The SpaceX Crew Dragon Resilience spacecraft lifts off atop a Falcon 9 rocket on the Fram2 mission (Photo courtesy SpaceX)

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A few hours ago, the SpaceX Crew Dragon Resilience spacecraft blasted off atop a Falcon 9 rocket from the Kennedy Space Center on the Fram2 mission. After about twelve minutes, it successfully separated from the rocket’s last stage. It will spend between 3 and 5 days in orbit. Unlike the previous private space missions conducted by SpaceX in recent years, in the Fram2, the Crew Dragon entered a polar orbit, the first time for a crewed space flight, at an altitude that will range between 425 and 450 kilometers.

The galaxy JADES-GS-z13-1 (the red circle in the center) as seen by the James Webb Space Telescope (Image ESA/Webb, NASA, STScI, CSA, JADES Collaboration, Brant Robertson (UC Santa Cruz), Ben Johnson (CfA), Sandro Tacchella (Cambridge), Phill Cargile (CfA), J. Witstok, P. Jakobsen, A. Pagan (STScI), M. Zamani (ESA/Webb))

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An article published in the journal “Nature” reports the results of observations of the primordial galaxy cataloged as JADES-GS-z13-1. A team of researchers used the James Webb Space Telescope to examine this galaxy, estimating that it dates back to about 330 million years after the Big Bang. The surprise came from spectroscopic analyses with so-called Lyman-alpha radiation, emitted in the ultraviolet by hydrogen in specific circumstances, because it was much stronger than would be expected from a galaxy of that era.

Herbig-Haro 49/50 (NIRCam and MIRI Image, annotated)

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An image captured by the James Webb Space Telescope shows Herbig-Haro 49/50, or simply HH 49/50, a type of nebula associated with star formation. The Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) and Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) instruments were used in combination to observe infrared details of the outflows whose shape led to the object being nicknamed the Cosmic Tornado. For years, astronomers have wondered what the object they could barely see in images obtained with other instruments at the “tip of the tornado” was, and Webb helped them realize that it’s a spiral galaxy that is far more distant.

The Crew Dragon Freedom spacecraft right after splashdown (Image courtesy SpaceX)

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A few hours ago, SpaceX’s Crew Dragon Freedom spacecraft concluded its Crew-9, or SpaceX Crew-9, mission for NASA by landing without problems. On board were astronauts Nick Hague and cosmonaut Alexander Gorbunov, who reached the International Space Station on September 29, 2024, and were part of Expedition 72, along with astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore, who reached the International Space Station on Boeing’s Starliner Calypso spacecraft on June 6, 2024, and were part of Expedition 71/72. The original members of the Crew-9 mission completed SpaceX’s 9th regular crewed mission of in the Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of Florida. The Crew Dragon departed the Station almost 17 hours earlier.

The Crew Dragon Endurance spacecraft docking with the Harmony module as seen from inside the International Space Station

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A few hours ago, SpaceX’s Crew Dragon Endurance spacecraft docked with the Harmony module of the International Space Station completing the first part of its Crew-10 or SpaceX Crew-10 mission that began with its launch about 28.5 hours earlier. After checking that the pressure gets properly balanced, the hatch will be opened to allow Anne McClain, Nichole Ayers, Takuya Onishi, and Kirill Peskov to enter the Station and start their mission, which will last about five months.