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The Next Full Moon is a Supermoon, and the Hunter’s Moon
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By NASA
2 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
Orbital Mining Corporation took second place in NASA’s Watts on the Moon Challenge. Left to right: Rob Button, deputy chief of NASA Glenn’s Power Division; three members of the team; Mary Wadel, NASA director of Technology Integration and Partnerships; and NASA astronaut Stephen Bowen. Credit: NASA/Sara Lowthian-Hanna Great Lakes Science Center, home of the visitor center for NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, hosted the final phase of NASA’s Watts on the Moon Challenge on Sept. 20. NASA astronaut Stephen Bowen attended to help acknowledge the top winners.
NASA awarded a total of $1.5 million to two U.S. teams for their novel technology solutions addressing energy distribution, management, and storage as part of the challenge. The innovations from this challenge aim to support NASA’s Artemis missions, which will establish a long-term human presence on the Moon.
This two-phase competition challenged U.S. innovators to develop breakthrough technologies that could enable long-duration Moon missions to advance the nation’s lunar exploration goals.
The winning teams are:
First Prize ($1 million): Team H.E.L.P.S. (High Efficiency Long-Range Power Solution) from University of California, Santa Barbara , won the grand prize for their hardware solution, which featured the lowest mass and highest efficiency of all competitors. Second prize ($500,000): Orbital Mining Corporation, a space technology startup in Golden, Colorado, earned the second prize for its hardware solution that also successfully completed the 48-hour test with high performance. Four teams were invited to refine their hardware and deliver full system prototypes in the final stage of the competition, and three finalist teams completed their technology solutions for demonstration and assessment at NASA Glenn.
The University of California (UC), Santa Barbara, took first place in NASA’s Watts on the Moon Challenge. Left to right: Mary Wadel, NASA director of Technology Integration and Partnerships; Rob Button, deputy chief of NASA Glenn’s Power Division; UC Santa Barbara team members; and NASA astronaut Stephen Bowen. Credit: NASA/Sara Lowthian-Hanna NASA Glenn’s Mary Wadel, director of Technology Integration and Partnerships, recognized the work involved to bring this challenge to its conclusion. Rob Button, deputy chief of Glenn’s Power Division and his team of experts, formulated and executed the challenge and oversaw testing.
The technologies were the first power transmission and energy storage prototypes to be tested by NASA in a vacuum chamber mimicking the freezing temperature and absence of pressure found at the permanently shadowed regions of the Lunar South Pole.
The Watts on the Moon Challenge is a NASA Centennial Challenge led by NASA Glenn. As the agency’s lead center for power systems technologies, NASA Glenn has been involved in the Watts on the Moon Challenge from its inception.
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By NASA
1 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
The Harvest Moon refers to the nearest full Moon to the autumnal equinox. The Moon appeared full for about three days last month from the evening of Monday, Sept. 16, through Thursday morning, Sept. 19. The brightest Moon was on Sept. 17.
NASA’s Glenn Research Center photographers captured images of this supermoon as it shone across Cleveland. Here’s how they described it:
“Complex.” Sara Lowthian-Hanna captured this composite image of the Moon above a Guardians of Traffic statue near downtown Cleveland. The Sept. 17 Harvest Moon had a lot going on: it was full, a supermoon, and experienced a partial lunar eclipse (when the Earth’s shadow falls upon the Moon’s surface). Credit: NASA/Sara Lowthian-Hanna “Shy.” Quentin Schwinn patiently waited for the Moon to peek out from behind clouds above the hangar at NASA’s Glenn Research Center. He took this shot just as a plane whizzed in front of the face of the Moon. Credit: NASA/Quentin Schwinn “Epic.” Jef Janis captured this shot of the Moon above the colorfully illuminated Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in downtown Cleveland. Credit: NASA/Jef Janis “Dramatic.” Jordan Salkin took this up-close image of wispy aircraft contrails crossing the face of the Moon. Credit: NASA/Jordan Salkin Return to Newsletter Explore More
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By NASA
SpaceX A SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket carrying NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft lifts off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Monday, Oct. 14, 2024.
