NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is an independent agency of the U.S. federal government responsible for the civilian space program, as well as aeronautics and space research.
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1 min read Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) Two members of NASA Glenn Research Center’s senior leadership retired on Dec. 30, 2023. Timothy McCartney Credit: NASA Timothy P. McCartney, director of Aeronautics, retired with 38 1/2 years of NASA service. He was responsible for the project management, workforce planning, budget oversight, and executive leadership of NASA Glenn’s aeronautics research and development activities in support of the agency’s Aeronautics Research Mission. Dr. Ajay Misra Credit: NASA Dr. Ajay Misra, deputy director of Research and Engineering, retired with 29 years of NASA service. H…
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7 Min Read Monitoring Microorganisms iss070e049644 (Dec. 30, 2023) — A set of the International Space Station's main solar arrays, slightly obscuring the smaller roll-out solar arrays, and the Kibo laboratory module with its exposed facility, a research platform that hosts external experiments, are pictured 261 miles above the Pacific Ocean. Credits: NASA Science in Space January 2024 Crew members on the International Space Station have a lot of company – millions of bacteria and other microbes. The human body contain…
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4 min read Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) Dr. Darayas Patel (left), professor of mathematics and computer science at Oakwood University, and four Oakwood University students record data related to their NASA STTR research.Oakwood University Transitioning cutting-edge research from the lab to life-changing technology in the market is no easy feat and the cost of failure is high, especially for small businesses. One of the ways NASA helps is through its Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) program, which supports small businesses, and their research institution partners during early-stage research and development on a range of t…
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Overview As NASA’s Tracking and Data Relay Satellite (TDRS) constellation approaches retirement, partnerships with commercial industry will play a critical role in the development of future space communications and navigation architecture. Over the next decade, NASA missions will transition towards adopting commercial space-based relay services to fulfil their near-Earth communications needs. The Space Communications and Navigation (SCaN) program is working to ensure that future missions will continue to have reliable, resilient space and ground communications and navigation infrastructure. Wideband polylingual terminals could become a key technology supportin…
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3 min read Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) NASA completed a full-duration, 500-second hot fire of an RS-25 certification engine Jan. 17, continuing a critical test series to support future SLS (Space Launch System) missions to the Moon and beyond as NASA explores the secrets of the universe for the benefit of all.NASA/Danny Nowlin NASA completed a full-duration, 500-second hot fire of an RS-25 certification engine Jan. 17, continuing a critical test series to support future SLS (Space Launch System) missions to the Moon and beyond as NASA explores the secrets of the universe for the benefit of all.NASA/Danny Nowlin NASA completed a …
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5 min read Laser Instrument on NASA’s LRO Successfully ‘Pings’ Indian Moon Lander For the first time at the Moon, a laser beam was transmitted and reflected between an orbiting NASA spacecraft and an Oreo-sized device on ISRO’s (Indian Space Research Organisation) Vikram lander on the lunar surface. The successful experiment opens the door to a new style of precisely locating targets on the Moon’s surface. At 3 p.m. EST on Dec. 12, 2023, NASA’s LRO (Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter) pointed its laser altimeter instrument toward Vikram. The lander was 62 miles, or 100 kilometers, away from LRO, near Manzinus crater in the Moon’s South Pole region, when LRO transmitted las…
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28 Min Read The Marshall Star for January 17, 2024 ‘Be King’: Team Redstone Invites All to Honor Civil Rights Icon’s Legacy By Jessica Barnett Several accomplished speakers took to the stage Jan. 11 at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center to share how Martin Luther King Jr.’s life and legacy helped shape their lives. The event was hosted by Marshall’s ODEO (Office of Diversity and Equal Opportunity), along with the FBI and U.S. Army, in the center’s Activities Building 4316 as a way of honoring King, a minister and activist from Atlanta who rose to national prominence as a key…
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The four crew members representing NASA’s SpaceX Crew-8 mission to the International Space Station pose for an official portrait at the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. NASA will host a pair of news conferences Thursday, Jan. 25, from the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston to highlight upcoming crew rotation missions to the International Space Station. A mission overview news conference will begin at 1 p.m. EST and cover NASA’s SpaceX Crew-8 mission to the microgravity laboratory and Expeditions 70/71. A crew news conference will start at 2:30 p.m., followed by individual astronaut interviews at 3:30 p.m. Both news conferences will be available on…
