=/\= Kayla LaFrance

Honor the legacy, protect today, create the future. Guardian of Spaceflight, always Vigilant. FINAO

A holiday surprise in Mission Control. Thanks for the visit, @NASAAdmin. ✨

A very Merry Christmas surprise visit from @NASAAdmin, who just stopped by Mission Control at @NASA_Johnson to thank and celebrate with our flight ops team and Expedition-74 crew! 🧑‍🚀🎄🎅🏻

While the world slows down for Christmas, the International @Space_Station keeps circling Earth—powered by teams who never stop supporting the mission. 🛰️🎄 From Mission Control rooms across the globe, engineers and flight controllers are on console, ensuring the station and its crew remain safe as science continues in orbit. This holiday, we’re especially grateful for the dedication, teamwork, and quiet professionalism that keep humanity’s presence in space thriving.

Mission controllers from @NASA_Johnson and around the world are on the clock 24 hours a day 365 days a year ensuring the crew is healthy and the orbital outpost is operating in tip-top shape.

hair so iconic you don’t even need to see his face

@NASAArtemis @astro_reid @AstroVicGlover Mr. Thomas Herrmann at Greenacres Jr High in Greenacres, Washington. 7th grade science teacher. He challenged me to take my love of Star Trek and explore Astronomy and NASA. Nearly 30 years later and I still send him a card every year with updates about my job in Mission Control

Which teacher made a difference in your life? As students get ready to head back to school, Artemis II astronauts @Astro_Reid and @AstroVicGlover reflect on the educators who shaped their journeys. Drop a shoutout to a teacher who inspired you! 🍎✏️

M+40: So what is it like to load a space cargo vehicle? It’s not too different from what you would do to pack for a move or ship a lot of cargo. It reminds me of building pallets before deployments. First, we work off a synchronized checklist that our amazing @NASA inventory stowage teams develop, find the items in the @Space_Station that are called out, double check that the serial numbers and barcodes match, pack the items and if necessary cushion them with bubble wrap and foam, and load them into the cargo space vehicle. The cargo vehicle’s center of gravity and mass calculations for re-entry depend on everything being packed in the correct order and orientation, so attention to detail matters. Finally, the straps have to be tightened and finished off with half hitches. Some of the precious cargo returning to Earth on Spx-32 are our science experiments, where ground teams eagerly await to get the experiments to the correct labs for additional research and analysis. It’s a lot of work but also fun, and we have a great team on-board and on the ground.

Hey look! It’s me and the pope!

@Astro_Ayers @NASA_Johnson As lead ISO, I thank you guys. :-) Crew-8 unpacked it, Crew-9 packed it, Crew-10 sent it home. First Cygnus to cover 3 crews!

Last week we packed up Cygnus (pic 1), closed the hatch (pics 2 & 3), and sent the final depart command to fire its thrusters, sending it off over the Pacific (pic 4). All went smoothly, and now we’ve got some extra space for new science and hardware!

The International Space Station changed shifts when @NASA's #Crew10 launched to switch places with NASA's #Crew9 that returned home with @NASA_Astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore. #SpaceToGround

March will see a new cargo mission and the @SpaceX #Crew10 mission arrive at the space station as the Expedition 72 crew continues its advanced space research. #SpaceToGround

📰It's breaking news from #OSIRISREx. Scientists found molecules key to life as we know it & the history of a saltwater environment in a new analysis of asteroid Bennu samples. Findings don't show evidence for life but suggest conditions for its emergence were widespread.

January 30, 1967,, Gene Kranz gathered his team then delivered his ‘Kranz Dictum’, one of the best leadership speeches of all time. Gene turned NASA’s flailing #Apollo Project into one of humanity’s greatest success. #Apollo1 contactlight.de forallmankind.de

From Space City, with snow ❄️💙 We hope everyone is staying safe and warm. There's snow place like home!

Map of all active & planned Solar System missions and their destinations as of January 1st 2025. @BepiColombo Mercury gravity assist #6, @fireflyspace Blue Ghost, @ispace_HAKUTO_R RESILIENCE lunar landers launch. @NASAJuno perijove #69. #KeepExploring

#NORAD has received reports from Defense Support Satellites indicating Santa has lifted off! Start tracking his journey with us at noradsanta.org/en 🎄 #NORADTracksSanta #NTS24

Ordered a graphic novel from Amazon for a gift for my nephew…. They took 3 weeks to tell me they could not ship it from the 3rd party…. Now it’s too late to get it from someone else before Christmas. Thanks. :-(

Higher Ground: After nearly four years of exploration, and grades as steep as 20%, our @NASAPersevere rover has reached the rim of Mars's Jezero Crater. Learn more about how Perseverance made the climb—and where it's rolling next: go.nasa.gov/3Dd0QWy #AGU2024

Space to Ground: It's Very Suni in Space : Dec. 06, 2024 youtu.be/GDx8GO1r7BY?si… via @YouTube

Mounted outside station, MISSE exposes 12 experiments to the space environment. Among them is SEAQUE, a tech demo that could advance quantum communication, testing "self-healing" against radiation and building the foundation for quantum cloud computing. go.nasa.gov/3Z9scUU