Europa Clipper is the first mission designed to conduct a detailed study of Jupiter’s moon Europa to determine if it currently has habitable conditions. The spacecraft will travel 1.8 billion miles (2.9 billion km) to reach Jupiter in April 2030. It will orbit Jupiter and conduct 49 close flybys of Europa.
Follow Europa Clipper’s journey in NASA’s Eyes on the Solar System app.
Image credit: SpaceX
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By NASA
The study of X-ray emission from astronomical objects reveals secrets about the Universe at the largest and smallest spatial scales. Celestial X-rays are produced by black holes consuming nearby stars, emitted by the million-degree gas that traces the structure between galaxies, and can be used to predict whether stars may be able to host planets hospitable to life. X-ray observations have shown that most of the visible matter in the universe exists as hot gas between galaxies and have conclusively demonstrated that the presence of “dark matter” is needed to explain galaxy cluster dynamics, that dark matter dominates the mass of galaxy clusters, and that it governs the expansion of the cosmos.
X-ray observations also enable us to probe mysteries of the Universe on the smallest scales. X-ray observations of compact objects such as white dwarfs, neutron stars, and black holes allow us to use the Universe as a physics laboratory to study conditions that are orders of magnitude more extreme in terms of density, pressure, temperature, and magnetic field strength than anything that can be produced on Earth. In this astrophysical laboratory, researchers expect to reveal new physics at the subatomic scale by conducting investigations such as probing the neutron star equation of state and testing quantum electrodynamics with observations of neutron star atmospheres. At NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, a team of scientists and engineers is building, testing, and flying innovative optics that bring the Universe’s X-ray mysteries into sharper focus.
A composite X-ray/Optical/Infrared image of the Crab Pulsar. The X-ray image from the Chandra X-ray Observatory (blue and white), reveals exquisite details in the central ring structures and gas flowing out of the polar jets. Optical light from the Hubble Space Telescope (purple) shows foreground and background stars as pinpoints of light. Infrared light from the Spitzer Space Telescope (pink) traces cooler gas in the nebula. Finally, magnetic field direction derived from X-ray polarization observed by the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer is shown as orange lines. Magnetic field lines: NASA/Bucciantini et al; X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; Optical: NASA/STScI; Infrared: NASA-JPL-Caltech Unlike optical telescopes that create images by reflecting or refracting light at near-90-degree angles (normal incidence), focusing X-ray optics must be designed to reflect light at very small angles (grazing incidence). At normal incidence, X-rays are either absorbed by the surface of a mirror or penetrate it entirely. However, at grazing angles of incidence, X-rays reflect very efficiently due to an effect called total external reflection. In grazing incidence, X-rays reflect off the surface of a mirror like rocks skipping on the surface of a pond.
A classic design for astronomical grazing incidence optics is the Wolter-I prescription, which consists of two reflecting surfaces, a parabola and hyperbola (see figure below). This optical prescription is revolved around the optical axis to produce a full-shell mirror (i.e., the mirror spans the full circumference) that resembles a gently tapered cone. To increase the light collecting area, multiple mirror shells with incrementally larger diameters and a common focus are fabricated and nested concentrically to comprise a mirror module assembly (MMA).
Focusing optics are critical to studying the X-ray universe because, in contrast to other optical systems like collimators or coded masks, they produce high signal-to-noise images with low background noise. Two key metrics that characterize the performance of X-ray optics are angular resolution, which is the ability of an optical system to discriminate between closely spaced objects, and effective area, which is the light collecting area of the telescope, typically quoted in units of cm2. Angular resolution is typically measured as the half-power diameter (HPD) of a focused spot in units of arcseconds. The HPD encircles half of the incident photons in a focused spot and measures the sharpness of the final image; a smaller number is better.
