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By European Space Agency
On 15 October 2024, ESA’s Euclid space mission reveals the first piece of its great map of the Universe, showing millions of stars and galaxies.
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By NASA
Credit: NASA NASA has selected Metis Technology Solutions Inc. of Albuquerque, New Mexico, to provide engineering services as well as develop and maintain software and hardware used to conduct simulations for aerospace research and development across the agency.
The Aerospace Research, Technology, and Simulations (ARTS) contract is a hybrid cost-plus-fixed-fee and firm-fixed-price contract with an indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity component and has a maximum potential value of $177 million. The performance period begins Sunday, Dec. 1, 2024, with a one-year base period, and options to extend performance through November 2029.
Under this contract, the company will support the preparation, development, operation, and maintenance of future and existing simulators, integration laboratories, aircraft research systems, simulation work areas, and aircraft research systems. The scope of work also will include the development, testing, and validation of advanced air traffic management automation tools, including, but not limited to, advanced concepts for aviation ecosystems. Work will primarily be performed at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley and NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, as well as other agency or government locations, as needed.
For information about NASA and agency programs, visit:
https://www.nasa.gov
-end-
Tiernan Doyle
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
tiernan.doyle@nasa.gov
Rachel Hoover
Ames Research Center, Silicon Valley, Calif.
650-604-4789
rachel.hoover@nasa.gov
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Last Updated Oct 10, 2024 LocationNASA Headquarters Related Terms
Ames Research Center Langley Research Center NASA Centers & Facilities NASA Headquarters View the full article
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By NASA
5 min read
NASA: New Insights into How Mars Became Uninhabitable
NASA’s Curiosity rover, currently exploring Gale crater on Mars, is providing new details about how the ancient Martian climate went from potentially suitable for life – with evidence for widespread liquid water on the surface – to a surface that is inhospitable to terrestrial life as we know it.
This is an artist’s concept of an early Mars with liquid water (blue areas) on its surface. Ancient regions on Mars bear signs of abundant water – such as features resembling valleys and deltas, and minerals that only form in the presence of liquid water. Scientists think that billions of years ago, the atmosphere of Mars was much denser and warm enough to form rivers, lakes, and perhaps even oceans of water. As the planet cooled and lost its global magnetic field, the solar wind and solar storms eroded away to space a significant amount of the planet’s atmosphere, turning Mars into the cold, arid desert we see today. NASA/MAVEN/The Lunar and Planetary Institute Although the surface of Mars is frigid and hostile to life today, NASA’s robotic explorers at Mars are searching for clues as to whether it could have supported life in the distant past. Researchers used instruments on board Curiosity to measure the isotopic composition of carbon-rich minerals (carbonates) found in Gale crater and discovered new insights into how the Red Planet’s ancient climate transformed.
“The isotope values of these carbonates point toward extreme amounts of evaporation, suggesting that these carbonates likely formed in a climate that could only support transient liquid water,” said David Burtt of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and lead author of a paper describing this research published October 7 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. “Our samples are not consistent with an ancient environment with life (biosphere) on the surface of Mars, although this does not rule out the possibility of an underground biosphere or a surface biosphere that began and ended before these carbonates formed.”
Isotopes are versions of an element with different masses. As water evaporated, light versions of carbon and oxygen were more likely to escape into the atmosphere, while the heavy versions were left behind more often, accumulating into higher abundances and, in this case, eventually being incorporated into the carbonate rocks. Scientists are interested in carbonates because of their proven ability to act as climate records. These minerals can retain signatures of the environments in which they formed, including the temperature and acidity of the water, and the composition of the water and the atmosphere.
The paper proposes two formation mechanisms for carbonates found at Gale. In the first scenario, carbonates are formed through a series of wet-dry cycles within Gale crater. In the second, carbonates are formed in very salty water under cold, ice-forming (cryogenic) conditions in Gale crater.
“These formation mechanisms represent two different climate regimes that may present different habitability scenarios,” said Jennifer Stern of NASA Goddard, a co-author of the paper. “Wet-dry cycling would indicate alternation between more-habitable and less-habitable environments, while cryogenic temperatures in the mid-latitudes of Mars would indicate a less-habitable environment where most water is locked up in ice and not available for chemistry or biology, and what is there is extremely salty and unpleasant for life.”