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NASA/Lauren Dauphin and Wanmei Liang; NOAA The Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite sensor on the NOAA-NASA Suomi NPP satellite captured this image of the aurora borealis, or northern lights, over western Canada at 3:23 a.m. MST (5:23 a.m. EST) on November 5, 2023. Auroras are colorful ribbons of light appearing in night skies, incited by a strong geomagnetic storm in Earth’s magnetosphere. Multiple coronal mass ejections from the Sun sent a surge of charged particles toward Earth. After colliding with Earth’s magnetosphere, some particles trapped in the magnetic field are accelerated into Earth’s upper atmosphere where they excite nitrogen and oxygen molecules…
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Research engineer Christine Gregg inspects a Mobile Metamaterial Internal Co-Integrator (MMIC-I) builder robot. These simple robots are part of a hardware and software system NASA researchers are developing to autonomously build and maintain high-performance large space structures comprised of building blocks. MMIC-I works by climbing though the interior space of building blocks and bolting them to the rest of the structure during a build or unbolting during disassembly.NASA/Dominic Hart If they build it, we will go – for the long-term. Future long-duration and deep-space exploration missions to the Moon, Mars, and beyond will require a way to build large-scale infr…
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NASA’s Spirit and Opportunity Mars rovers landed on the Red Planet on Jan. 3 and 24, 2004, respectively. This image shows a view Opportunity captured of its own shadow on July 26 of that year, the 180th Martian day, or sol, of its mission.NASA/JPL-Caltech This month marks the 20th anniversary of Spirit and Opportunity’s landing on Mars, part of a mission whose legacy will extend far into the future. In January 2004, twin NASA rovers named Spirit and Opportunity touched down on opposite sides of Mars, kicking off a new era of interplanetary robotic exploration. They arrived in dramatic fashion three weeks apart, each nestled in a cluster of airbags that bounced along…
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1 min read Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) The Galactic/Extragalactic ULDB Spectroscopic Terahertz Observatory (GUSTO) awaits its flight on a scientific balloon with a picturesque view of Antarctica’s Mount Erebus in the distance. GUSTO successfully launched Dec. 31, 7:30 p.m. local time (Dec. 31, 1:30 a.m. EST) and remains in flight.NASA/Scott Battaion High above the icy landscape of Earth’s southernmost continent, the Galactic/Extragalactic ULDB Spectroscopic Terahertz Observatory (GUSTO) scientific balloon mission has been afloat for more than 15 days since its launch from McMurdo, Antarctica, on Dec. 31, 7:30 p.m. local time (De…
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Jakobshavn Isbrae, a glacier on Greenland’s western coast, is shown in imagery taken on Sept. 5, 1985, by the Landsat 5 satellite. Jakobshavn receded from 1985 to 2022, losing about 97 billion tons (88 billion metric tons) of ice, a recent study of the Greenland Ice Sheet’s glacial retreat found.NASA/USGS A Landsat 8 image from Sept. 4, 2022, shows Jakobshavn Isbrae breaking at its edge. A recent study found that from 1985 to 2022 the Greenland Ice Sheet shed about 1,140 billion tons (1,034 billion metric tons) – one-fifth more mass than previously estimated.NASA/USGS …
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Name: Michael Thorpe Title: Sedimentary and Planetary Geologist Organization: Planetary Environments Laboratory, Science Directorate (Code 699) Sedimentary and planetary geologist Dr. Michael Thorpe studies sediments’ journey from mountains to downstream lakes, both on Earth and on Mars. Photo Courtesy of Iceland Space Agency / Daniel Leeb What do you do and what is most interesting about your role here at Goddard? How do you help support Goddard’s mission? As a sedimentary and planetary geologist, my research focuses on how sediments are transformed from the mountains to the lakes downstream, which is a process called source to sink. I study this phenome…
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Sometimes, stars can be stripped away from globular clusters as they orbit a massive galaxy. Researchers have identified several instances in our own Milky Way galaxy – and they’ve also spotted gaps between these looping tendrils. What caused those gaps? One possibility: a substance known as dark matter. Following the launch of the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, astronomers will use its vast, high-definition images to spot many more tidal streams – and potentially their accompanying gaps – in nearby galaxies for the first time. A prime candidate is our neighbor, the Andromeda galaxy, which appears in the illustration above. Soon, not only will researchers be able to i…
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5 Min Read Webb Shows Many Early Galaxies Looked Like Pool Noodles, Surfboards Researchers are analyzing distant galaxies when the universe was only 600 million to 6 billion years old. Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, Steve Finkelstein (UT Austin), Micaela Bagley (UT Austin), Rebecca Larson (UT Austin) Researchers analyzing images from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope have found that galaxies in the early universe are often flat and elongated, like surfboards and pool noodles – and are rarely round, like volleyballs or frisbee…
