NASA is taking steps to create more opportunities related to space, including for those from underserved and underrepresented communities, amid a broader push for improved racial equity in the federal government. The agency says its Equity Action Plan will allow it to internally and externally track progress on improving diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility.

The plan has four focus areas:

• Increasing integration and utilization of contractors and businesses from underserved communities and expanding equity in NASA’s procurement process

• Enhancing grants and cooperative agreements to advance opportunities, access and representation for underserved communities

• Leveraging Earth Science and socioeconomic data to help mitigate environmental challenges in underserved communities

• Advancing external civil rights compliance and expanding access to limited English proficient populations within underserved communities

Among the measures NASA plans to take to address these issues in underserved communities are running more engagement events, increasing outreach and training and offering small businesses more contract opportunities. The agency is also aiming to address language barriers by updating its language access plan and expanding accessibility for populations with limited English proficiency, starting with communications in Spanish.

NASA plans to return to crewed Moon landings in 2025. Through the Artemis program, it plans to land a woman and person of color on the Moon for the first time. It has named a diverse shortlist of astronauts who are eligible for the initial flights.

“At NASA, all of our missions depend on our steadfast commitment to equal opportunity,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. “The Equity Action plan deepens our commitment to further identify and remove the barriers that limit opportunity in underserved and underrepresented communities. This framework anchors fairness as a core component in every NASA mission to make the work we do in space and beyond more accessible to all."

The James Webb Space Telescope is one step closer to probing the depths of the universe. On Wednesday, NASA announced that it was ready to start taking test images and aligning the optics of the JWST after the telescope’s instrumentation reached its final operating temperature of minus 448 degrees Fahrenheit (or minus 267 degrees Celsius) partway through last week.

The JWST has been gradually cooling down ever since its successful December 25th launch, but the telescope took a major step forward on that front when it deployed its massive 70-foot sunshield at the start of the year. That component allowed JWST’s systems, including its critical Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI), to drop to a temperature of approximately minus 298 degrees Fahrenheit (or about minus 183 degrees Celsius). 

Getting the JWST to its final operating temperature required NASA and the European Space Agency to activate the telescope’s electric “cryocooler.” That in itself involved passing a technical hurdle dubbed the “pinch point,” or the stage at which the James Webb’s instruments went from minus 433 degrees Fahrenheit to minus 448 Fahrenheit.

“The MIRI cooler team has poured a lot of hard work into developing the procedure for the pinch point,” said Analyn Schneider, MIRI project manager for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “The team was both excited and nervous going into the critical activity. In the end, it was a textbook execution of the procedure, and the cooler performance is even better than expected.”

Part of the reason the James Webb needs to be so cold before it can begin its mission is so that its electronics generate the least amount of infrared light possible and are thereby less likely to interfere with its instruments when astronomers turn them toward distant cosmic bodies. The cold temperatures are also required to avoid something called “dark current,” an electrical force that’s generated when the atoms in the telescope’s detectors vibrate. That movement can create false signals that make it more difficult for the telescope to get an accurate picture of a celestial body.

Humanity's expansion across the globe is inextricably tied to the environmental conditions that our early ancestors faced. On Wednesday, a research team from South Korea's Pusan National University revealed research from supercomputing modeling that suggests just how much of humanity's rise is thanks to changes in prehistoric weather.

The Pusan team, led by climate physicist Axel Timmermann, used an "unprecedented transient Pleistocene-coupled general circulation model simulation in combination with an extensive compilation of fossil and archaeological records to study the spatiotemporal habitat suitability for five hominin species over the past 2 million years," per the study published in Nature.

That 2-million year model, which the team refers to as the 2ma simulation, "reproduces key palaeoclimate records such as tropical sea surface temperatures, Antarctic temperatures, the eastern African hydroclimate and the East Asian summer monsoon in close agreement with paleo-reconstructions," to ensure a realistic representation of how the rain patterns in Southern Africa were likely shifting at the time. 

Basically, the team was looking at how the 41,000-year cyclical patterns of precipitation and temperature change caused by the Earth's axial wobble impacted the availability of resources for early humans and our close cousins. By combining the synthetic data generated by the 2ma simulation with the hard evidence of fossil and archaeological findings, the team puzzled out the places where homo sapiens and our genetic offshoots were most likely to inhabit.

The Pusan team noted a few surprising trends emerging from the data. For example, the researchers found that around 700,000 years ago, Homo heidelbergensis (suspected to be the progenitors of both Neanderthals and modern humans) began expanding from their traditional range. They were able to do so because our planet's elliptical orbit created wetter, more habitable climate conditions at that time to support the expansion. The simulation projected the movement of these wet spots across the Earth and the researchers found evidence within the fossil record that moved along with them. 

“The global collection of skulls and tools is not randomly distributed in time,” Timmermann told Nature. “It follows a pattern.”

