’s Spacecraft Assembly Facility.

Launching no earlier than September 2027, NEO (Near-Earth Object) Surveyor will feature a cutting-edge infrared space telescope built to seek out the hardest-to-find asteroids & comets that might pose a hazard to our planet.

JPL’s Spacecraft Assembly Facility (SAF) is where all JPL-built missions from 1962 onward have been assembled. (A second high bay facility was added in 1976 during the construction of the Voyagers.) Learn more about clean room protocols, the “bunny suits” worn on the floor, and more!

Sixty years of deep space signals…and still going strong. 

ICYMI: NASA’s Deep Space Network complex in Canberra, Australia recently commemorated 60 years of service to space exploration - while breaking ground on a new antenna. 

Learn more about the global network of giant radio antennas making spacecraft communication possible at the Moon and beyond.

Image: Deep Space Network, Deep Space Station 43, a 230-foot-wide antenna at Canberra Deep Space Communications Complex near Canberra, Australia. Credit: NASA