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By NASA
3 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
The C-20A aircraft, based at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California, flies over the Sierra Nevada Mountains in California for the Dense UAVSAR Snow Time (DUST) mission on Feb. 28, 2025. The DUST mission collected airborne data about snow water to help improve water management and reservoir systems on the ground.NASA/Starr Ginn As part of a science mission tracking one of Earth’s most precious resources – water – NASA’s C-20A aircraft conducted a series of seven research flights in March that can help researchers track the process and timeline as snow melts and transforms into a freshwater resource. The agency’s Uninhabited Aerial Vehicle Synthetic Aperture Radar (UAVSAR) installed on the aircraft collected measurements of seasonal snow cover and estimate the freshwater contained in it.
“Seasonal snow is a critical resource for drinking water, power generation, supporting multi-billion dollar agricultural and recreation industries,” said Starr Ginn, C-20A project manager at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California. “Consequently, understanding the distribution of seasonal snow storage and subsequent runoff is essential.”
The Dense UAVSAR Snow Time (DUST) mission mapped snow accumulation over the Sierra Nevada mountains in California and the Rocky Mountains in Idaho. Mission scientists can use these observations to estimate the amount of water stored in that snow.
Peter Wu, radar operator from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, observes data collected during the Dense UAVSAR Snow Time (DUST) mission onboard NASA’s C-20A aircraft on Feb. 28, 2025. The C-20A flew from NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California, over the Sierra Nevada Mountains to collect data about snow water.NASA/Starr Ginn “Until recently, defining the best method for accurately measuring snow water equivalent (SWE) – or how much and when fresh water is converted from snow – has been a challenge,” said Shadi Oveisgharan, principal investigator of DUST and scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “The UAVSAR has been shown to be a good instrument to retrieve SWE data.”
Recent research has shown that snow properties, weather patterns, and seasonal conditions in the American West have been shifting in recent decades. These changes have fundamentally altered previous expectations about snowpack monitoring and forecasts of snow runoff. The DUST mission aims to better track and understand those changes to develop more accurate estimates of snow-to-water conversions and their timelines.
“We are trying to find the optimum window during which to retrieve snow data,” Oveisgharan said. “This estimation will help us better estimate available fresh snow and manage our reservoirs better.”
The Dense UAVSAR Snow Time (DUST) mission team assembles next to the C-20A aircraft at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California, on Feb. 28, 2025. From left, radar operator Adam Vaccaro, avionics lead Kelly Jellison, C-20A project manager Starr Ginn, pilot Carrie Worth, pilot Troy Asher, aircraft mechanic Eric Apikian, and operations engineer Ian Elkin.NASA/Starr Ginn The DUST mission achieved a new level of snow data accuracy, which is partly due to the specialized flight paths flown by the C-20A. The aircraft’s Platform Precision Autopilot (PPA) enables the team to fly very specific routes at exact altitudes, speeds, and angles so the UAVSAR can more precisely measure terrain changes.
“Imagine the rows made on grass by a lawn mower,” said Joe Piotrowski Jr., operations engineer for NASA Armstrong’s airborne science program. “The PPA system enables the C-20A to make those paths while measuring terrain changes down to the diameter of a centimeter.”
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Last Updated Apr 24, 2025 EditorDede DiniusContactErica HeimLocationArmstrong Flight Research Center Related Terms
Armstrong Flight Research Center Airborne Science C-20A Earth Science Earth's Atmosphere Jet Propulsion Laboratory Science Mission Directorate Explore More
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By NASA
3 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
NASA’s Curiosity rover appears as a dark speck in this contrast-enhanced view captured on Feb. 28, 2025, by the HiRISE camera aboard NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Trailing Curiosity are the rover’s tracks, which can linger on the Martian surface for months before being erased by the wind. NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona The image marks what may be the first time one of the agency’s Mars orbiters has captured the rover driving.
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover has never been camera shy, having been seen in selfies and images taken from space. But on Feb. 28 — the 4,466th Martian day, or sol, of the mission — Curiosity was captured in what is believed to be the first orbital image of the rover mid-drive across the Red Planet.
Taken by the HiRISE (High-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment) camera aboard NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, the image shows Curiosity as a dark speck at the front of a long trail of rover tracks. Likely to last for months before being erased by wind, the tracks span about 1,050 feet (320 meters). They represent roughly 11 drives starting on Feb. 2 as Curiosity trucked along at a top speed of 0.1 mph (0.16 kph) from Gediz Vallis channel on the journey to its next science stop: a region with potential boxwork formations, possibly made by groundwater billions of years ago.
How quickly the rover reaches the area depends on a number of factors, including how its software navigates the surface and how challenging the terrain is to climb. Engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, which leads Curiosity’s mission, work with scientists to plan each day’s trek.