Timmermann explained that these results could support the single-evolutionary-path hypothesis, which posits that climate change 700,000 years ago led to hotter, drier conditions in South Africa and h.heidelbergensis' evolutionary response to those changes eventually gave rise to Homo sapiens.

"We acknowledge that our species subdivisions may be controversial and that these do not necessarily require constancy of morphology, habitat and behaviour," the team wrote. "However, even though some species attributions such as H. heidelbergensis could be questioned, we remain confident that the majority of the record presents little challenge considering that 86 percent of the core data belong to the well-defined, widely accepted H. neanderthalensis or H. sapiens record and tool-making traditions."

These findings won't likely end the debate on humanity's beginnings but rather add to our growing patchwork of understanding.  

No Man’s Sky is already an enormous game and yet Hello Games isn’t exactly out of ideas about how to expand the universe. The developer has released the Outlaws update, which adds the game’s first new starship in two years, smuggling and much more.

Solar ships are a new class of starships. These are dotted across the universe and have unique tech and procedurally generated variations. Each ship has solar-powered sail and engine tech. You can now own up to nine starships in total (an increase of three), each of which can be outfitted with a high-capacity cargo inventory.

The smuggling mechanic ties into the update's core theme: the fact you can now play as a space pirate. You can buy illicit goods in outlaw systems and sell them for a hefty profit in a regulated space, as long as you're able to smuggle them in. Sentinel drones will be on the lookout for illegal wares, however. You might be able to fend them off with a Cargo Probe Deflector.

Hello Games

In outlaw systems, where rebel forces are in control and piracy prevails, there are outlaw stations. Here, you'll find specialized technology merchants, mission agents and more. There won't be any Sentinel interceptors as these parts of the universe are unpoliced.

Hello Games says it has also revamped space combat with a focus on speed, challenge and flow. There's an option that'll let you automatically lock onto and track enemy ships, for instance. You'll be able to recruit pilots to join your squadron and help you out in ship-to-ship combat. You can call them in at any time and they'll appear automatically during space combat.

Elsewhere, there's a new expedition on the way soon with an array of rewards up for grabs. You can also expect to see revamped explosion and combat effects, forged passports and pirate raids on settlements and buildings. The update includes a slew of bug fixes and optimizations as well.

This is the second big content update this year, following February's Sentinel patch. The Outlaws update is out now on PlayStation, Xbox and PC. It’ll also give Nintendo Switch players more to look forward to when No Man’s Skyhits that platform this summer.

Balloons have been pitched as better space tourism options thanks to gentler, longer-lasting trips that don't require training, and now it's clearer what you'll get if you take one of those rides. Space Perspective has previewed the interior of Spaceship Neptune, a giant balloon that will take tourists to 100,000 feet (technically the stratosphere, not space) for two hours plus a similarly lengthy descent. As you've likely noticed, this is really a floating lounge rather than a spacecraft.

The design focuses on comfortable, reclining seats that can be configured for group events or couples' dinners. You can get food and bar service, connect to WiFi (for those high-altitude social check-ins), read info on interactive screens, customize mood lighting and observe the Earth from a telescope. And yes, there's a "luxurious" windowed restroom if you can't wait for the return to solid ground — you'll get Space Perspective's promised 360-degree view even when you're indisposed.

The company claims this is the only zero-emissions option for reaching space, and is promising eco-friendly construction that includes a bar top made from recycled balloon material. Other sustainable materials will be used throughout the capsule.

The catch, as with other early space tourism projects, is the price. Space Perspective is asking $125,000 per ticket with a $1,000 refundable deposit. The first paid flights aren't expected take place until late 2024, either, and a reservation now won't get you a seat until 2025. That's still much more affordable than Virgin Galactic's $450,000 flights, though, and you'll spend considerably more time above the planet. You'll just be trading altitude for greater comfort.

The offering does have some early takers. The company says it has sold 600 tickets to date. As such, this offering might be considered an intermediate step for space tourism. It's certainly not ready for the mainstream at these prices, but it is giving more people a chance to see Earth from great heights.

NASA has once again delayed the final test of its next-generation Space Launch System. The agency spent much of last weekend conducting a “wet dress rehearsal” of its upcoming Artemis 1 Moon mission. The test was designed to replicate the mission’s countdown procedure and was mostly moving along according to plan until NASA encountered a problem with the SLS’s mobile launcher platform.

The issue prevented the agency from safely loading the rocket with liquid propellant, and NASA delayed the critical test to troubleshoot the problem. It had initially planned to resume the test on April 9th to accommodate Axiom’s Space historic Ax-1 flight but announced today it was further delaying the trial to the start of next week. It also announced it would modify the test after engineers noticed a problem with a helium check valve designed to prevent the gas from escaping the SLS. The modified test will see NASA primarily focus on fueling the rocket's core stage, with “minimal propellant operations" of its upper stage.

