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Low Leakage Cryogenic Disconnects for Fuel Transfer and Long-Term Storage
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By NASA
Flight Engineer Joe Acaba works in the U.S. Destiny laboratory module on the International Space Station, setting up hardware for the Zero Boil-Off Tank (ZBOT) experiment. Joe Acaba Space missions rely on cryogenic fluids — extremely cold liquids like liquid hydrogen and oxygen — for both propulsion and life support systems. These fuels must be kept at ultra-low cryogenic temperatures to remain in liquid form; however, solar heating and other sources of heat increase the rate of evaporation of the liquid and cause the pressure in the storage tank to increase. Current storage methods require venting the cryogenic propellant to space to control the pressure in fuel tanks.
NASA’s Zero Boil-Off Tank Noncondensables (ZBOT-NC) experiment is the continuation of Zero Boil-Off studies gathering crucial data to optimize fuel storage systems for space missions. The experiment will launch aboard Northrop Grumman’s 23rd resupply mission to the International Space Station.
When Cold Fuel Gets Too Warm
Even with multilayer insulation, heat unavoidably seeps into cryogenic fuel tanks from surrounding structures and the space environment, causing an increase in the liquid temperature and an associated increase in the evaporation rate. In turn, the pressure inside the tank increases. This process is called “boil-off” and the increase in tank pressure is referred to as “self-pressurization.”
Venting excess gas to the environment or space when this process occurs is highly undesirable and becomes mission-critical on extended journeys. If crew members used current fuel storage methods for a years-long Mars expedition, all propellant might be lost to boil-off before the trip ends.
NASA’s ZBOT experiments are investigating active pressure control methods to eliminate wasteful fuel venting. Specifically, active control through the use of jet mixing and other techniques are being evaluated and tested in the ZBOT series of experiments.
The Pressure Control Problem
ZBOT-NC further studies how noncondensable gases (NCGs) affect fuel tank behavior when present in spacecraft systems. NCGs don’t turn into liquid under the tank’s operating conditions and can affect tank pressure.
The investigation, which is led out of Glenn Research Center, will operate inside the Microgravity Science Glovebox aboard the space station to gather data on how NCGs affect volatile liquid behavior in microgravity. It’s part of an effort to advance cryogenic fluid management technologies and help NASA better understand low-gravity fluid behavior.
Researchers will measure pressure and temperature as they study how these gases change evaporation and condensation rates. Previous studies indicate the gases create barriers that could reduce a tank’s ability to maintain proper pressure control — a potentially serious issue for extended space missions.
How this benefits space exploration
The research directly supports Mars missions and other long-duration space travel by helping engineers design more efficient fuel storage systems and future space depots. The findings may also benefit scientific instruments on space telescopes and probes that rely on cryogenic fluids to maintain the extremely low temperatures needed for operation.
How this benefits humanity
The investigation could improve tank design models for medical, industrial, and energy production applications that depend on long-term cryogenic storage on Earth.
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NASA’s Biological and Physical Sciences Division pioneers scientific discovery and enables exploration by using space environments to conduct investigations not possible on Earth. Studying biological and physical phenomenon under extreme conditions allows researchers to advance the fundamental scientific knowledge required to go farther and stay longer in space, while also benefitting life on Earth.
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By NASA
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Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
Dwarf planet Ceres is shown in these enhanced-color renderings that use images from NASA’s Dawn mission. New thermal and chemicals models that rely on the mission’s data indicate Ceres may have long ago had conditions suitable for life.NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA The dwarf planet is cold now, but new research paints a picture of Ceres hosting a deep, long-lived energy source that may have maintained habitable conditions in the past.
New NASA research has found that Ceres may have had a lasting source of chemical energy: the right types of molecules needed to fuel some microbial metabolisms. Although there is no evidence that microorganisms ever existed on Ceres, the finding supports theories that this intriguing dwarf planet, which is the largest body in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, may have once had conditions suitable to support single-celled lifeforms.
Science data from NASA’s Dawn mission, which ended in 2018, previously showed that the bright, reflective regions on Ceres’ surface are mostly made of salts left over from liquid that percolated up from underground. Later analysis in 2020 found that the source of this liquid was an enormous reservoir of brine, or salty water, below the surface. In other research, the Dawn mission also revealed evidence that Ceres has organic material in the form of carbon molecules — essential, though not sufficient on its own, to support microbial cells.
The presence of water and carbon molecules are two critical pieces of the habitability puzzle on Ceres. The new findings offer the third: a long-lasting source of chemical energy in Ceres’ ancient past that could have made it possible for microorganisms to survive. This result does not mean that Ceres had life, but rather, that there likely was “food” available should life have ever arisen on Ceres.
This illustration depicts the interior of dwarf planet Ceres, including the transfer of water and gases from the rocky core to a reservoir of salty water. Carbon dioxide and methane are among the molecules carrying chemical energy beneath Ceres’ surface.NASA/JPL-Caltech In the study, published in Science Advances on Aug. 20, the authors built thermal and chemical models mimicking the temperature and composition of Ceres’ interior over time. They found that 2.5 billion years or so ago, Ceres’ subsurface ocean may have had a steady supply of hot water containing dissolved gases traveling up from metamorphosed rocks in the rocky core. The heat came from the decay of radioactive elements within the dwarf planet’s rocky interior that occurred when Ceres was young — an internal process thought to be common in our solar system.