Schematic of a full-shell Wolter-I X-ray optic mirror module assembly with five concentrically nested mirror shells. Parallel rays of light enter from the left, reflect twice off the reflective inside surface of the shell (first off the parabolic segment and then off the hyperbolic segment), and converge at the focal plane. NASA MSFC NASA Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) has been building and flying lightweight, full-shell, focusing X-ray optics for over three decades, always meeting or exceeding angular resolution and effective area requirements. MSFC utilizes an electroformed nickel replication (ENR) technique to make these thin full-shell X-ray optics from nickel alloy.
X-ray optics development at MSFC began in the early 1990s with the fabrication of optics to support NASA’s Advanced X-ray Astrophysics Facility (AXAF-S) and then continued via the Constellation-X technology development programs. In 2001, MSFC launched a balloon payload that included two modules each with three mirrors, which produced the first focused hard X-ray (>10 keV) images of an astrophysical source by imaging Cygnus X-1, GRS 1915, and the Crab Nebula. This initial effort resulted in several follow-up missions over the next 12 years, and became known as the High Energy Replicated Optics (HERO) balloon program.
In 2012, the first of four sounding rocket flights of the Focusing Optics X-ray Solar Imager (FOXSI) flew with MSFC optics onboard, producing the first focused images of the Sun at energies greater than 5 keV. In 2019 the Astronomical Roentgen Telescope X-ray Concentrator (ART-XC) instrument on the Spectr-Roentgen-Gamma Mission launched with seven MSFC-fabricated X-ray MMAs, each containing 28 mirror shells. ART-XC is currently mapping the sky in the 4-30 keV hard X-ray energy range, studying exotic objects like neutron stars in our own galaxy as well as active galactic nuclei, which are spread across the visible universe. In 2021, the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE), flew and is now performing extraordinary science with an MSFC-led team using three, 24-shell MMAs that were fabricated and calibrated in-house.
Most recently, in 2024, the fourth FOXSI sounding rocket campaign launched with a high-resolution MSFC MMA. The optics achieved 9.5 arcsecond HPD angular resolution during pre-flight test with an expected 7 arcsecond HPD in gravity-free flight, making this the highest angular resolution flight observation made with a nickel-replicated X-ray optic. Currently MSFC is fabricating an MMA for the Rocket Experiment Demonstration of a Soft X-ray (REDSoX) polarimeter, a sounding rocket mission that will fly a novel soft X-ray polarimeter instrument to observe active galactic nuclei. The REDSoX MMA optic will be 444 mm in diameter, which will make it the largest MMA ever produced by MSFC and the second largest replicated nickel X-ray optic in the world.
Scientists Wayne Baumgartner (left, crouched) and Nick Thomas (left, standing) calibrate an IXPE MMA in the MSFC 100 m Beamline. Scientist Stephen Bongiorno (right) applies epoxy to an IXPE shell during MMA assembly. NASA MSFC The ultimate performance of an X-ray optic is determined by errors in the shape, position, and roughness of the optical surface. To push the performance of X-ray optics toward even higher angular resolution and achieve more ambitious science goals, MSFC is currently engaged in a fundamental research and development effort to improve all aspects of full-shell optics fabrication.
Given that these optics are made with the Electroformed Nickel Replication technique, the fabrication process begins with creation of a replication master, called the mandrel, which is a negative of the desired optical surface. First, the mandrel is figured and polished to specification, then a thin layer of nickel alloy is electroformed onto the mandrel surface. Next, the nickel alloy layer is removed to produce a replicated optical shell, and finally the thin shell is attached to a stiff holding structure for use.
Each step in this process imparts some degree of error into the final replicated shell. Research and development efforts at MSFC are currently concentrating on reducing distortion induced during the electroforming metal deposition and release steps. Electroforming-induced distortion is caused by material stress built into the electroformed material as it deposits onto the mandrel. Decreasing release-induced distortion is a matter of reducing adhesion strength between the shell and mandrel, increasing strength of the shell material to prevent yielding, and reducing point defects in the release layer.
