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Envisioning the Next Generation of Human Presence in Low Earth Orbit
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By NASA
NASA has selected 12 student teams to develop solutions for storing and transferring the super-cold liquid propellants needed for future long-term exploration beyond Earth orbit.
The agency’s 2025 Human Lander Challenge is designed to inspire and engage the next generation of engineers and scientists as NASA and its partners prepare to send astronauts to the Moon through the Artemis campaign in preparation for future missions to Mars. The commercial human landing systems will serve as the primary mode of transportation that will safely take astronauts and, later, large cargo from lunar orbit to the surface of the Moon and back.
For its second year, the competition invites university students and their faculty advisors to develop innovative, “cooler” solutions for in-space cryogenic, or super cold, liquid propellant storage and transfer systems. These cryogenic fluids, like liquid hydrogen or liquid oxygen, must stay extremely cold to remain in a liquid state, and the ability to effectively store and transfer them in space will be increasingly vital for future long-duration missions. Current technology allows cryogenic liquids to be stored for a relatively short amount of time, but future missions will require these systems to function effectively over several hours, weeks, and even months.
The 12 selected finalists have been awarded a $9,250 development stipend to further develop their concepts in preparation for the next stage of the competition.
The 2025 Human Lander Challenge finalist teams are:
California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, “THERMOSPRING: Thermal Exchange Reduction Mechanism using Optimized SPRING” Colorado School of Mines, “MAST: Modular Adaptive Support Technology” Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, “Electrical Capacitance to High-resolution Observation (ECHO)” Jacksonville University, “Cryogenic Complex: Cryogenic Tanks and Storage Systems – on the Moon and Cislunar Orbit” Jacksonville University, “Cryogenic Fuel Storage and Transfer: The Human Interface – Monitoring and Mitigating Risks” Massachusetts Institute of Technology, “THERMOS: Translunar Heat Rejection and Mixing for Orbital Sustainability” Old Dominion University, “Structural Tensegrity for Optimized Retention in Microgravity (STORM)” Texas A&M University, “Next-generation Cryogenic Transfer and Autonomous Refueling (NeCTAR)” The College of New Jersey, “Cryogenic Orbital Siphoning System (CROSS)” The Ohio State University, “Autonomous Magnetized Cryo-Couplers with Active Alignment Control for Propellant Transfer (AMCC-AAC) University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, “Efficient Cryogenic Low Invasive Propellant Supply Exchange (ECLIPSE)” Washington State University, “CRYPRESS Coupler for Liquid Hydrogen Transfer” Finalist teams will now work to submit a technical paper further detailing their concepts. They will present their work to a panel of NASA and industry judges at the 2025 Human Lander Competition Forum in Huntsville, Alabama, near NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, in June 2025. The top three placing teams will share a total prize purse of $18,000.
“By engaging college students in solving critical challenges in cryogenic fluid technologies and systems-level solutions, NASA fosters a collaborative environment where academic research meets practical application,” said Tiffany Russell Lockett, office manager for the Human Landing System Mission Systems Management Office at NASA Marshall. “This partnership not only accelerates cryogenics technology development but also prepares the Artemis Generation – the next generation of engineers and scientists – to drive future breakthroughs in spaceflight.”
NASA’s Human Lander Challenge is sponsored by the agency’s Human Landing System Program within the Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate and managed by the National Institute of Aerospace.
For more information on NASA’s 2025 Human Lander Challenge, including team progress, visit the challenge website.
News Media Contact
Corinne Beckinger
Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala.
256.544.0034
corinne.m.beckinger@nasa.gov
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By European Space Agency
Image: The Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission shows us what is left of the Aral Sea, once the fourth largest lake in the world. View the full article
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By European Space Agency
Image: The Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission captures the striking landscape surrounding the Waza National Park in Cameroon. View the full article
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By NASA
3 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
Ice cover ebbs and flows through the seasons in the Arctic (left) and the Antarctic (right). Overall, ice cover has declined since scientists started tracking it half a century ago. Download this visualization from NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio: https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/5099Trent Schindler/NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio Winter sea ice cover in the Arctic was the lowest it’s ever been at its annual peak on March 22, 2025, according to NASA and the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) at the University of Colorado, Boulder. At 5.53 million square miles (14.33 million square kilometers), the maximum extent fell below the prior low of 5.56 million square miles (14.41 million square kilometers) in 2017.
In the dark and cold of winter, sea ice forms and spreads across Arctic seas. But in recent years, less new ice has been forming, and less multi-year ice has accumulated. This winter continued a downward trend scientists have observed over the past several decades. This year’s peak ice cover was 510,000 square miles (1.32 million square kilometers) below the average levels between 1981 and 2010.
