Lorna Kenna’s day job is helping Americans return to the moon. As vice president and general manager of the Jacobs Space Operations Group at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., she leads the team working past logistical and COVID-19-related challenges to assemble the Artemis 1 rocket in the space agency’s vehicle assembly building for a scheduled launch in March.

NASA, U.S. Space Force compare space "superhighway" concept to U.S. Interstate System as they plan major investments to develop the infrastructure system.

Preparations for the Artemis program, which will land the first woman and person of color on the moon, include upgrades to launch facilities and systems.

When Artemis 1 takes off next year, there will be 90 people in the room on launch day. Two-thirds of them will be Jacobs engineers overseeing the launch sequence software they created.

As NASA works on a mission to send the first woman and person of color to the moon, ENR Editor-in-Chief Janice Tuchman exchanged emails with Janet Petro, director of the Kennedy Space Center, to explore how diversity plays out in the agency itself.

Florida targets NASA, the Federal Acquisition Regulatory Council, Office of Management and Budget and the General Services Administration in its suit

Efficiencies in design, construction and building use are being unlocked thanks to analysis and proactive changes informed by construction data. Even 3D printing for a NASA project on structures on Mars is on the table.

The May 30 NASA launch has been publicized as an extraordinary event—the first crewed mission to the International Space Station on a privately owned SpaceX spacecraft from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. 

A radiation-shielded, inflatable greenhouse with a hydroponic growing system designed by undergraduate students at Dartmouth College’s Thayer School of Engineering could sustain four astronauts on a 600-day mission to Mars as soon as 2030.

Launch Pad 39B at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida is one step closer to readiness for NASA’s new Space Launch System (SLS), as J.P. Donovan, Rockledge, Fla., wraps up major construction on the main flame deflector for the pad’s upgraded flame trench.