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Highlights of ESA’s Industry Space Days 2024
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By NASA
NICER (left) is shown mounted to the International Space Station, and LEXI (right) is shown attached to the top of Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost in an artist’s rendering.NASA/Firefly Aerospace The International Space Station supports a wide range of scientific activities from looking out at our universe to breakthroughs in medical research, and is an active proving ground for technology for future Moon exploration missions and beyond. Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost Mission-1 landed on the Moon on March 2, 2025, kicking off science and technology operations on the surface, including three experiments either tested on or enabled by space station research. These projects are helping scientists study space weather, navigation, and computer performance in space— knowledge crucial for future Moon missions.
One of the experiments, the Lunar Environment Heliospheric X-ray Imager (LEXI), is a small telescope designed to study the Earth’s magnetic environment and its interaction with the solar wind. Like the Neutron star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER) telescope mounted outside of the space station, LEXI observes X-ray sources. LEXI and NICER observed the same X-ray star to calibrate LEXI’s instrument and better analyze the X-rays emitted from Earth’s upper atmosphere, which is LEXI’s primary target. LEXI’s study of the interaction between the solar wind and Earth’s protective magnetosphere could help researchers develop methods to safeguard future space infrastructure and understand how this boundary responds to space weather.
Other researchers sent the Radiation Tolerant Computer System (RadPC) to the Moon to test how computers can recover from radiation-related faults. Before RadPC flew on Blue Ghost, researchers tested a radiation tolerant computer on the space station and developed an algorithm to detect potential hardware faults and prevent critical failures. RadPC aims to demonstrate computer resilience in the Moon’s radiation environment. The computer can gauge its own health in real time, and RadPC can identify a faulty location and repair it in the background as needed. Insights from this investigation could improve computer hardware for future deep-space missions.
In addition, the Lunar Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) Receiver Experiment (LuGRE) located on the lunar surface has officially received a GNSS signal at the farthest distance from Earth, the same signals that on Earth are used for navigation on everything from smartphones to airplanes. Aboard the International Space Station, Navigation and Communication Testbed (NAVCOM) has been testing a backup system to Earth’s GNSS using ground stations as an alternative method for lunar navigation where GNSS signals may have limitations. Bridging existing systems with emerging lunar-specific navigation solutions could help shape how spacecraft navigate the Moon on future missions.
The International Space Station serves as an important testbed for research conducted on missions like Blue Ghost and continues to lay the foundation for technologies of the future.
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The discussion focused on lessons learned from recent missile attacks and the strategic path forward.
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By NASA
3 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
Communities in coastal areas such as Florida, shown in this 1992 NASA image, are vulnerable to the effects of sea level rise, including high-tide flooding. A new agency-led analysis found a higher-than-expected rate of sea level rise in 2024, which was also the hottest year on record.NASA Last year’s increase was due to an unusual amount of ocean warming, combined with meltwater from land-based ice such as glaciers.
Global sea level rose faster than expected in 2024, mostly because of ocean water expanding as it warms, or thermal expansion. According to a NASA-led analysis, last year’s rate of rise was 0.23 inches (0.59 centimeters) per year, compared to the expected rate of 0.17 inches (0.43 centimeters) per year.
“The rise we saw in 2024 was higher than we expected,” said Josh Willis, a sea level researcher at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “Every year is a little bit different, but what’s clear is that the ocean continues to rise, and the rate of rise is getting faster and faster.”
This graph shows global mean sea level (in blue) since 1993 as measured by a series of five satellites. The solid red line indicates the trajectory of this increase, which has more than doubled over the past three decades. The dotted red line projects future sea level rise.NASA/JPL-Caltech In recent years, about two-thirds of sea level rise was from the addition of water from land into the ocean by melting ice sheets and glaciers. About a third came from thermal expansion of seawater. But in 2024, those contributions flipped, with two-thirds of sea level rise coming from thermal expansion.
“With 2024 as the warmest year on record, Earth’s expanding oceans are following suit, reaching their highest levels in three decades,” said Nadya Vinogradova Shiffer, head of physical oceanography programs and the Integrated Earth System Observatory at NASA Headquarters in Washington.
Since the satellite record of ocean height began in 1993, the rate of annual sea level rise has more than doubled. In total, global sea level has gone up by 4 inches (10 centimeters) since 1993.
This long-term record is made possible by an uninterrupted series of ocean-observing satellites starting with TOPEX/Poseidon in 1992. The current ocean-observing satellite in that series, Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich, launched in 2020 and is one of an identical pair of spacecraft that will carry this sea level dataset into its fourth decade. Its twin, the upcoming Sentinel-6B satellite, will continue to measure sea surface height down to a few centimeters for about 90% of the world’s oceans.
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This animation shows the rise in global mean sea level from 1993 to 2024 based on da-ta from five international satellites. The expansion of water as it warms was responsible for the majority of the higher-than-expected rate of rise in 2024.NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio Mixing It Up
There are several ways in which heat makes its way into the ocean, resulting in the thermal expansion of water. Normally, seawater arranges itself into layers determined by water temperature and density. Warmer water floats on top of and is lighter than cooler water, which is denser. In most places, heat from the surface moves very slowly through these layers down into the deep ocean.
But extremely windy areas of the ocean can agitate the layers enough to result in vertical mixing. Very large currents, like those found in the Southern Ocean, can tilt ocean layers, allowing surface waters to more easily slip down deep.
The massive movement of water during El Niño — in which a large pool of warm water normally located in the western Pacific Ocean sloshes over to the central and eastern Pacific — can also result in vertical movement of heat within the ocean.
Learn more about sea level:
https://sealevel.nasa.gov
News Media Contacts
Jane J. Lee / Andrew Wang
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-354-0307 / 626-379-6874
jane.j.lee@jpl.nasa.gov / andrew.wang@jpl.nasa.gov
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Last Updated Mar 13, 2025 Related Terms
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