These climate scenarios for ancient Mars have been proposed before, based on the presence of certain minerals, global-scale modeling, and the identification of rock formations. This result is the first to add isotopic evidence from rock samples in support of the scenarios.
The heavy isotope values in the Martian carbonates are significantly higher than what’s seen on Earth for carbonate minerals and are the heaviest carbon and oxygen isotope values recorded for any Mars materials. In fact, according to the team, both the wet-dry and the cold-salty climates are required to form carbonates that are so enriched in heavy carbon and oxygen.
“The fact that these carbon and oxygen isotope values are higher than anything else measured on Earth or Mars points towards a process (or processes) being taken to an extreme,” said Burtt. “While evaporation can cause significant oxygen isotope changes on Earth, the changes measured in this study were two to three times larger. This means two things: 1) there was an extreme degree of evaporation driving these isotope values to be so heavy, and 2) these heavier values were preserved so any processes that would create lighter isotope values must have been significantly smaller in magnitude.”
This discovery was made using the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) and Tunable Laser Spectrometer (TLS) instruments aboard the Curiosity rover. SAM heats samples up to nearly 1,652 degrees Fahrenheit (almost 900°C) and then the TLS is used to analyze the gases that are produced during that heating phase.
Funding for this work came from NASA’s Mars Exploration Program through the Mars Science Laboratory project. Curiosity was built by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), which is managed by Caltech in Pasadena, California. JPL leads the mission on behalf of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. NASA Goddard built the SAM instrument, which is a miniaturized scientific laboratory that includes three different instruments for analyzing chemistry, including the TLS, plus mechanisms for handling and processing samples.
By William Steigerwald
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland
Media contacts:
Nancy Neal-Jones/Andrew Good
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md./Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
301-286-0039/818-393-2433
nancy.n.jones@nasa.gov / andrew.c.good@jpl.nasa.gov
Karen Fox / Molly Wasser
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
karen.c.fox@nasa.gov / molly.l.wasser@nasa.gov
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Last Updated Oct 07, 2024 Editor wasteigerwald Contact wasteigerwald william.a.steigerwald@nasa.gov Location NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Related Terms
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3 min read 2024 ASGSR Art Competition!
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6 min read Celebrating 10 Years at Mars with NASA’s MAVEN Mission
A decade ago, on Sept. 21, 2014, NASA’s MAVEN (Mars Atmospheric and Volatile EvolutioN) spacecraft…
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6 min read NASA’s Hubble, MAVEN Help Solve the Mystery of Mars’ Escaping Water
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By NASA
5 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
Aerospace Medicine Clerkship montage of imagesNASA The application window for the April 2025 session is open. The next available session will convene Monday, March 31- Friday, April 25. Applications for the April 2025 session will close on Monday, December 2, 2024 at 1159 CT.
If you have read the FAQ and still have questions, don’t hesitate to get in touch with me via email at amy.n.honors@nasa.gov, as hybrid work schedules are in place at JSC, and office phones may be manned sporadically until further notice.
When submitting your application, electronic submissions are strongly preferred. Please refer to the instructions in the application document and ensure that you are using a secure encrypted platform that may require a password or code to access upon receipt. (O365 is the preferred encryption platform, and if your institution has a similar platform, this may be used as well). Not encrypted applications will not be accepted and must be deleted immediately to adhere to NASA JSC policies to protect and handle your PII accordingly. Also, please confirm application receipt and do not assume your application has been received unless confirmed via email by Amy Honors.
Work Tour Description
The four-week Aerospace Medicine Clerkship is offered twice annually during April and October at the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center (located in Houston, TX) and typically begins the first Monday and concludes on the last Friday of the month. The clerkship involves formal lectures on space medicine topics and issues, familiarization with the medical aspects of International Space Station operations, design, and function as well as Exploration Medical Capability for deep space exploration. Clerkship participants are required to complete a research project and scientific poster with an accompanying 250 word abstract in a current focus area of space medicine, which will be presented in an open forum poster session for not only the JSC Space Medicine Operations and clinical community, but other interested divisions/elements at JSC.