In 2025, summer ice in the Antarctic retreated to 764,000 square miles (1.98 million square kilometers) on March 1, tying for the second lowest minimum extent ever recorded. That’s 30% below the 1.10 million square miles (2.84 million square kilometers) that was typical in the Antarctic prior to 2010. Sea ice extent is defined as the total area of the ocean with at least 15% ice concentration.
The reduction in ice in both polar regions has led to another milestone — the total amount of sea ice on the planet reached an all-time low. Globally, ice coverage in mid-February of this year declined by more than a million square miles (2.5 million square kilometers) from the average before 2010. Altogether, Earth is missing an area of sea ice large enough to cover the entire continental United States east of the Mississippi.
“We’re going to come into this next summer season with less ice to begin with,” said Linette Boisvert, an ice scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “It doesn’t bode well for the future.”
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Observations since 1978 show that ice cover has declined at both poles, leading to a downward trend in the total ice cover over the entire planet. In February 2025, global ice fell to the smallest area ever recorded. Download this visualization from NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio: https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/5521Mark Subbaro/NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio Scientists primarily rely on satellites in the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program, which measure Earth’s radiation in the microwave range. This natural radiation is different for open water and for sea ice — with ice cover standing out brightly in microwave-based satellite images. Microwave scanners can also penetrate through cloud cover, allowing for daily global observations. The DMSP data are augmented with historical sources, including data collected between 1978 and 1985 with the Nimbus-7 satellite that was jointly operated by NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
“It’s not yet clear whether the Southern Hemisphere has entered a new norm with perennially low ice or if the Antarctic is in a passing phase that will revert to prior levels in the years to come,” said Walt Meier, an ice scientist with NSIDC.
By James Riordon
NASA’s Earth Science News Team
Media contact: Elizabeth Vlock
NASA Headquarters
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Last Updated Mar 27, 2025 LocationNASA Goddard Space Flight Center Related Terms
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By NASA
Explore This Section Earth Home Earth Observer Home Editor’s Corner Feature Articles Meeting Summaries News Science in the News Calendars In Memoriam More Archives 11 min read
The Earth Observer Editor’s Corner: January–March 2025
NASA’s Earth Observing fleet continues to age gracefully. While several new missions have joined the fleet in the past year, scientists and engineers work to extend the life of existing missions and maximize their science along the way. The crowning example is the first Earth Observing System (EOS) Flagship mission, Terra, which celebrated a quarter-century in orbit on December 18, 2024.
Terra, continues to collect daily morning Earth observations using five different instruments: Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER), Clouds and the Earth’s Radiant Energy System (CERES), Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer (MISR), Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), and Measurement of Pollution in the Troposphere (MOPITT). Collectively, these observations have established a robust satellite record of global scientific processes to track changes in temperature, glaciers, clouds, vegetation, land-use, air quality, and natural hazards such as hurricanes, wildfires, and volcanic eruptions.
Originally designed for a six-year prime mission, Terra continues to deliver data used by emergency managers, researchers, and modelers over a quarter-of-a-century later. On December 18th, 2024, NASA celebrated the 25th anniversary of Terra’s launch with a celebration at the Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) Visitor’s Center. NASA Senior management [from NASA Headquarters and GSFC] as well as other key figures from Terra’s long history gave brief remarks and perspectives on Terra’s development and achievements. To read a review of the celebration, see “Celebrating 25 Years of Terra.”
Terra-related sessions (poster and oral) during the Fall American Geophysical Union (AGU) meeting were well-attended. The Terra team took advantage of the meeting to have a celebratory anniversary dinner that included attendees representing each of the five instruments.
Another mission to recently reach a longevity milestone is NASA’s Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 (OCO-2), which celebrated 10 years in space last summer. OCO-2, which launched on July 2, 2014, from the Vandenburg Air Force (now Space Force) Base in California, was originally designed as a pathfinder mission to measure carbon dioxide (CO2) with the precision and accuracy needed to quantify where, when, and how the Earth inhales and exhales this important greenhouse gas seasonally. OCO-2 was part of the international Afternoon Constellation, or “A-Train,” which also included Aqua, Aura, CloudSat, and CALIPSO, as well as international partner missions.
Since its launch, OCO-2 data have revealed unprecedented insights into how the carbon cycle operates – from observing the impact and recovery of tropical land and ocean ecosystems during El Niño events to revealing the outsized impacts of extreme events, such as floods, droughts, and fires on ecosystem health and functioning. Researchers from around the world use OCO-2 data, opening new opportunities for understanding the response of the carbon cycle to human-driven perturbations, such as the impact of COVID lockdowns on atmospheric CO2 and improved quantification of emissions from large power plants and cities.