“By comparing the time HiRISE took the image to the rover’s commands for the day, we can see it was nearly done with a 69-foot drive,” said Doug Ellison, Curiosity’s planning team chief at JPL.
Designed to ensure the best spatial resolution, HiRISE takes an image with the majority of the scene in black and white and a strip of color down the middle. While the camera has captured Curiosity in color before, this time the rover happened to fall within the black-and-white part of the image.
In the new image, Curiosity’s tracks lead to the base of a steep slope. The rover has since ascended that slope since then, and it is expected to reach its new science location within a month or so.
More About Curiosity and MRO
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover was built at JPL, which is managed for the agency by Caltech in Pasadena, California. JPL manages both the Curiosity and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter missions on behalf of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington as part of the agency’s Mars Exploration Program portfolio. The University of Arizona, in Tucson, operates HiRISE, which was built by BAE Systems in Boulder, Colorado.
For more about the missions, visit:
science.nasa.gov/mission/msl-curiosity
science.nasa.gov/mission/mars-reconnaissance-orbiter
News Media Contacts
Andrew Good
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-393-2433
andrew.c.good@jpl.nasa.gov
Karen Fox / Molly Wasser
NASA Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
karen.c.fox@nasa.gov / molly.l.wasser@nasa.gov
2025-059
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Last Updated Apr 24, 2025 Related Terms
Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) Curiosity (Rover) Mars Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) Explore More
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By NASA
4 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
Researchers use a flat aerogel array antenna to communicate with a geostationary satellite above the Earth during tests at NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland.Credit: NASA/Jordan Cochran NASA engineers are using one of the world’s lightest solid materials to construct an antenna that could be embedded into the skin of an aircraft, creating a more aerodynamic and reliable communication solution for drones and other future air transportation options.
Developed by NASA, this ultra-lightweight aerogel antenna is designed to enable satellite communications where power and space are limited. The aerogel is made up of flexible, high-performance plastics known as polymers. The design features high air content (95%) and offers a combination of light weight and strength. Researchers can adjust its properties to achieve either the flexibility of plastic wrap or the rigidity of plexiglass.
“By removing the liquid portion of a gel, you’re left with this incredibly porous structure,” said Stephanie Vivod, a chemical engineer at NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland. “If you’ve ever made Jell-O, you’ve performed chemistry that’s similar to the first step of making an aerogel.”
NASA sandwiched a layer of aerogel between a small circuit board and an array of thin, circular copper cells, then topped the design off with a type of film known for its electrical insulation properties. This innovation is known at NASA and in the aviation community as an active phased array aerogel antenna.
A sample of aerogel is folded to demonstrate its flexibility during testing at NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland.Credit: NASA In addition to decreasing drag by conforming to the shape of aircraft, aerogel antennas save weight and space and come with the ability to adjust their individual array elements to reduce signal interference. They are also less visually intrusive compared to other types of antennas, such as spikes and blades. The finished product looks like a honeycomb but lays flat on an aircraft’s surface.
In the summer of 2024, researchers tested a rigid version of the antenna on a Britten-Norman Defender aircraft during an in-flight demonstration with the U.S. Navy at Naval Air Station Patuxent River in Maryland.
A Britten-Norman Defender aircraft outfitted with an advanced phased array antenna prototype for a flight test in summer 2024. The aircraft was used to verify data transmission quality and communications link resiliency with a low Earth orbit satellite.Credit: U.S. Navy Then, last October, researchers at NASA Glenn and the satellite communications firm Eutelsat America Corp., of Houston, began ground testing a version of the antenna mounted to a platform. The team successfully connected with a Eutelsat satellite in geostationary orbit, which bounced a signal back down to a satellite dish on a building at Glenn. Other demonstrations of the system at Glenn connected with a constellation of communications satellites operated in low Earth orbit by the data relay company Kepler. NASA researchers will design, build, and test a flexible version of the antenna later this year.
“This is significant because we are able to use the same antenna to connect with two very different satellite systems,” said Glenn researcher Bryan Schoenholz. Low Earth orbit satellites are relatively close – at 1,200 miles from the surface – and move quickly around the planet. Geostationary satellites are much farther – more than 22,000 miles from the surface – but orbit at speeds matching the Earth’s rotation, so they appear to remain in a fixed position above the equator.
NASA Glenn Research Center’s Sarah Dever and Mick Koch, electrical engineers, command an active phased array antenna to point toward a geostationary satellite. They used a flat version of an aerogel antenna during tests in October 2024.Credit: NASA/Jordan Cochran The satellite testing was crucial for analyzing the aerogel antenna concept’s potential real-world applications. When modern aircraft communicate with stations on the ground, those signals are often transmitted through satellite relays, which can come with delays and loss of communication. This NASA-developed technology will make sure these satellite links are not disrupted during flight as the aerogel antenna’s beam is a concentrated flow of radio waves that can be electronically steered with precision to maintain the connection.