“On Earth, when hot water from deep underground mixes with the ocean, the result is often a buffet for microbes — a feast of chemical energy. So it could have big implications if we could determine whether Ceres’ ocean had an influx of hydrothermal fluid in the past,” said Sam Courville, lead author of the study. Now based at Arizona State University in Tempe, he led the research while working as an intern at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, which also managed the Dawn mission.
Catching Chill
The Ceres we know today is unlikely to be habitable. It is cooler, with more ice and less water than in the past. There is currently insufficient heat from radioactive decay within Ceres to keep the water from freezing, and what liquid remains has become a concentrated brine.
The period when Ceres would most likely have been habitable was between a half-billion and 2 billion years after it formed (or about 2.5 billion to 4 billion years ago), when its rocky core reached its peak temperature. That’s when warm fluids would have been introduced into Ceres’ underground water.
The dwarf planet also doesn’t have the benefit of present-day internal heating generated by the push and pull of orbiting a large planet, like Saturn’s moon Enceladus and Jupiter’s moon Europa do. So Ceres’ greatest potential for habitability-fueling energy was in the past.
This result has implications for water-rich objects throughout the outer solar system, too. Many of the other icy moons and dwarf planets that are of similar size to Ceres (about 585 miles, or 940 kilometers, in diameter) and don’t have significant internal heating from the gravitational pull of planets could have also had a period of habitability in their past.
More About Dawn
A division of Caltech in Pasadena, JPL managed Dawn’s mission for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Dawn was a project of the directorate’s Discovery Program, managed by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. JPL was responsible for overall Dawn mission science. Northrop Grumman in Dulles, Virginia, designed and built the spacecraft. The German Aerospace Center, Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, Italian Space Agency and Italian National Astrophysical Institute were international partners on the mission team.
For a complete list of mission participants, visit:
https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/missions/dawn/overview/
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Last Updated Aug 20, 2025 Related Terms
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By NASA
Explore Hubble Hubble Home Overview About Hubble The History of Hubble Hubble Timeline Why Have a Telescope in Space? Hubble by the Numbers At the Museum FAQs Impact & Benefits Hubble’s Impact & Benefits Science Impacts Cultural Impact Technology Benefits Impact on Human Spaceflight Astro Community Impacts Science Hubble Science Science Themes Science Highlights Science Behind Discoveries Hubble’s Partners in Science Universe Uncovered AI and Hubble Science Explore the Night Sky Observatory Hubble Observatory Hubble Design Mission Operations Missions to Hubble Hubble vs Webb Team Hubble Team Career Aspirations Hubble Astronauts Multimedia Images Videos Sonifications Podcasts e-Books Online Activities 3D Hubble Models Lithographs Fact Sheets Posters Hubble on the NASA App Glossary News Hubble News Social Media Media Resources More 35th Anniversary Online Activities 2 min read
Hubble Examines Low Brightness, High Interest Galaxy
This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image features a portion of the spiral galaxy NGC 45. ESA/Hubble & NASA, D. Calzetti, R. Chandar; Acknowledgment: M. H. Özsaraç This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image zooms in on the feathery spiral arms of the galaxy NGC 45, which lies just 22 million light-years away in the constellation Cetus (the Whale).
The portrait uses data drawn from two complementary observing programs. The first took a broad view of 50 nearby galaxies, leveraging Hubble’s ability to observe ultraviolet through visible into near-infrared light to study star formation in these galaxies. The second program examined many of the same nearby galaxies as the first, narrowing in on a particular wavelength of red light called H-alpha. Star-forming nebulae are powerful producers of H-alpha light, and several of these regions are visible across NGC 45 as bright pink-red patches.
These observing programs aimed to study star formation in galaxies of different sizes, structures, and degrees of isolation — and NGC 45 is a particularly interesting target. Though it may appear to be a regular spiral galaxy, NGC 45 is a remarkable type called a low surface brightness galaxy.
Low surface brightness galaxies are fainter than the night sky itself, making them incredibly difficult to detect. They appear unexpectedly faint because they have relatively few stars for the volume of gas and dark matter they carry. In the decades since astronomers serendipitously discovered the first low surface brightness galaxy in 1986, researchers have learned that 30–60% of all galaxies may fall into this category. Studying these hard-to-detect galaxies is key to understanding how galaxies form and evolve, and Hubble’s sensitive instruments are equal to the task.
Text Credit: ESA/Hubble
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Last Updated Aug 14, 2025 Editor Andrea Gianopoulos Location NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Related Terms
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By NASA
Credit: NASA NASA has selected six companies to produce studies focused on lower-cost ways to launch and deliver spacecraft of various sizes and forms to multiple, difficult-to-reach orbits.
