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2020

The Marshall Star Archive

The Marshall Star is published online every Wednesday by the Office of Communications at the George C. Marshall Space Flight Center, National Aeronautics and Space Administration. For earlier editions, please send email to: Marshall.Star@msfc.nasa.gov.

2019 Marshall Star Year-In-Review

January 8, 2020

This image shows the resulted buckling of the structure when the tank failed after exposure to more than 260% of expected.

January 2020

The first Artemis rocket stage is guided toward NASA’s Pegasus barge Jan. 8

January 15

New multiwavelength image of the Crab Nebula.

January 22

Core stage installation

January 29

February 2020

Steve Miley, associate director of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, lights a memorial candle Jan. 30.

February 5

February 12

University of Puerto Rico rover team

February 19

Monica Manning MSBA 2020

February 26

March 2020

Alexander Summers, right, an engineer at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, talks with Amber George, left, and Steven Hughes.

March 4

These images show how the team rolled out the completed core stage for NASA’s Space Launch System rocket from NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans. Crews moved the flight hardware for the first Artemis mission to NASA’s Pegasus barge on Jan. 8 in preparation for the core stage Green Run test series at NASA’s Stennis Space Center near Bay St. Louis, Mississippi. Pegasus, which was modified to ferry SLS rocket hardware, will transport the core stage from Michoud to Stennis for the comprehensive core stage Green Run test series. Once at Stennis, the Artemis rocket stage will be loaded into the B-2 Test Stand for the core stage Green Run test series. The comprehensive test campaign will progressively bring the entire core stage, including its avionics and engines, to life for the first time to verify the stage is fit for flight ahead of the launch of Artemis I. Assembly and integration of the core stage and its four RS-25 engines has been a collaborative, multistep process for NASA and its partners Boeing, the core stage lead contractor, and Aerojet Rocketdyne, the RS-25 engines lead contractor. Together with four RS-25 engines, the rocket’s massive 212-foot-tall core stage — the largest stage NASA has ever built — and its twin solid rocket boosters will produce 8.8 million pounds of thrust to send NASA’s Orion spacecraft, astronauts and supplies beyond Earth’s orbit to the Moon and, ultimately, Mars. Offering more payload mass, volume capability and energy to speed missions through space, the SLS rocket, along with NASA’s Gateway in lunar orbit and Orion, is part of NASA’s backbone for deep space exploration and the Artemis lunar program.

March 11

graphic showing satellite, asteroid and pictures of boulders on asteroid

March 18

International Space Station crew members.

March 25

April 2020

NASA and Frontier Aerospace are developing next-generation thrusters for use on Astrobotic's Peregrine lunar lander.

April 1

Members of Marshall’s Center Continuity Management Team have conducted virtual meetings.

April 8

Air Co.’s founders Gregory Constantine, left, and Stafford Sheehan.

April 15

The three-module Environmental Control and Life Support System undergoes development at Marshall’s Internal Thermal Control System Test Facility. Marshall is responsible for the design, construction and testing of regenerative life support hardware -- including oxygen recovery - for the International Space Station.

April 22

Gears

April 29

May 2020

Artist concept of the SpaceX Starship on the surface of the Moon.

May 6

May 13

Core stage activity at Stennis

May 20

Boeing’s Jade Mitchell cleans a surface as NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility transitions to Stage 3.

May 27

June 2020

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying the company's Crew Dragon spacecraft is launched from Launch Complex 39A

June 3

Specialized transporters move each of the 10 solid rocket motor segments for NASA’s Space Launch System rocket.

June 10

The Expedition 63 crew.

June 17

Illustration of a Protostar.

June 24

July 2020

Space shuttle Columbia's STS-1 mission launches April 12, 1981.

July 1

From left, Hewitt-Trussville High School HUNCH team members Lucy Prince, Kailey Love, Madeline Curd, and Abigail Mitchell.

July 8

The movement of sand grains in the scoop on the end of NASA InSight's robotic arm

July 15

Space Launch System (SLS) rocket’s launch vehicle stage adapter is loaded on the Pegasus barge

July 22

Paula Laurita, Marshall senior librarian.

July 29

August 2020

NASA astronauts Robert Behnken, left, and Douglas Hurley are seen inside the SpaceX Crew Dragon Endeavour spacecraft

August 5

The Space Launch System (SLS) rocket is completing the Green Run test for the rocket’s core stage.

August 12

Deborah Crane, Commercial Crew Program launch vehicle chief engineer, monitors NASA’s SpaceX Demo-2 mission countdown.

August 19

The Human Exploration Rover Challenge team from Escambia High School in Pensacola, Florida, won the high school division.

August 26

September 2020

Emily Watson works Aug. 27 to continue the flow of communication between the Huntsville Operations Support Center and the ISS.

September 2

The flight support booster for future flights of NASA’s Space Launch System rocket undergoes a test Sept. 2.

September 9

Marshall Space Flight Center 4221

September 16

The Blue Origin BE-7 thrust chamber assembly undergoes a hot-fire test at the Marshall Center’s Test Facility 116 in June 2020.

September 23

John Honeycutt, the Space Launch System Program manager, was one of four Alumni of Achievement.

September 30

October 2020

Engineers at NASA’s Stennis Space Center near Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, completed a simulated launch countdown sequence.

October 7

Expedition 63 Commander Chris Cassidy installs the new Urine Processing Assembly’s distillation assembly in Node 3.

October 14

NASA selects partners to develop technologies in cryogenic fluid management, lunar surface, and closed-loop descent and landing.

October 21

animation of OSIRIS-REx TAGSAM sample maneuver at Bennu 20 Oct 2020

October 28

November 2020

Marshall leaders address team members in a live virtual town hall Oct. 29.

November 4

Jonathan Lee, a Marshall structural materials engineer and project scientist, works from his home office.

November 12

Planetary nebula IC 4593.

November 18

microscopic view of protein crystals grown in microgravity

November 25

December 2020

Artemis I Rocket Booster Motors for Stacking

December 2

December 9

The Huntsville Operations Support Center at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center.

December 16

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