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By NASA
NASA’s Human Landing System (HLS) will transport the next astronauts that land on the Moon, including the first woman and first person of color, beginning with Artemis III. For safety and mission success, the landers and other equipment in development for NASA’s Artemis campaign must work reliably in the harshest of environments.
The Hub for Innovative Thermal Technology Maturation and Prototyping (HI-TTeMP) lab at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, provides engineers with thermal analysis of materials that may be a prototype or in an early developmental stage using a vacuum chamber, back left, and a conduction chamber, right. NASA/Ken Hall Engineers at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, are currently testing how well prototype insulation for SpaceX’s Starship HLS will insulate interior environments, including propellant storage tanks and the crew cabin. Starship HLS will land astronauts on the lunar surface during Artemis III and Artemis IV.
Marshall’s Hub for Innovative Thermal Technology Maturation and Prototyping (HI-TTeMP) laboratory provides the resources and tools for an early, quick-check evaluation of insulation materials destined for Artemis deep space missions.
“Marshall’s HI-TTeMP lab gives us a key testing capability to help determine how well the current materials being designed for vehicles like SpaceX’s orbital propellant storage depot and Starship HLS, will insulate the liquid oxygen and methane propellants,” said HLS chief engineer Rene Ortega. “By using this lab and the expertise provided by the thermal engineers at Marshall, we are gaining valuable feedback earlier in the design and development process that will provide additional information before qualifying hardware for deep space missions.”
A peek inside the conductive test chamber at NASA Marshall’s HI-TTeMP lab where thermal engineers design, set up, execute, and analyze materials destined for deep space to better understand how they will perform in the cold near-vacuum of space. NASA/Ken Hall On the Moon, spaceflight hardware like Starship HLS will face extreme temperatures. On the Moon’s south pole during lunar night, temperatures can plummet to -370 degrees Fahrenheit (-223 degrees Celsius). Elsewhere in deep space temperatures can range from roughly 250 degrees Fahrenheit (120 degrees Celsius) in direct sunlight to just above absolute zero in the shadows.
There are two primary means of managing thermal conditions: active and passive. Passive thermal controls include materials such as insulation, white paint, thermal blankets, and reflective metals. Engineers can also design operational controls, such as pointing thermally sensitive areas of a spacecraft away from direct sunlight, to help manage extreme thermal conditions. Active thermal control measures that could be used include radiators or cryogenic coolers.
Engineers use two vacuum test chambers in the lab to simulate the heat transfer effects of the deep space environment and to evaluate the thermal properties of the materials. One chamber is used to understand radiant heat, which directly warms an object in its path, such as when heat from the Sun shines on it. The other test chamber evaluates conduction by isolating and measuring its heat transfer paths.
NASA engineers working in the HI-TTeMP lab not only design, set up, and run tests, they also provide insight and expertise in thermal engineering to assist NASA’s industry partners, such as SpaceX and other organizations, in validating concepts and models, or suggesting changes to designs. The lab is able to rapidly test and evaluate design updates or iterations.
NASA’s HLS Program, managed by NASA Marshall, is charged with safely landing astronauts on the Moon as part of Artemis. NASA has awarded contracts to SpaceX for landing services for Artemis III and IV and to Blue Origin for Artemis V. Both landing services providers plan to transfer super-cold propellant in space to send landers to the Moon with full tanks.
With Artemis, NASA will explore more of the Moon than ever before, learn how to live and work away from home, and prepare for future human exploration of Mars. NASA’s SLS (Space Launch System) rocket, exploration ground systems, and Orion spacecraft, along with the HLS, next-generation spacesuits, Gateway lunar space station, and future rovers are NASA’s foundation for deep space exploration.
For more on HLS, visit:
https://www.nasa.gov/humans-in-space/human-landing-system
News Media Contact
Corinne Beckinger
Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala.