OCO-2 also maps vegetation fluorescence, which shows promise as a reliable early warning indicator of flash drought. During photosynthesis, plants “leak” unused photons, producing a faint glow known as solar-induced fluorescence (SIF). The stronger the fluorescence, the more CO2 a plant is taking from the atmosphere to power its growth. Ancillary SIF measurements from OCO-2 will help scientists better predict flash droughts, and understand how these impact carbon emissions.
Ten years into the mission, OCO-2 has become the gold standard for CO2 measurements from space. The spacecraft and instrument continue to perform nominally, producing data leading to new scientific discoveries.
OCO–3, built from spare parts during the build of OCO-2 and launched to the International Space Station (ISS) in 2019, also celebrated a milestone, marking five years in orbit on May 4, 2024. While the follow-on has the same instrument sensitivity and makes essentially the same measurements as OCO-2, the vantage point on the ISS as opposed to OCO-2’s polar orbit and the use of a new pointing mirror assembly (PMA) results in significant day-to-day spatial and temporal sampling differences that allows CO2 tracking for diurnal variability. In addition, the flexible PMA system allows for a much more dynamic observation-mode schedule.
Further out in space, about 1 million mi (~1.1 million km) from Earth, orbiting the “L1” Lagrange point between Earth and Sun, the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) celebrated the 10th anniversary of its launch on February 11, 2025. The two NASA Earth observing instruments on DSCOVR are the Earth Polychromatic Camera (EPIC) and National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Advanced Radiometer [NISTAR].
The 10th DSCOVR EPIC NISTAR Science Team Meeting was held October 16–18, 2024 at Goddard Space Flight Center. Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore opened the meeting with remarks that focused on remote sensing and the future of Earth observations. Following Gore’s remarks, DSCOVR mission leadership and representatives from GSFC and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) gave presentations on DSCOVR operations, EPIC calibration, and NISTAR Status and Science.
The meeting provided an opportunity for participants to learn the status of DSCOVR’s Earth-observing instruments, the status of recently released Level-2 (geophysical) data products, and the resulting science. As more people use DSCOVR data worldwide, the science team hopes to hear from users and team members at its next meeting. The latest updates from the mission can be found on the EPIC website. For more details, see the Summary of the 10th DSCOVR EPIC and NISTAR Science Team Meeting.
Flying in the space between satellites and ground-based observations, NASA’s Airborne Science Program operates a fleet of aircraft, unpiloted aerial vehicles, and even kites to study Earth and space science. Since 1987, a highly modified McDonnell Douglas DC-8 aircraft has been a mainstay of ASP’s fleet – see Photo 1. The aircraft, located at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center (AFRC) in California, flew countless missions as a science laboratory, producing science data for the national and global scientific communities. NASA decided to retire the venerable DC-8 aircraft, which made its last science flight in April 2024. The DC-8 is being replaced with a similarly refurbished Boeing 777 aircraft, which will be even more capable than the DC-8 and is located at the NASA Langley Research Center (LaRC).
The NASA History Office and NASA Earth Science Division cohosted a workshop, titled “Contributions of the DC-8 to Earth System Science at NASA,” on October 24–25, 2024 at the Mary W. Jackson NASA Headquarters (HQ) Building in Washington, DC – for more details on the DC-8 event, see the article The NASA DC-8 Retires: Reflections on its Contributions to Earth System Science.
Photo 1. NASA’s DC-8 flying laboratory flew Earth science missions from 1987 to 2024. Expert maintenance allowed the aircraft to conduct research on six continents and study ice fields on the seventh, Antarctica. Image Credit: Lori Losey/NASA There are also updates from three recent NASA field campaigns – where ground observations are timed and coordinated with aircraft flights (often at more than one altitude) and with satellite overpasses to gain a comprehensive (i.e., multilayered, multiscale) picture of the atmosphere over a certain area.
The Westcoast & Heartland Hyperspectral Microwave Sensor Intensive Experiment (WHyMSIE) campaign was held from October 17- November 18, 2024. Serving as a future NASA planetary boundary-layer (PBL) mission prototype, WHyMSIE aimed to capture a wide variety of thermodynamic, moisture, and PBL regimes across a variety of surface types. WHyMSIE was an initial step towards an integrated and affordable PBL observing system of systems, with multiple observing nodes – i.e., space, suborbital, and ground – from passive and active sensors to enable a comprehensive and coherent picture of essential PBL variables and hydrometeors that is not possible with any single sensor, observational approach, or scale. As a partnership between NASA and NOAA, this field campaign flew a first-of-its-kind hyperspectral microwave airborne measurements (CoSMIR-H) that was complemented by other passive (thermal emission, solar reflectance) and active (lidar, radar) sensors flying onboard the NASA ER-2 (AFRC) and G-III (LaRC), with coordination over a variety of ground-based sensor facilities.
