WASHINGTON ,
Nov. 30,
2022 /PRNewswire/ -- NASA Administrator Bill Nelson welcomed Vice President Kamala Harris and French President Emmanuel Macron to NASA Headquarters in
Washington Wednesday, where they
participated in a working meeting and briefing by U.S. and French
experts on U.S.-France cooperation
in exploration, Earth, and space science.
U.S. Department of Commerce Deputy Secretary Don Graves and National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration (NOAA) Administrator Rick
Spinrad also were in attendance.
At the briefing, Harris and Macron focused on the success of the
two nations' collaboration in space, including the James Webb Space
Telescope, the Surface Water Ocean Topography mission, the Space
for Climate Observatory, the International Space Station, and
Artemis. They were briefed by the head of NASA's Earth Science
Division, Karen St. Germain, Centre
National d'Etudes Spatiales (CNES) President Phillipe Baptiste, NOAA Senior Scientist
Mitch Goldberg, Associate Astronomer
at the Space Telescope Science Institute Rémi Soummer, NASA
astronaut Ricky Arnold, ESA
(European Space Agency) astronaut Thomas Pesquet, and NASA's
Assistant Deputy Associate Administrator for Exploration Systems
Development Mission Directorate Amit Kshatriya.
"Today we have the occasion to celebrate the cooperation of our
two nations in space... today we build on the progress we have made
and today we will also identify additional areas of collaboration
and cooperation," Harris said. "Space remains a place of
undiscovered and unrealized opportunity. For that reason, there is
so much potential in terms of the work that nations can do there,
in particular when we work together based on shared principles and
values."
Harris and Macron also received a first look at new imagery and
video from the Artemis I mission and Webb images, a merging galaxy
pair and a new composite image of the Pillars of Creation. The
image from Orion was taken from a camera at the end of a solar
array on the spacecraft's service module, provided by ESA, on
flight day 13 when Orion reached its maximum distance from Earth,
268,563 miles away from our home planet. Webb captured both of the
new images using a pair of its cutting-edge instruments: NIRCam —
the Near-Infrared Camera — and MIRI, the Mid-Infrared Instrument,
which was contributed by ESA and NASA.
"France is one of the United States' closest allies – on Earth
and in space. It was an honor to host Vice President Harris and
President Macron at NASA Headquarters, where they heard from some
of the brightest minds from our two nations," said Nelson. "The
U.S.-French partnership in space not only gives us a better
understanding of our universe and our place within it, but it also
strengthens democracy, climate security, and stability around the
globe. I look forward to continuing to work with our international
partners to develop opportunities for our citizens and demonstrate
ingenuity and integrity to the world."
Following the meeting with Harris, the Department of Commerce
hosted Macron and Nelson at a roundtable with representatives from
U.S. and French commercial space companies to highlight how
collaboration has helped enable growth of both nations' space
sectors, as well as discussed ways in which the nations can
continue to work together to advance private-public partnership in
space.
Nelson and Baptiste also signed an agreement Wednesday for the
Farside Seismic Suite (FSS), which will return the first lunar
seismic data from the far side of the Moon. CNES is contributing
one of the seismometers to this payload, which will be delivered
via NASA's Commercial Lunar Payloads Services (CLPS) initiative,
based on heritage capabilities from the Mars InSight mission.
View more images of the visit online at:
https://flic.kr/s/aHBqjAhkQK
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SOURCE NASA