Eligibility Requirements
Interested persons must be a US Citizen (or hold dual citizenship to include the US) The MINIMUM educational requirement is to be in your final year of medical school. (residents and attending physicians are eligible to apply) Must have an interest in Aerospace Medicine and plan to apply in future career goals Application and Selection Process
All applicants must include the following:
Application Statement of Interest Curriculum vitae (CV) A letter of good standing and recommendation from the school or institution and an official transcript (or diploma if applicable) from the medical school is required. Applications are due June 1st for the October clerkship and December 1st for the April clerkship.
Upon completion of the application period, a maximum of 20 students will be selected for each of the clerkships by a committee of NASA flight surgeons and other Space Medicine Training and or Clinical Operations team members.
Selection is based upon demonstrated interest and career goals involving Aerospace Medicine, academic standing, the content of a Dean’s recommendation (or direct supervisor if graduated) *, research, and work experience.
* Letter can be from the medical school Dean or Departmental Dean. Supervisor letter would apply to those beyond the 4th year and can provide their diploma.
Application File Download
Aerospace Medicine Clerkship Application
Sep 14, 2023
PDF (127.36 KB)
Aerospace Medicine Clerkship group picture at JSC Neutral Buoyancy LabNASA You must send your application package via a secure email platform. Many institutions have a secure email platform in which I will create an account/password to access your attachments. Please do not submit your application via regular email as I cannot open them and they will be deleted.
***The email platform MUST be secure/encrypted to comply with NASA/JSC policies to protect your Private Identifiable Information (PII) and in order for your application to be accepted.***
If you find it necessary to Mail your application, please use USPS or a courier to send your application to:
Amy N. Honors
NASA Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center
Mail Code SD222
2101 NASA Parkway
Houston, Texas 77058
Logistics of the Clerkship
All costs incurred during the clerkship are your responsibility. NASA JSC or KBR provides no monies for the clerkship.
If selected, to assist with lodging, you will be supplied with access to our local JSC Housing Co-Op as well as recommendations for local hotels, extended stays, and areas to target for AirBnB and VRBO, etc.
You will be supplied with a computer to be used for research purposes only, and access to several collaborative work areas on-site at JSC.
Participants are responsible for their transportation during the clerkship. Participants are also encouraged to carpool with other clerks.
Aerospace Medicine Clerkship participant view altitude chamber at NASA NBL.NASA During The Clerkship
During the clerkship, you will be exposed to a variety of space medicine topics given in presentations, lectures, and tours, such as the medical equipment available to crew members in space, space physiology, radiation monitoring, tours of the training facilities, etc. The daily activities will include both presentations and tours, as well as time for you to work on your project. The schedules are always subject to change. You will be present/available M-F 8:00 am – 5:00 pm. (40 hrs/week) and no required activities scheduled on the weekends.
This clerkship is considered an educational/research clerkship and is non-clinical. Therefore, contact/interaction with patients during the clerkship should not be expected.
Point of Contact
Amy Honors 281-483-7050
Additional Resources for Aerospace Medicine
Below are additional resources for Aerospace Medicine knowledge and networking, some of which may also provide opportunities for non-U.S. citizens.**
Aerospace Medical Association (AsMA) Aerospace Medicine Student and Resident Organization (AMSRO) University of Texas Medical Branch Principles of Aviation and Space Medicine Short course. Information: 4-week course, also 4th/final year of medical school eligibility. DOES accept foreign national applications. It has many aspects that are not in the clerkship, such as commercial spaceflight and general aviation medicine. NASA Internships – wide range of opportunities. Clerkship FAQ’s
Aerospace Medicine Clerkship FAQ’s (PDF, 190KB)
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Last Updated Sep 30, 2024 EditorRobert E. LewisLocationJohnson Space Center Related Terms
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By Space Force
Col. Nick Hague, Space Force Guardian and NASA astronaut, will command the mission and join the Expedition 72 crew aboard the ISS, where they will conduct scientific research and maintenance activities.
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