The GSFC Lidar Observation and Validation Experiment (GLOVE) was conducted in February 2025 at Edwards Air Force Base, California – see photo 2. GLOVE flew the Cloud Physics Lidar (CPL), Roscoe lidar, enhanced MODIS Airborne Simulator (eMAS) imaging scanner, and Cloud Radar System (CRS) on the ER-2 to validate NASA ICESat-2 atmospheric data products and validate ESA’s recently launched EarthCARE lidar, radar, and spectrometer products.
NASA’s Earth Science Division FireSense project focuses on delivering NASA’s unique Earth science and technological capabilities to operational agencies, striving to address challenges in US wildland fire management. Together with agency, academic, and private partners, FireSense completed an airborne campaign in a wildfire smoke-impacted airshed in Missoula, MT on August 27–29, 2024. During the three-day campaign, a NASA Uninhabited Aerial System (UAS) team conducted eight data-collection flights, partnering these launches with weather balloon launches.
FireSense uses airborne campaigns to evaluate capabilities and technologies to support decision making in wildland fire management and air quality forecasting. Targeted data collection produces better forecasts and more successful technology transfer to wildland fire operations. In the future, the FireSense Program will coordinate two airborne campaigns for spring 2025 at Geneva State Forest, Alabama and Kennedy Space Center located within Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge, Florida. Both 2025 campaigns will incorporate data collection before, during, and after prescribed fire operations. Beyond NASA, the campaign works in close partnership with the U.S. Forest Service, National Weather Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Department of Defense, as well as partners in academia and the private sector. For more information on FireSense’s most recent campaign in Montana see the Editor’s Corner supplemental summary of “The FireSense Project.”
Photo 2. NASA personnel stand in front of theNASA ER-2 at Edwards Air Force Base, California, during the GSFC Lidar Observation and Validation Experiment (GLOVE) in February 2025. Image credit: John Yorks/NASA Congratulations to Jack Kaye, Associate Director for research with the Earth Science Division within NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, who has received the William T. Pecora Award for his vision and creative leadership in multidisciplinary Earth science research, as well as spurring advancements in the investigator community, supporting development of sensors, and shaping NASA satellite and aircraft missions and research programs at the highest levels. To read more about this accomplishment, see “Kaye Honored with Pecora Award.”
On the outreach front, AGU returned to Washington, DC, for its annual meeting from December 9–14, 2024. NASA continued to uphold its long-standing tradition as an AGU partner and exhibitor, leveraging the meeting as an opportunity to share the agency’s cutting-edge research, data, and technology with the largest collection of Earth and planetary science professionals in the world. Many of the estimated 25,000 students, scientists, and industry personnel who attended the conference visited the NASA Science exhibit, interacting with NASA subject matter experts and listening to Hyperwall presentations throughout the week.
As the final event in a busy calendar of annual scientific conferences, AGU is often an opportunity for NASA scientists to publish findings from the previous year and set goals for the year ahead. The agency’s robust portfolio of missions and programs will continue to set new records, such as NASA’s Parker Solar Probe pass of the Sun, and conduct fundamental research in Earth and space science. To read more about AGU 2024, see the article: AGU 2024: NASA Science on Display in the Nation’s Capital.
Ending on a somber note, we recently posted three notable obituaries. Each of these individuals made significant contributions to EOS history, which are highlighted in the In Memoriam articles linked below.
Jeff Dozier, an environmental scientist, snow hydrologist, researcher, academic, and former EOS Project Scientist, died on November 17, 2024. Jeff embraced remote sensing with satellites to measure snow properties and energy balance. As a Project Scientist with the Earth Observing System Data and Information System (EOSDIS), he contributed to the design and management of very large information systems that would impact spatial modeling and environmental informatics.
Berrien Moore, Dean of the College of Atmospheric and Geographic Sciences at the University of Oklahoma (OU), died on December 17, 2024. Berrien served in several roles with NASA, including as a committee member and later chair of the organization’s Space and Earth Science Advisory Committee, Chair of the Earth Observing System Payload Advisory Committee, member and Chair of NASA’s Earth Science and Applications Committee, and member of the NASA Advisory Council. Berrien received NASA’s highest civilian honor, the Distinguished Public Service Medal, for outstanding service and the NOAA Administrator’s Recognition Award.
Pierre Morel, the first director of the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) and founding member of WCRP’s Global Energy and Water Exchanges (GEWEX) Core project, died on December 10, 2024. Pierre’s work played an integral role in the development of tools used to study the atmosphere, many of which are still active today. Pierre was the recipient of the 2008 Alfred Wegener Medal & Honorary Membership for his outstanding contributions to geophysical fluid dynamics, his leadership in the development of climate research, and the applications of space observation to meteorology and the Earth system science.
Steve Platnick
EOS Senior Project Scientist
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Last Updated Mar 20, 2025 Related Terms
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