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NASA Astronaut Don Pettit’s Science of Opportunity on Space Station
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By NASA
Credit: NASA NASA has selected SpaceX of Starbase, Texas, to provide launch services for the Near-Earth Object (NEO) Surveyor mission, which will detect and observe asteroids and comets that could potentially pose an impact threat to Earth.
The firm fixed price launch service task order is being awarded under the indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity NASA Launch Services II contract. The total cost to NASA for the launch service is approximately $100 million, which includes the launch service and other mission related costs. The NEO Surveyor mission is targeted to launch no earlier than September 2027 on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Florida.
The NEO Surveyor mission consists of a single scientific instrument: an almost 20-inch (50-centimeter) diameter telescope that will operate in two heat-sensing infrared wavelengths. It will be capable of detecting both bright and dark asteroids, the latter being the most difficult type to find with existing assets. The space telescope is designed to help advance NASA’s planetary defense efforts to discover and characterize most of the potentially hazardous asteroids and comets that come within 30 million miles of Earth’s orbit. These are collectively known as near-Earth objects, or NEOs.
The mission will carry out a five-year baseline survey to find at least two-thirds of the unknown NEOs larger than 140 meters (460 feet). These are the objects large enough to cause major regional damage in the event of an Earth impact. By using two heat-sensitive infrared imaging channels, the telescope can also make more accurate measurements of the sizes of NEOs and gain information about their composition, shapes, rotational states, and orbits.
The mission is tasked by NASA’s Planetary Science Division within the agency’s Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. Program oversight is provided by NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office, which was established in 2016 to manage the agency’s ongoing efforts in planetary defense. NASA’s Planetary Missions Program Office at the agency’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, provides program management for NEO Surveyor. The project is being developed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.
Multiple aerospace and engineering companies are contracted to build the spacecraft and its instrumentation, including BAE Systems SMS (Space & Mission Systems), Space Dynamics Laboratory, and Teledyne. The Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado, Boulder, will support operations, and the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena, California, is responsible for processing survey data and producing the mission’s data products. Caltech manages JPL for NASA. Mission team leadership includes the University of California, Los Angeles. NASA’s Launch Services Program at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida is responsible for managing the launch service.
For more information about NEO Surveyor, visit:
https://science.nasa.gov/mission/neo-surveyor/
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Tiernan Doyle / Joshua Finch
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600 / 202-358-1100
tiernan.doyle@nasa.gov / joshua.a.finch@nasa.gov
Patti Bielling
Kennedy Space Center, Florida
321-501-7575
patricia.a.bielling@nasa.gov
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Last Updated Feb 21, 2025 LocationNASA Headquarters Related Terms
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By NASA
Gateway’s HALO (Habitation and Logistics Outpost) in a cleanroom at Thales Alenia Space in Turin, Italy. After final installations are complete, it will be packaged and transported to the United States for final outfitting before being integrated with Gateway’s Power and Propulsion Element and launched to lunar orbit. Thales Alenia Space Through the Artemis campaign, NASA will send astronauts on missions to and around the Moon. The agency and its international partners report progress continues on Gateway, the first space station that will permanently orbit the Moon, after visiting the Thales Alenia Space facility in Turin, Italy, where initial fabrication for one of two Gateway habitation modules is nearing completion.
Leaders from NASA, ESA (European Space Agency), and the Italian Space Agency, as well as industry representatives from Northrop Grumman and Thales Alenia Space, were in Turin to assess Gateway’s HALO (Habitation and Logistics Outpost) module before its primary structure is shipped from Italy to Northrop Grumman’s Gilbert, Arizona site in March. Following final outfitting and verification testing, the module will be integrated with the Power and Propulsion Element at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
“Building and testing hardware for Gateway is truly an international collaboration,” said Jon Olansen, manager, Gateway Program, at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. “We’re excited to celebrate this major flight hardware milestone, and this is just the beginning – there’s impressive and important progress taking shape with our partners around the globe, united by our shared desire to expand human exploration of our solar system while advancing scientific discovery.”