Additionally, verifying the performance of these advanced optics requires world-class test facilities. The basic premise of testing an optic designed for X-ray astrophysics is to place a small, bright X-ray source far away from the optic. If the angular size of the source, as viewed from the optic, is smaller than the angular resolution of the optic, the source is effectively simulating X-ray starlight. Due to the absorption of X-rays by air, the entire test facility light path must be placed inside a vacuum chamber.
At MSFC, a group of scientists and engineers operate the Marshall 100-meter X-ray beamline, a world-class end-to-end test facility for flight and laboratory X-ray optics, instruments, and telescopes. As per the name, it consists of a 100-meter-long vacuum tube with an 8-meter-long, 3-meter-diameter instrument chamber and a variety of X-ray sources ranging from 0.25 – 114 keV. Across the street sits the X-Ray and Cryogenic Facility (XRCF), a 527-meter-long beamline with an 18-meter-long, 6-meter-diameter instrument chamber. These facilities are available for the scientific community to use and highlight the comprehensive optics development and test capability that Marshall is known for.
Within the X-ray astrophysics community there exist a variety of angular resolution and effective area needs for focusing optics. Given its storied history in X-ray optics, MSFC is uniquely poised to fulfill requirements for large or small, medium- or high-angular-resolution X-ray optics. To help guide technology development, the astrophysics community convenes once per decade to produce a decadal survey. The need for high-angular-resolution and high-throughput X-ray optics is strongly endorsed by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine report, Pathways to Discovery in Astronomy and Astrophysics for the 2020s.In pursuit of this goal, MSFC is continuing to advance the state of the art in full-shell optics. This work will enable the extraordinary mysteries of the X-ray universe to be revealed.
Project Leads
Dr. Jessica Gaskin and Dr. Stephen Bongiorno, NASA Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC)
Sponsoring Organizations
The NASA Astrophysics Division supports this work primarily through the Internal Scientist Funding Model Direct Work Package and competed solicitations. This work is also supported by the Heliophysics Division through competed solicitations, as well as by directed work from other government entities.
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Last Updated Oct 15, 2024 Related Terms
Astrophysics Astrophysics Division Marshall Astrophysics Marshall Space Flight Center Science-enabling Technology Technology Highlights Explore More
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By NASA
A SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket carrying NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft lifts off from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 12:06 p.m. EDT on Monday, Oct. 14, 2024. After launch, the spacecraft plans to fly by Mars in February 2025, then back by Earth in December 2026, using the gravity of each planet to increase its momentum. With help of these “gravity assists,” Europa Clipper will achieve the velocity needed to reach Jupiter in April 2030.Credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett NASA’s Europa Clipper has embarked on its long voyage to Jupiter, where it will investigate Europa, a moon with an enormous subsurface ocean that may have conditions to support life. The spacecraft launched at 12:06 p.m. EDT Monday aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from Launch Pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
The largest spacecraft NASA ever built for a mission headed to another planet, Europa Clipper also is the first NASA mission dedicated to studying an ocean world beyond Earth. The spacecraft will travel 1.8 billion miles (2.9 billion kilometers) on a trajectory that will leverage the power of gravity assists, first to Mars in four months and then back to Earth for another gravity assist flyby in 2026. After it begins orbiting Jupiter in April 2030, the spacecraft will fly past Europa 49 times.
“Congratulations to our Europa Clipper team for beginning the first journey to an ocean world beyond Earth,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. “NASA leads the world in exploration and discovery, and the Europa Clipper mission is no different. By exploring the unknown, Europa Clipper will help us better understand whether there is the potential for life not just within our solar system, but among the billions of moons and planets beyond our Sun.”
Approximately five minutes after liftoff, the rocket’s second stage fired up and the payload fairing, or the rocket’s nose cone, opened to reveal Europa Clipper. About an hour after launch, the spacecraft separated from the rocket. Ground controllers received a signal soon after, and two-way communication was established at 1:13 p.m. with NASA’s Deep Space Network facility in Canberra, Australia. Mission teams celebrated as initial telemetry reports showed Europa Clipper is in good health and operating as expected.