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Expedition 69 Flight Engineers play chess with NASA mission controllersCredit NASA Jan. 16, 2024 RELEASE: 24-001 Four astronauts, including the current record holder for the longest single U.S. stay in space aboard the International Space Station, will make their first public appearance in Houston since returning to Earth. The crew also will be available for interviews before the event at 5 p.m. CST Thursday, Jan. 18, at Space Center Houston. Expedition 69 NASA astronauts Stephen Bowen, Woody Hoburg, and Frank Rubio, along with United Arab Emirates (UAE) astronaut Sultan Alneyadi, will be at NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston official visitor center to sha…
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A set of NanoRacks CubeSats is photographed by an Expedition 38 crew member after the deployment by the Small Satellite Orbital Deployer (SSOD). The CubeSats program contains a variety of experiments such as Earth observations and advanced electronics testing.NASA NASA is collaborating with the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Space Force to offer a set of hands-on learning engagements that will help higher education institutions, faculty, and students learn more about what it takes to build small satellites and be selected for flight opportunities. Teams selected for the University Nanosatellite Program Mission Concepts 2024 Summer Series will receive systems engineering t…
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NASA and Lockheed Martin publicly unveil the X-59 quiet supersonic research aircraft at a ceremony in Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works facility in Palmdale, California. The X-59 is the centerpiece of NASA’s Quesst mission, which seeks to solve one of the major barriers to supersonic flight over land, currently banned in the United States, by making sonic booms quieter.NASA/Steve Freeman A climactic curtain drop reveals the newly painted red, white, and blue X-59 aircraft during its rollout ceremony on Jan. 12, 2024, at Lockheed Martin Skunk Works in Palmdale, California – a major milestone before its first flight. A long-standing aviation tradition, rollout ceremonies …
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Science Launching to Space Station on NASA's 20th Northrop Grumman Mission
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6 Min Read Science Launches to Space Station on NASA’s 20th Northrop Grumman Mission iss067e156135 (July 28, 2022) — Northrop Grumman's Cygnus space freighter is positioned away from the International Space Station in the grips of the Canadarm2 robotic arm prior to its release ending a four-month stay attached to the orbiting lab's Unity module. Credits: NASA Tests of a 3D metal printer, semiconductor manufacturing, and thermal protection systems for reentry to Earth’s atmosphere are among the scientific investigation th…
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Kurt Vogel portrait, Tuesday, May 10, 2022, at the Mary W. Jackson NASA Headquarters in Washington. Photo Credit: (NASA/Bill Ingalls) Dr. Kurt “Spuds” Vogel will serve as the new associate administrator of the Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD) at the agency’s headquarters in Washington, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson announced Tuesday. His appointment is effective immediately. Vogel succeeds James Reuter, who retired from the agency in June 2023. Dr. Prasun Desai has served as the acting associate administrator since and now will return to his previous role as deputy associate administrator for STMD. “With more than three decades of public service, inc…
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4 min read Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) This composite image of the Manatee Nebula captures the jet emanating from SS 433, a black hole devouring material embedded in the supernova remnant which spawned it. Radio emissions from the remnant are blue-green, whereas X-rays combined from IXPE, XMM-Newton, and Chandra are highlighted in bright blue-purple and pinkish-white against a backdrop of infrared data in red. The black hole emits twin jets of matter traveling in opposite directions at nearly the speed of light, distorting the remnant’s shape. The jets become bright about 100 light year…
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As the Space Food Systems manager at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Xulei Wu works with a team to create tasty, shelf-stable meals for astronauts aboard the International Space Station and, soon, for crews flying to the Moon as part of the Artemis program. What does it take to become a space food scientist at NASA? We met up with Wu to learn more about her journey from creating meals for camping in the deep woods, to making foods for exploring deep space. Preparation Meets Opportunity “I don’t consider myself very smart; I’m very hardworking,” said Wu, who was born and raised in China and is a first-generation immigrant. After rising through the…
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4 min read Winter Stargazing Tips: Stay Warm and Cozy! Some parts of the country feel as if the winter will never end. Massive snows, polar vortexes, artic winds…it’s almost enough to make you forget that a spring thaw will eventually arrive! One thing that is guaranteed to warm an astronomers’ heart in these cold winter nights: the beautiful, sparking skies! Orion, Taurus, the Pleiades, Sirius, the Andromeda Galaxy, the Double Custer in Perseus: these are just a few of the gorgeous sights that are at their peak in the winters of the Northern Hemisphere, not to mention the clockwork actions of the Moon and planets. But how can you observe and stay comfortable outsid…
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