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: Sixty-two years ago on Thursday (Oct. 3), Wally Schirra lifted off on his Mercury mission wearing his personal wristwatch, a newly-released 2nd-generation Omega Speedmaster. Though he could not know it at the time, his choice led to six-decade-long legacy of Omega watches flying in Earth orbit and beyond. Now, a new "The First Omega in Space" Speedmaster honors that history by combining heritage details with a modern calibre.
: "Aurora," the plush baby falcon that served as a zero-g indicator for the launch of SpaceX's Crew-9 mission on Saturday (Sept. 28), is the first such toy to fly on both Russian and American flights. Crew-9 commander Nick Hague previously flew the same doll on his two previous Soyuz launches, including one that ended in an in-flight abort. Aurora, Hague and Aleksandr Gorbunov will spend the next five months aboard the ISS.
: Just as it did the first time it shot for the moon, NASA is again inviting artists to interpret and capture the cultural significance of its efforts. The space agency has relaunched its art program with a pair of murals in New York City's Hudson Square. "To the Moon, and Back," by Brooklyn-based artists Geraluz and WERC, focuses on the dreams of children while inviting the public to more deeply reflect on why it is we explore space.
: Katherine Johnson, Mary Jackson, Dorothy Vaughan, Christine Darden and all of the women who worked at NASA as human computers and space race-era engineers were recognized with Congressional Gold Medals on Wednesday (Sept. 18). As authorized in 2019, the U.S. Mint designed five medals, one for each of the four named women and a fifth for all of the 'hidden figures' whose names have been lost to history.
: The private Polaris Dawn mission is now over, having splashed down on Sunday (Sept. 15) off the southern tip of Florida in the Gulf of Mexico. Jared Isaacman, Scott "Kidd" Poteet, Sarah Gillis and Anna Menon spent five days on board SpaceX's Dragon capsule "Resilience" setting records, including the highest altitude reached in Earth orbit and the world's first commercial spacewalk, in an effort to advance spaceflight.
: Purdue University has digitized thousands of pages containing the words spoken by Apollo 11 astronaut Neil Armstrong at his many talks, addresses and speeches. The online archive reveals the moonwalker's handwritten notations and quips, which he made while preparing his remarks. The physical documents, which were donated by Armstrong's wife Carol, are just one part of his archives held by the Indiana school.
: More than 25 years after it went into storage, the first-ever full-size mockup of the space shuttle is heading for display. Using state funds, the model's pieces will be moved in October to a facility for its reconstruction and restoration, bringing "Inspiration" back to how to appeared when North American Rockwell built it in 1972. A new building at the Columbia Memorial Space Center in Downey, California will house the exhibit.
: Soyuz MS-25 crewmates Oleg Kononenko, Nikolai Chub and Tracy Dyson have returned home from the International Space Station. Landing on the steppe of Kazakhstan, Dyson completed a 184-day stay on the orbiting complex, while Kononenko and Chub tallied the longest single mission stay on the ISS at 374 days. For Kononenko, the landing also marked his record 1,111th day in space, a total spread over five flights.
: If she was given just one choice today to either launch again to space or further photograph avian habitats around the world, Roberta Bondar said she would pick the latter. "I am not going up because I just want to go into space. I want to explore the planet." In her new book "Space for Birds," Bondar shares how she has found a parallel between astronauts and birds as they follow their paths around, and rely on their home on Earth.
: Achieving one of their major mission goals, the Polaris Dawn crew conducted the world's first commercial spacewalk on Thursday (Sept. 12). The EVA (extravehicular activity) saw Jared Isaacman and Sarah Gillis take turns emerging from SpaceX's Crew Dragon "Resilience" as the tested the company's new EVA spacesuit. In addition to being a first for private spaceflight, the hour-and-46-minute outing was the 20th stand-up EVA.
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