“We could not be more excited for the incredible and unprecedented science NASA’s Europa Clipper mission will deliver in the generations to come,” said Nicky Fox, associate administrator, Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “Everything in NASA science is interconnected, and Europa Clipper’s scientific discoveries will build upon the legacy that our other missions exploring Jupiter — including Juno, Galileo, and Voyager — created in our search for habitable worlds beyond our home planet.”
The main goal of the mission is to determine whether Europa has conditions that could support life. Europa is about the size of our own Moon, but its interior is different. Information from NASA’s Galileo mission in the 1990s showed strong evidence that under Europa’s ice lies an enormous, salty ocean with more water than all of Earth’s oceans combined. Scientists also have found evidence that Europa may host organic compounds and energy sources under its surface.
If the mission determines Europa is habitable, it may mean there are more habitable worlds in our solar system and beyond than imagined.
“We’re ecstatic to send Europa Clipper on its way to explore a potentially habitable ocean world, thanks to our colleagues and partners who’ve worked so hard to get us to this day,” said Laurie Leshin, director, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “Europa Clipper will undoubtedly deliver mind-blowing science. While always bittersweet to send something we’ve labored over for years off on its long journey, we know this remarkable team and spacecraft will expand our knowledge of our solar system and inspire future exploration.”
In 2031, the spacecraft will begin conducting its science-dedicated flybys of Europa. Coming as close as 16 miles (25 kilometers) to the surface, Europa Clipper is equipped with nine science instruments and a gravity experiment, including an ice-penetrating radar, cameras, and a thermal instrument to look for areas of warmer ice and any recent eruptions of water. As the most sophisticated suite of science instruments NASA has ever sent to Jupiter, they will work in concert to learn more about the moon’s icy shell, thin atmosphere, and deep interior.
To power those instruments in the faint sunlight that reaches Jupiter, Europa Clipper also carries the largest solar arrays NASA has ever used for an interplanetary mission. With arrays extended, the spacecraft spans 100 feet (30.5 meters) from end to end. With propellant loaded, it weighs about 13,000 pounds (5,900 kilograms).
In all, more than 4,000 people have contributed to Europa Clipper mission since it was formally approved in 2015.
“As Europa Clipper embarks on its journey, I’ll be thinking about the countless hours of dedication, innovation, and teamwork that made this moment possible,” said Jordan Evans, project manager, NASA JPL. “This launch isn’t just the next chapter in our exploration of the solar system; it’s a leap toward uncovering the mysteries of another ocean world, driven by our shared curiosity and continued search to answer the question, ‘are we alone?’”
More About Europa Clipper
Europa Clipper’s three main science objectives are to determine the thickness of the moon’s icy shell and its interactions with the ocean below, to investigate its composition, and to characterize its geology. The mission’s detailed exploration of Europa will help scientists better understand the astrobiological potential for habitable worlds beyond our planet.
Managed by Caltech in Pasadena, California, NASA JPL leads the development of the Europa Clipper mission in partnership with the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The main spacecraft body was designed by APL in collaboration with NASA JPL and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, and NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. The Planetary Missions Program Office at Marshall executes program management of the Europa Clipper mission.
NASA’s Launch Services Program, based at NASA Kennedy, managed the launch service for the Europa Clipper spacecraft.
Find more information about NASA’s Europa Clipper mission here:
https://science.nasa.gov/mission/europa-clipper
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Meira Bernstein / Karen Fox
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
meira.b.bernstein@nasa.gov / karen.c.fox@nasa.gov
Gretchen McCartney
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-287-4115
gretchen.p.mccartney@jpl.nasa.gov
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Last Updated Oct 14, 2024 EditorJessica TaveauLocationNASA Headquarters Related Terms
Europa Clipper Europa Jet Propulsion Laboratory Jupiter Jupiter Moons Kennedy Space Center View the full article
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