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: At 69, Don Pettit is now NASA's oldest active astronaut to fly in space, having lifted off on Wednesday (Sept. 11) with cosmonauts Aleksey Ovchinin and Ivan Vagner on Soyuz MS-26. The three will spend six months on board the International Space Station, joining the Expedition 71 and 72 crews. Pettit is expected to resume his "Saturday Morning Science" demonstrations and continue making advancements in space photography.
: Generally speaking, starting off a spaceflight by watching an asteroid bounce off your spacecraft's walls is not the best of beginnings — but this is the exception. The Polaris Dawn crew was more than happy to see "Asteroid" floating about because it signaled they had safely launched into Earth orbit. Designed by Liv Perroto, a pediatric cancer survivor, the plush spacesuit-clad "zero-g indicator," Asteroid, was inspired by Elon Musk's pet Shiba.
: New Hampshire honored its fallen high school teacher and America's first "Teacher in Space," Christa McAuliffe, with a statue at the state house on Monday (Sept. 2). Unveiled on what would have been her 76th birthday, McAuliffe was lost with her six STS-51L crewmates aboard the space shuttle Challenger in 1986. The larger-than-life bronze statue was created by artist Benjamin Victor, a noted sculptor from Boise, Idaho.
: Three and a half years after it was lowered to the ground, Pathfinder has been returned to its full stack at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Alabama. Cranes lifted the restored mock space shuttle orbiter atop its external tank and solid rocket boosters after it was outfitted with 516 new 3D-printed panels. Originally built in 1977, NASA used Pathfinder to ensure its ground support equipment was ready for use with the flight-worthy orbiters.
: NASA has decided to land Boeing's Starliner spacecraft without its crew, returning astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams aboard a SpaceX Dragon instead. Agency officials agreed there was too much risk completing the Crew Flight Test on Starliner due to issues encountered with the spacecraft's thrusters. Wilmore and Williams will stay on the International Space Station before coming home with Crew-9 in February 2025.
: The four members of the Polaris Dawn crew now hold the record for flying higher above Earth (without leaving orbit) than any astronauts before. On board the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft "Resilience," Jared Isaacman, Scott Poteet, Sarah Gillis and Anna Menon reached 870 miles (1,400 km) high, surpassing the previous record achieved in 1966 by the Gemini 11 crew of Charles Conrad and Richard Gordon by 17 miles (27 km).
: Boeing's first CST-100 Starliner spacecraft to launch with a crew landed safely in New Mexico Friday (Sept. 6) without astronauts aboard. Despite NASA's concerns that thruster issues could send the capsule off course, leading to the decision to keep Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams aboard the International Space Station, the spacecraft touched down at the White Sands Space Harbor, bringing the key test flight to its end.
: The Space Studies department at the University of North Dakota has acquired NASA's Orion capsule used to demonstrate the Max Launch Abort System (MLAS) in 2009. The mock capsule traveled about a mile high and splashed down in under a minute. In addition to being placed on display, the school plans to use the crew module as a teaching tool, as it connects NASA's history with the agency's future Artemis flights to the moon.
: The next Matchbox toy to be based on a SpaceX vehicle is a natural fit for the iconic die-cast car line. Coming in October, the 1:64 scale version of SpaceX's crew transport vehicle reproduces the same markings as on the full-size Tesla Model X electric cars that bring Dragon crews to the launch pad. The Matchbox toy has the "Crew Transport Vehicle" inscription on each of the Falcon Wing doors and sports a custom "CRW DR6N" tag.
: Doritos will launch to space for the first time on the private Polaris Dawn mission. Prepared and packaged so the chips are safe for flight, Cool Ranch Zero Gravity Doritos are also now available to the public in limited edition glow-in-the-dark canisters in return for pledges to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. Fans can also donate for the chance to win swag, including pins, patches and apparel, as well as flown-in-space Doritos tins.
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