Gateway’s HALO (Habitation and Logistics Outpost) in a cleanroom at Thales Alenia Space in Turin, Italy. After final installations are complete, it will be packaged and transported to the United States for final outfitting before being integrated with Gateway’s Power and Propulsion Element and launched to lunar orbit.Thales Alenia Space To ensure all flight hardware is ready to support Artemis IV — the first crewed mission to Gateway – NASA is targeting the launch of HALO and the Power and Propulsion Element no later than December 2027. These integrated modules will launch aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket and spend about a year traveling uncrewed to lunar orbit, while providing scientific data on solar and deep space radiation during transit.
Launching atop HALO will be ESA’s Lunar Link communication system, which will provide high-speed communication between the Moon and Gateway. The system is undergoing testing at another Thales Alenia Space facility in Cannes, France.
Once in lunar orbit, Gateway will continue scientific observations while awaiting the arrival of Artemis IV astronauts aboard an Orion spacecraft which will deliver and dock Gateway’s second pressurized habitable module, the ESA-led Lunar I-Hab. Thales Alenia Space, ESA’s primary contractor for the Lunar I-Hab and Lunar View refueling module, has begun production of the Lunar I-Hab, and design of Lunar View in Turin.
Teams from NASA and ESA (European Space Agency), including NASA astronaut Stan Love (far right) and ESA astronaut Luca Parmitano (far left) help conduct human factors testing inside a mockup of Gateway’s Lunar I-Hab module.Thales Alenia Space Northrop Grumman and its subcontractor, Thales Alenia Space, completed welding of HALO in 2024, and the module successfully progressed through pressure and stress tests to ensure its suitability for the harsh environment of deep space.
Maxar Space Systems is assembling the Power and Propulsion Element, which will make Gateway the most powerful solar electric propulsion spacecraft ever flown. Major progress in 2024 included installation of Xenon and chemical propulsion fuel tanks, and qualification of the largest roll-out solar arrays ever built. NASA and its partners will complete propulsion element assembly, and acceptance and verification testing of next-generation electric propulsion thrusters this year.
The main bus of Gateway’s Power and Propulsion Element undergoes assembly and installations at Maxar Space Systems in Palo Alto, California.Maxar Space Systems SpaceX will provide both the Starship human landing system that will land astronauts on the lunar surface during NASA’s Artemis III mission and ferry astronauts from Gateway to the lunar South Pole region during Artemis IV, as well as provide logistics spacecraft to support crewed missions.
NASA also has selected Blue Origin to develop Blue Moon, the human landing system for Artemis V, as well as logistics spacecraft for future Artemis missions. Having two distinct lunar landing designs provides flexibility and supports a regular cadence of Moon landings in preparation for future missions to Mars.
CSA (Canadian Space Agency) is developing Canadarm3, an advanced robotics system, and JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) is designing and testing Lunar I-Hab’s vital life support systems, batteries, and a resupply and logistics vehicle called HTV-XG.
NASA’s newest Gateway partner, the Mohammad Bin Rashid Space Centre (MBRSC) of the United Arab Emirates, kicked off early design for the Gateway Crew and Science Airlock that will be delivered on Artemis VI. The selection of Thales Alenia Space as its airlock prime contractor was announced by MBRSC on Feb. 4.
Development continues to advance on three radiation-focused initial science investigations aboard Gateway. These payloads will help scientists better understand unpredictable space weather from the Sun and galactic cosmic rays that will affect astronauts and equipment during Artemis missions to the Moon and beyond.
The Gateway lunar space station is a multi-purpose platform that offers capabilities for long-term exploration in deep space in support of NASA’s Artemis campaign and Moon to Mars objectives. Gateway will feature docking ports for a variety of visiting spacecraft, as well as space for crew to live, work, and prepare for lunar surface missions. As a testbed for future journeys to Mars, continuous investigations aboard Gateway will occur with and without crew to better understand the long-term effects of deep space radiation on vehicle systems and the human body as well as test and operate next generation spacecraft systems that will be necessary to send humans to Mars.