The firm-fixed-price awards comprise nine studies with a maximum total value of approximately $1.4 million. The awardees are:
Arrow Science and Technology LLC, Webster, Texas Blue Origin LLC, Merritt Island, Florida Firefly Aerospace Inc., Cedar Park, Texas Impulse Space Inc., Redondo Beach, California Rocket Lab, Long Beach, California United Launch Services LLC, Centennial, Colorado “With the increasing maturity of commercial space delivery capabilities, we’re asking companies to demonstrate how they can meet NASA’s need for multi-spacecraft and multi-orbit delivery to difficult-to-reach orbits beyond current launch service offerings,” said Joe Dant, orbital transfer vehicle strategic initiative owner for the Launch Services Program at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. “This will increase unique science capability and lower the agency’s overall mission costs.”
Each of the six companies will deliver studies exploring future application of orbital transfer vehicles for NASA missions:
Arrow will partner with Quantum Space for its study. Quantum’s Ranger provides payload delivery service as a multi-mission spacecraft engineered for rapid maneuverability and adaptability, enabling multi-destination delivery for missions from low Earth orbit to lunar orbit.
Blue Origin will produce two studies, including one for Blue Ring, a large, high-mobility space platform providing full-service payload delivery, on-board edge computing, hosting, and end-to-end mission operations. It uses hybrid solar-electric and chemical propulsion capability to reach geostationary, cislunar, Mars, and interplanetary destinations. The second is a New Glenn upper stage study.
Firefly’s line of Elytra orbital vehicles offers on-demand payload delivery, imaging, long-haul communications, and domain awareness across cislunar space. Firefly’s Elytra Dark is equipped to serve as a transfer vehicle and enable ongoing operations in lunar orbit for more than five years.
Impulse Space will produce two studies. The company provides in-space mobility with two vehicles, Mira and Helios. Mira is a high-thrust, highly maneuverable spacecraft for payload hosting and deployment, while Helios is a high-energy kick stage to rapidly deliver payloads from low Earth to medium Earth orbits, geostationary orbits and beyond.
Rocket Lab’s two studies will feature the upper stage of the company’s Neutron rocket, as well as a long-life orbital transfer vehicle based on its Explorer spacecraft. Both vehicles are equipped with their own propulsion systems and other subsystems for missions to medium Earth and geosynchronous orbit and deep space destinations like the Moon, Mars, and near-Earth asteroids.
United Launch Alliance will assess the cislunar mission capabilities of an extended-duration Centaur V upper stage. Centaur would be capable of directly delivering multiple rideshare spacecraft to two different orbital destinations in cislunar space, avoiding the need for an additional rocket stage or orbital transfer vehicle.
The studies will be complete by mid-September. NASA will use the findings to inform mission design, planning, and commercial launch acquisition strategies for risk-tolerant payloads, with a possibility of expanding delivery services to larger-sized payloads and to less risk-tolerant missions in the future.
NASA’s Launch Services Program selected providers through the agency’s VADR (Venture-Class Acquisition of Dedicated and Rideshare Launch Services) contract, which helps foster growth of the U.S. commercial launch market, enabling greater access to space at a lower cost for science and technology missions.
For more information about NASA’s Launch Services Program, visit:
https://www.nasa.gov/launch-services-program
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Josh Finch
Headquarters, Washington
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Leejay Lockhart
Kennedy Space Center, Florida
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Last Updated Aug 05, 2025 LocationKennedy Space Center Related Terms
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By NASA
As the Sun approaches the most active part of its eleven-year magnetic cycle this summer, NASA volunteers have been watching it closely. Now they’ve spotted a new trend in solar behavior that will have you reaching for your suntan lotion. It’s all about something called a “Type II” solar radio burst:
“Type II solar radio bursts are not commonly detected in the frequency range between 15 to 30 megahertz,” said Prof. Chuck Higgins, Co-founder of Radio JOVE. “Recently, we’re seeing many of them in that range.”
Let’s unpack that. Our Sun often sprays powerful blasts of radio waves into space. Heliophysicists classify these radio bursts into five different types depending on how the frequency of the radio waves drifts over time. “Type II” solar radio bursts seem to come from solar flares and enormous squirts of hot plasma called coronal mass ejections.
Now, Thomas Freeman, an undergraduate student at Middle Tennessee State University, and other volunteers working on NASA’s Radio JOVE project have observed something interesting about these Type II bursts: they are now showing up at lower frequencies—somewhere in between FM and AM radio.
What does it mean? It means our star is full of surprises! These Radio JOVE observations of the Sun’s radio emissions during solar maximum can be used to extend our knowledge of solar emissions to lower frequencies and, therefore, to distances farther from the Sun.
Radio JOVE is a NASA partner citizen science project in which participants assemble and operate radio astronomy telescopes to gather and contribute data to support scientific studies. Radio JOVE collaborated with SunRISE Ground Radio Lab, organized teams of high school students to observe the Sun, and recently published a paper on these Type II solar radio bursts. Learn more and get involved!
A Type II solar radio burst on April 23rd, 2024, seen as the gently sloping yellow band drifting from 17:49 to 18:02 UTC in the 15-30 MHz radio frequency-time spectrogram. Credit: Tom Ashcraft, Lamy, NM Share
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