256.544.0034
corinne.m.beckinger@nasa.gov
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By NASA
2 Min Read Why NASA Is a Great Place to Launch Your Career
Students at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory pose for photos around the laboratory wearing their eclipse glasses. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech Recently recognized as the most prestigious internship program by Vault.com, NASA has empowered countless students and early-career professionals to launch careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. NASA interns make real contributions to space and science missions, making it one of the best places to start your career.
“NASA internships give students the chance to work on groundbreaking projects alongside experts, providing impactful opportunities for professional growth,” said Mike Kincaid, associate administrator for NASA’s Office of STEM Engagement. “Since starting my career as an intern at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, I’ve experienced firsthand how NASA creates lasting connections and open doors—not just for me, but for former interns who are now colleagues across the agency. These internships build STEM skills, confidence, and networks, preparing the next generation of innovators and leaders.”
NASA interns achieve impressive feats, from discovering new exoplanets to becoming astronauts and even winning Webby Awards for their science communication efforts. These valuable contributors play a crucial role in NASA’s mission to explore the unknown for the benefit of all. Many NASA employees start their careers as interns, a testament to the program’s lasting impact.
Students congratulate the 23rd astronaut class at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston on March 5, 2024.NASA/Josh Valcarcel Additionally, NASA is recognized as one of America’s Best Employers for Women and one of America’s Best Employers for New Graduates by Forbes, reflecting the agency’s commitment to fostering a diverse and inclusive environment. NASA encourages people from underrepresented groups to apply, creating a diverse cohort of interns who bring a wide range of perspectives and ideas to the agency.
“My internship experience has been incredible. I have felt welcomed by everyone I’ve worked with, which has been so helpful as a Navajo woman as I’ve often felt like an outsider in male-dominated STEM spaces,” said Tara Roanhorse, an intern for NASA’s Office of STEM Engagement.
If you’re passionate about space, technology, and making a difference in the world, NASA’s internship program is the perfect place to begin your journey toward a fulfilling and impactful career.
To learn more about NASA’s internship programs, visit: https://www.intern.nasa.gov/
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By NASA
4 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
The mystery of why life uses molecules with specific orientations has deepened with a NASA-funded discovery that RNA — a key molecule thought to have potentially held the instructions for life before DNA emerged — can favor making the building blocks of proteins in either the left-hand or the right-hand orientation. Resolving this mystery could provide clues to the origin of life. The findings appear in research recently published in Nature Communications.
Proteins are the workhorse molecules of life, used in everything from structures like hair to enzymes (catalysts that speed up or regulate chemical reactions). Just as the 26 letters of the alphabet are arranged in limitless combinations to make words, life uses 20 different amino acid building blocks in a huge variety of arrangements to make millions of different proteins. Some amino acid molecules can be built in two ways, such that mirror-image versions exist, like your hands, and life uses the left-handed variety of these amino acids. Although life based on right-handed amino acids would presumably work fine, the two mirror images are rarely mixed in biology, a characteristic of life called homochirality. It is a mystery to scientists why life chose the left-handed variety over the right-handed one.
A diagram of left-handed and right-handed versions of the amino acid isovaline, found in the Murchison meteorite.NASA DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) is the molecule that holds the instructions for building and running a living organism. However, DNA is complex and specialized; it “subcontracts” the work of reading the instructions to RNA (ribonucleic acid) molecules and building proteins to ribosome molecules. DNA’s specialization and complexity lead scientists to think that something simpler should have preceded it billions of years ago during the early evolution of life. A leading candidate for this is RNA, which can both store genetic information and build proteins. The hypothesis that RNA may have preceded DNA is called the “RNA world” hypothesis.
If the RNA world proposition is correct, then perhaps something about RNA caused it to favor building left-handed proteins over right-handed ones. However, the new work did not support this idea, deepening the mystery of why life went with left-handed proteins.
The experiment tested RNA molecules that act like enzymes to build proteins, called ribozymes. “The experiment demonstrated that ribozymes can favor either left- or right-handed amino acids, indicating that RNA worlds, in general, would not necessarily have a strong bias for the form of amino acids we observe in biology now,” said Irene Chen, of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Samueli School of Engineering, corresponding author of the Nature Communications paper.
