NASA will honor a request from the Trump administration and spend the next month studying how to return astronauts to the moon’s orbit. America’s storied space agency will study the feasibility of converting the recent test of the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion capsule into a new crewed lunar mission, propelling two astronauts to…
Photo: nhq201611140002 (Nov. 14, 2016) — The Moon, or supermoon, is seen rising behind the Soyuz rocket at the Baikonur Cosmodrome launch pad in Kazakhstan, Monday, Nov. 14, 2016. NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson, Russian cosmonaut Oleg Novitskiy of Roscosmos, and ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet will launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan the morning of November 18 (Kazakh time.) All three will spend approximately six months on the orbital complex. A supermoon occurs when the moon’s orbit is closest (perigee) to Earth. Photo Credit: (NASA/Bill Ingalls)