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: 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.
: 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.
: 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.
: 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).
: 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.
: 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.
: 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.
: 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.
: 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.
: 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.
: 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.
: 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.
: "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.