In the experiment, the researchers simulated what could have been early-Earth conditions of the RNA world. They incubated a solution containing ribozymes and amino acid precursors to see the relative percentages of the right-handed and left-handed amino acid, phenylalanine, that it would help produce. They tested 15 different ribozyme combinations and found that ribozymes can favor either left-handed or right-handed amino acids. This suggested that RNA did not initially have a predisposed chemical bias for one form of amino acids. This lack of preference challenges the notion that early life was predisposed to select left-handed-amino acids, which dominate in modern proteins.
“The findings suggest that life’s eventual homochirality might not be a result of chemical determinism but could have emerged through later evolutionary pressures,” said co-author Alberto Vázquez-Salazar, a UCLA postdoctoral scholar and member of Chen’s research group.
Earth’s prebiotic history lies beyond the oldest part of the fossil record, which has been erased by plate tectonics, the slow churning of Earth’s crust. During that time, the planet was likely bombarded by asteroids, which may have delivered some of life’s building blocks, such as amino acids. In parallel to chemical experiments, other origin-of-life researchers have been looking at molecular evidence from meteorites and asteroids.
“Understanding the chemical properties of life helps us know what to look for in our search for life across the solar system,” said co-author Jason Dworkin, senior scientist for astrobiology at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and director of Goddard’s Astrobiology Analytical Laboratory.
Dworkin is the project scientist on NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission, which extracted samples from the asteroid Bennu and delivered them to Earth last year for further study.
“We are analyzing OSIRIS-REx samples for the chirality (handedness) of individual amino acids, and in the future, samples from Mars will also be tested in laboratories for evidence of life including ribozymes and proteins,” said Dworkin.
The research was supported by grants from NASA, the Simons Foundation Collaboration on the Origin of Life, and the National Science Foundation. Vázquez-Salazar acknowledges support through the NASA Postdoctoral Program, which is administered by Oak Ridge Associated Universities under contract with NASA.
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Last Updated Nov 21, 2024 EditorWilliam SteigerwaldContactNancy N. Jonesnancy.n.jones@nasa.govLocationGoddard Space Flight Center Related Terms
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By NASA
5 min read
5 Surprising NASA Heliophysics Discoveries Not Related to the Sun
With NASA’s fleet of heliophysics spacecraft, scientists monitor our Sun and investigate its influences throughout the solar system. However, the fleet’s constant watch and often-unique perspectives sometimes create opportunities to make discoveries that no one expected, helping us to solve mysteries about of the solar system and beyond.
Here are five examples of breakthroughs made by NASA heliophysics missions in other fields of science.
This graphic shows missions in NASA’s Heliophysics Division fleet as of July 2024. NASA Thousands and Thousands of Comets
The SOHO mission — short for Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, which is a joint mission between ESA (European Space Agency) and NASA — has a coronagraph that blocks out the Sun in order to see the Sun’s faint outer atmosphere, or corona.
It turns out SOHO’s coronagraph also makes it easy to spot sungrazing comets, those that pass so close to the Sun that other observatories can’t see them against the brightness of our star.
Before SOHO was launched in December 1995, fewer than 20 sungrazing comets were known. Since then, SOHO has discovered more than 5,000.
The vast number of comets discovered using SOHO has allowed scientists to learn more about sungrazing comets and identify comet families, descended from ancestor comets that broke up long ago.
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Two sungrazing comets fly close to the Sun in these images captured by ESA/NASA’s SOHO (Solar and Heliospheric Observatory). They were the 3,999th and 4,000th comets discovered in SOHO images. ESA/NASA/SOHO/Karl Battams Dimming of a Supergiant
In late 2019, the supergiant star Betelgeuse began dimming unexpectedly. Telescopes all over the world — and around it — tracked these changes until a few months later when Betelgeuse appeared too close to the Sun to observe. That’s when NASA’s STEREO (Sun-watching Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO) came to the rescue.
For several weeks in the middle of 2020, STEREO was the only observatory able to see Betelgeuse. At the time, the STEREO-A spacecraft was trailing behind Earth, at a vantage point where Betelgeuse was still far enough away from the Sun to be seen. This allowed astronomers to keep tabs on the star while it was out of view from Earth.
