Gravity Assists, NASA Astronaut Homecomings
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March will bring both celestial and human spaceflight events. A lunar eclipse on March 14 will turn the moon reddish orange in a ⁘blood moon⁘ visible across the Western Hemisphere. Two Mars gravity assists are expected, and NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore are finally set to come home from an extended stay on the International Space Station.
March 2: NASA does double duty. A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will lift off from California's Vandenberg Space Force Base, carrying two NASA projects: The SPHEREx space telescope will map the sky in infrared to study the universe's formation. The PUNCH mission, consisting of four small satellites, will monitor the Sun's corona as it transitions into solar wind.
March 3: SpaceX's eighth Starship test. Originally set for February, SpaceX has moved its eighth Starship test flight to March 3. The last test in January ended in failure when the upper-stage capsule exploded mid-flight due to propellant leaks. This time, SpaceX will again attempt to catch the Super Heavy booster with its ⁘chopstick⁘ catch system, a maneuver it has successfully completed twice. The mission will also carry four dummy Starlink simulators to practice satellite deployment.
March 12: ESA's Mars flyby. NASA's Europa Clipper isn't the only spacecraft flying by Mars this month—the European Space Agency's Hera mission will also get a gravity assist when it passes by the planet on March 12. Launched last fall, Hera plans to spend the next year traveling to an asteroid that was impacted by a NASA mission in 2022 practicing asteroid deflection techniques, where it will gather information on the Didymos asteroid system.
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