“Due to the changes in loading procedures required for the modified test, wet dress rehearsal testing is slated to resume with call to stations on Tuesday, April 12th and tanking on Thursday, April 14th," NASA said.

Once the test is complete, NASA can finally move forward with Artemis 1. The mission will send an unmanned Orion capsule on a flight around the Moon designed to study how the trip will affect human astronauts. The agency won’t set a date for the mission until it completes the wet dress rehearsal. If it doesn’t encounter any further setbacks this week, Artemis 1 could lift off as early as this June.

A SpaceX Dragon capsule carrying the first fully private space crew has docked with the International Space Station. The quartet launched from Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Friday morning without any major hiccups. Their journey to the ISS took around 20 hours. The Dragon ran into a video routing problem before the docking sequence could start, causing a 45 minute-delay as it stayed roughly 20 meters away from the ISS while SpaceX was troubleshooting the issue. 

The crew members — commander and former NASA astronaut Michael López-Alegría and businessmen Larry Connor, Eytan Stibbe and Mark Pathy — are expected to spend eight days on the space station. They'll conduct science experiments, along with outreach and commercial activities. They'll also bring some scientific samples back to Earth for NASA as well.

Axiom Space's first all-civilian mission, AX-1, is the first of several private ISS missions the company plans to launch in the coming years. It will build the first commercial module on the space station as well as a module that houses a sports arena and film studio. The Axiom Station and attached film studio module are expected to separate from the ISS in 2028.

Mariella Moon contributed to this report.

It's been a good few weeks for spotting distant objects in the universe. As Forbesnotes, Japanese researchers have detected what might be the most distant galaxy known to date. HD1 is far enough that its light is estimated to be 13.5 billion years old, or just 300 million years after the Big Bang. That makes it 100 million years older than the previous record-setter, GN-z11, and suggests it might have some of the very first (Population III) stars that emerged in the reionization following the universe's "dark ages."

The team spotted HD1 using about 1,200 hours of observations between the Spitzer Space Telescope, Subaru Telescope, UK Infrared Telescope and VISTA Telescope. They verified the distance using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array, and the red hue was indicative of the extreme redshift you'd expect from a very distant galaxy.

Astronomers still want to double-check their results. The signal from HD1 has a 99.9 percent significance, but observers won't be sure until they have a significance of 99.999 percent or better. The researchers may get that opportunity when the James Webb Space Telescope takes a look at the galaxy using its infrared-focused sensors.

If scientists can confirm HD1's existence, that will raise numerous questions. HD1 doesn't fit easily into existing models of galaxy formation, and suggests there were already extremely bright objects in the early universe. Not that the astronomy community would mind — this would help refine their cosmological models.

Axiom Space has successfully launched its AX-1 mission, which is taking the first fully private crew of astronauts to the International Space Station. The quartet departed from Kennedy Space Center in Florida on a SpaceX Dragon capsule, which was propelled by a Falcon 9 rocket. Both the first stage and the Dragon separated without issue. 

The spacecraft is expected to dock at the ISS on April 9th at around 6:45AM ET. The hatch opening is scheduled for approximately 9:30AM and, all going well, the welcoming ceremony will happen at around 10:05AM.

The crew members are commander and former NASA astronaut Michael López-Alegría and three businessmen: Larry Connor, Eytan Stibbe and Mark Pathy. The foursome are due to spend eight days on the ISS, during which they'll take part in scientific research, outreach and commercial activities. They will also retrieve some scientific samples for NASA.

Axiom plans to conduct further private missions to the ISS over the next several years. The company has a contract with NASA to build the first commercial module for the space station. It's also expected to construct a module (SEE-1) containing a film studio and sports arena, which could be attached to the ISS as soon as December 2024. Axiom Station (with SEE-1 still connected) is scheduled to split from the ISS in 2028 and operate independently.

After several delays, Axiom Space is set to launch its first private crew to the International Space Station (ISS) today. Three paying passengers and a NASA astronaut will launch aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon, saying they'll perform research and not be passive space tourists.

Axiom's passengers include Axiom Space VP and former NASA astronaut Michael López-Alegría; entrepreneur and non-profit activist investor Larry Connor; impact investor and philanthropist Eytan Stibbe; and entrepreneur, investor and philanthropist Mark Pathy. The latter three reportedly paid $55 million for the voyage.

The 10-day mission goes far beyond the relatively quick, non-orbital flights space tourists can take aboard Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin flights. It's also more elaborate than SpaceX's own Inspiration 4 mission that launched a civilian crew into low-Earth orbit for three days. NASA and its international partner agencies had final approval over Axiom's proposed crew, which trained for the mission last summer. 

The mission was originally schedule to launch on March 30th, but it was pushed forward to April 3rd and then April 6th. The launch moved to today at 11:17 AM EST, and you'll be able to catch the livestream at Axiom's website.