STEREO’s observations revealed another unexpected dimming between June and August of 2020, when ground-based telescopes couldn’t view the star.
Astronomers later concluded that these dimming episodes were caused by an ejection of mass from Betelgeuse — like a coronal mass ejection from our Sun but with about 400 times more mass — which obscured part of the star’s bright surface.
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The background image shows the star Betelgeuse as seen by the Heliospheric Imager aboard NASA’s STEREO (Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory) spacecraft. The inset figure shows measurements of Betelgeuse’s brightness taken by different observatories from late 2018 to late 2020. STEREO’s observations, marked in red, revealed an unexpected dimming in mid-2020 when Betelgeuse appeared too close to the Sun for other observatories to view it. NASA/STEREO/HI (background); Dupree et al. (inset) The Glowing Surface of Venus
NASA’s Parker Solar Probe studies the Sun’s corona up close — by flying through it. To dive into the Sun’s outer atmosphere, the spacecraft has flown past Venus several times, using the planet’s gravity to fling itself closer and closer to the Sun.
On July 11, 2020, during Parker’s third Venus flyby, scientists used Parker’s wide-field imager, called WISPR, to try to measure the speed of the clouds that obscure Venus’ surface. Surprisingly, WISPR not only observed the clouds, it also saw through them to the surface below.
The images from that flyby and the next (in 2021) revealed a faint glow from Venus’ hot surface in near-infrared light and long wavelengths of red (visible) light that maps distinctive features like mountainous regions, plains, and plateaus.
Scientists aimed WISPR at Venus again on Nov. 6, 2024, during Parker’s seventh flyby, observing a different part of the planet than previous flybys. With these images, they’re hoping to learn more about Venus’ surface geology, mineralogy, and evolution.
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As Parker Solar Probe flew by Venus on its fourth flyby, it captured these images, strung into a video, showing bright and dark features on the nightside surface of the planet. NASA/APL/NRL The Brightest Gamma-Ray Burst
You’ve heard of the GOAT. But have you heard of the BOAT?
It stands for the “brightest of all time”, a gamma-ray burst discovered on Oct. 9, 2022.
A gamma-ray burst is a brief but intense eruption of gamma rays in space, lasting from seconds to hours.
This one, named GRB 221009A, glowed brilliantly for about 10 minutes in the constellation Sagitta before slowly fading.
The burst was detected by dozens of spacecraft, including NASA’s Wind, which studies the perpetual flow of particles from the Sun, called the solar wind, just before it reaches Earth.
Wind and NASA’s Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope measured the brightness of GRB 221009A, showing that it was 70 times brighter than any other gamma-ray burst ever recorded by humans — solidifying its status as the BOAT.
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Astronomers think GRB 221009A represents the birth of a new black hole formed within the heart of a collapsing star. In this artist’s concept, the black hole drives powerful jets of particles traveling near the speed of light. The jets emit X-rays and gamma rays as they stream into space. NASA/Swift/Cruz deWilde A Volcano Blasts Its Way to Space
NASA’s ICON (Ionospheric Connection Explorer) launched in 2019 to study how Earth’s weather interacts with weather from space. When the underwater Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha‘apai volcano erupted on Jan. 15, 2022, ICON helped show that the volcano produced more than ash and tsunami waves — its effects reached the edge of space.
In the hours after the eruption, ICON detected hurricane-speed winds in the ionosphere — Earth’s electrified upper atmospheric layer at the edge of space. ICON clocked the wind speeds at up to 450 miles per hour, making them the strongest winds the mission had ever measured below 120 miles altitude.
The ESA Swarm mission revealed that these extreme winds altered an electric current in the ionosphere called the equatorial electrojet. After the eruption, the equatorial electrojet surged to five times its normal peak power and dramatically flipped direction.
Scientists were surprised that a volcano could affect the electrojet so severely — something they’d only seen during a strong geomagnetic storm caused by an eruption from the Sun.