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Last Updated Feb 21, 2025 ContactLaura RochonLocationJohnson Space Center Related Terms
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By NASA
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Astronaut Jeanette Epps extracts DNA samples from bacteria colonies for genomic analysis aboard the International Space Station’s Harmony module.NASA In an effort to learn more about astronaut health and the effects of space on the human body, NASA is conducting a new experiment aboard the International Space Station to speed up the detection of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, thus improving the health safety not only of astronauts but patients back on Earth.
Infections caused by antibiotic-resistant bacteria can be difficult or impossible to treat, making antibiotic resistance a leading cause of death worldwide and a global health concern.
Future astronauts visiting the Moon or Mars will need to rely on a pre-determined supply of antibiotics in case of illness. Ensuring those antibiotics remain effective is an important safety measure for future missions.
The Genomic Enumeration of Antibiotic Resistance in Space (GEARS) experiment, which is managed by NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley, involves astronauts swabbing interior surfaces across the space station and testing those samples for evidence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, and in particular Enterococcus faecalis, a type of bacteria commonly found in the human body. The experiment is the first step in a series of work that seeks to better understand how organisms grow in a space environment, and how those similarities and differences might help improve research back on Earth.
“Enterococcus is a type of organism that’s been with us since our ancestors crawled out of the ocean, and is a core member of the human gut,” said Christopher Carr, assistant professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology and co-principal investigator of GEARS. “It’s able to survive inside and outside of its host, which has allowed it to become the second highest leading cause of hospital-acquired infections. We want to understand how this type of organism is adapting to the space environment.”
The GEARS experiment seeks to improve the detection and identification of these bacteria, building on existing efforts to understand what organisms grow on the station’s surfaces.
“We’ve been monitoring the surfaces of the space station since 2000, but this experiment will give us insight beyond the identities of present organisms, which is currently all that is used for risk assessment,” said Sarah Wallace, a microbiologist at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston and co-principal investigator of GEARS. “With the station orbiting close to Earth, it’s a low-risk space to evaluate and learn more about the frequency of this bacteria and how it responds to the space environment so we can apply this understanding to missions to the Moon and Mars, where resupplies are more complex.”
Over the next year, astronauts will swab parts of the station and analyze samples by adding an antibiotic to the medium in which the samples will grow. The results will reveal where this and other resistant bacteria are growing and whether they can persist or spread across the station.
I hope we can shine a light on rapidly analyzing bacteria: if we can do this in space, we can do it on Earth, too.
Sarah WAllace
NASA Microbiologist
The experiment was originally launched to the ISS on the 30th SpaceX commercial resupply services (CRS) mission in March 2024, and the first round of GEARS testing turned up surprising results: very few resistant bacteria colonies, none of which were E. faecalis. This bodes well for the threat of antibiotic resistance in space.
“There was some cleaning done before swabbing the station, which may have removed some bacteria,” said Carr. To better understand how and where risky bacteria may live, the astronauts paused some cleaning before the second round of swabbing.
“We want the astronauts to have a clean environment, but we also want to test those high-touch areas, so they intentionally and briefly avoided cleaning some areas so we can understand how bacteria may grow or spread on the station.”
This experiment is the first study to perform metagenomic sequencing in space, a method that analyzes all the genetic material in a sample to identify and characterize all organisms that are present, an important research and medical diagnostic capability for future deep space missions.
The GEARS team hopes to create a rapid workflow to analyze bacteria samples, reducing the time between swabbing and test results from days to hours. That workflow could be applied in hospitals and make a huge impact when treating hospital-acquired infections from antibiotic-resistant microbes.
The result could save lives – more than 35,000 people die each year as a result of antibiotic-resistant infections. The issue is personal to Wallace, who lost a family member to a hospital-acquired infection.
“It’s not that uncommon: so many people have experienced this kind of loss,” said Wallace. “A method to give an answer in a matter of hours is huge and profound. It’s my job to keep the crew healthy, but we’re also passionate about bringing that work back down to Earth. I hope we can shine a light on rapidly analyzing bacteria: if we can do this in space, we can do it on Earth, too.”
Genomic Enumeration of Antibiotic Resistance in Space (GEARS) was funded by the Biological and Physical Sciences Space Biology Program, with pioneering funding and support from the Mars Campaign office.
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Last Updated Feb 19, 2025 Related Terms
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