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The Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai eruption on Jan. 15, 2022, caused many effects, some illustrated here, that were felt around the world and even into space. Some of those effects, like extreme winds and unusual electric currents were picked up by NASA’s ICON (Ionospheric Connection Explorer) mission and ESA’s (the European Space Agency) Swarm. Illustration is not to scale. NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/Mary Pat Hrybyk-Keith By Vanessa Thomas
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
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Last Updated Nov 20, 2024 Related Terms
Comets Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope Gamma-Ray Bursts Goddard Space Flight Center Heliophysics Heliophysics Division ICON (Ionospheric Connection Explorer) Parker Solar Probe (PSP) SOHO (Solar and Heliospheric Observatory) Stars STEREO (Solar TErrestrial RElations Observatory) The Sun The Sun & Solar Physics Uncategorized Venus Volcanoes Wind Mission Explore More
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By NASA
On Nov. 6, 2024, NASA Night brought cosmic excitement to the Toyota Center, where Johnson Space Center employees joined 16,208 fans who interacted with NASA as they watched the Houston Rockets claim victory over the San Antonio Spurs.
Energy soared as International Space Station Program Manager Dana Weigel stepped up to take the first shot.
International Space Station Program Manager Dana Weigel takes the first shot on Nov. 6, 2024, as the Houston Rockets go up against the San Antonio Spurs at Toyota Center.NASA/Helen Arase Vargas The ceremonial first shot also gave back to the community, with Rockets owner Tilman Fertitta donating $1,000 to the Clutch City Foundation to support underserved youth through education, sports, and disaster relief.
Throughout the game, Johnson employees kept the crowd engaged with NASA trivia, creating a “launch countdown” energy that had fans cheering. The arena lit up as Adam Savage narrated a video showcasing the International Space Station’s groundbreaking contributions to science. From unlocking discoveries impossible on Earth to testing critical technologies for our return to the Moon, the orbiting laboratory plays a vital role in advancing medical and social breakthroughs that enhance life on our planet.
The Artemis II crew also appeared on the jumbotron, reminding everyone of NASA’s mission to establish a long-term presence on the Moon for scientific discovery, economic benefits, and to inspire a new generation of explorers.
Dana Weigel, center, shows off a Rockets jersey on the court with Rockets mascot Clutch, left, and NASA mascot Cosmo.NASA/Helen Arase Vargas In the Sky Court area of the stadium concourse, Johnson volunteers held “mission control” with an interactive exhibit that drew fans in like a gravitational pull. From exploring a Space Launch System model and handling a spacesuit helmet and glove to touching a 3.4-billion-year-old Moon rock collected during Apollo 17, NASA’s booth offered attendees a glimpse into space exploration.
Visitors had the chance to ask questions and bring home mission pins, stickers, and hands-on activities, provided by the International Space Station Program and the Artemis campaign. Seventy-five “Lucky Row” fans also received bags filled with NASA outreach materials, courtesy of the Johnson Public Engagement team.
NASA’s Johnson Space Center volunteers connect with fans at the game through an interactive exhibit.NASA The Orion Flight Simulator, with its realistic switches and displays, provided an immersive experience that allowed fans to dock the Orion spacecraft to humanity’s first lunar space station, Gateway.
More than 600 fans eagerly lined up to experience NASA’s mobile exhibit trailer in the Toyota Center parking lot—drawing lines as long as those at the box office.
Fans engage with the Orion Flight Simulator at NASA’s booth. NASA/Helen Arase Vargas Fans also tested their skills with a crew assembly activity focused on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, simulating the challenges astronauts face in orbit. NASA’s inflatable mascot, Cosmo, joined the action on the court, posing for photos and adding galactic fun to events like the T-shirt giveaway.
The Houston Rockets mascot Clutch and NASA mascot Cosmo team up on the court at Toyota Center in Houston.NASA/Helen Arase Vargas NASA’s presence brought together the excitement of sports with the wonder of space exploration, inspiring fans to keep shooting for the stars.
View more images from the event below.
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