As new types of air transportation options are brought to the market and U.S airspace – from the small, piloted aircraft of today to the autonomous air taxis and delivery drones of tomorrow – these kinds of steady connections will become increasingly important. That’s why NASA’s Advanced Air Mobility mission and Transformative Aeronautics Concepts program are supporting research like the aerogel antennas that can boost industry efforts to safely expand the emerging marketplace for these transportation systems.
“If an autonomous air taxi or drone flight loses its communications link, we have a very unsafe situation,” Schoenholz said. “We can’t afford a ‘dropped call’ up there because that connection is critical to the safety of the flight.”
Schoenholz, Vivod, and others work on NASA’s Antenna Deployment and Optimization Technologies activity within the Transformational Tools and Technologies project. The activity aims to develop technologies that reduce the risk of radio frequency interference from air taxis, drones, commercial passenger jets, and other aircraft in increasingly crowded airspace.
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By NASA
4 min read
NASA’s Lucy Spacecraft Images Asteroid Donaldjohanson
In its second asteroid encounter, NASA’s Lucy spacecraft obtained a close look at a uniquely shaped fragment of an asteroid that formed about 150 million years ago. The spacecraft has begun returning images that were collected as it flew approximately 600 miles (960 km) from the asteroid Donaldjohanson on April 20, 2025.
The asteroid Donaldjohanson as seen by the Lucy Long-Range Reconnaissance Imager (L’LORRI) on NASA’s Lucy spacecraft during its flyby. This timelapse shows images captured approximately every 2 seconds beginning at 1:50 p.m. EDT (17:50 UTC), April 20, 2025. The asteroid rotates very slowly; its apparent rotation here is due to the spacecraft’s motion as it flies by Donaldjohanson at a distance of 1,000 to 660 miles (1,600 to 1,100 km). The spacecraft’s closest approach distance was 600 miles (960 km), but the images shown were taken approximately 40 seconds beforehand, the nearest ones at a distance of 660 miles (1100 km). NASA/Goddard/SwRI/Johns Hopkins APL The asteroid was previously observed to have large brightness variations over a 10-day period, so some of Lucy team members’ expectations were confirmed when the first images showed what appeared to be an elongated contact binary (an object formed when two smaller bodies collide). However, the team was surprised by the odd shape of the narrow neck connecting the two lobes, which looks like two nested ice cream cones.
“Asteroid Donaldjohanson has strikingly complicated geology,” says Hal Levison, principal investigator for Lucy at Southwest Research Institute, Boulder, Colorado. “As we study the complex structures in detail, they will reveal important information about the building blocks and collisional processes that formed the planets in our Solar System.”
From a preliminary analysis of the first available images collected by the spacecraft’s L’LORRI imager, the asteroid appears to be larger than originally estimated, about 5 miles (8 km) long and 2 miles (3.5 km) wide at the widest point. In this first set of high-resolution images returned from the spacecraft, the full asteroid is not visible as the asteroid is larger than the imager’s field of view. It will take up to a week for the team to downlink the remainder of the encounter data from the spacecraft; this dataset will give a more complete picture of the asteroid’s overall shape.
Like Lucy’s first asteroid flyby target, Dinkinesh, Donaldjohanson is not a primary science target of the Lucy mission. As planned, the Dinkinesh flyby was a system’s test for the mission, while this encounter was a full dress rehearsal, in which the team conducted a series of dense observations to maximize data collection. Data collected by Lucy’s other scientific instruments, the L’Ralph color imager and infrared spectrometer and the L’TES thermal infrared spectrometer, will be retrieved and analyzed over the next few weeks.
The Lucy spacecraft will spend most of the remainder of 2025 travelling through the main asteroid belt. Lucy will encounter the mission’s first main target, the Jupiter Trojan asteroid Eurybates, in August 2027.
“These early images of Donaldjohanson are again showing the tremendous capabilities of the Lucy spacecraft as an engine of discovery,” said Tom Statler, program scientist for the Lucy mission at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “The potential to really open a new window into the history of our solar system when Lucy gets to the Trojan asteroids is immense.”
The asteroid Donaldjohanson as seen by the Lucy Long-Range Reconnaissance Imager (L’LORRI). This is one of the most detailed images returned by NASA’s Lucy spacecraft during its flyby. This image was taken at 1:51 p.m. EDT (17:51 UTC), April 20, 2025, near closest approach, from a range of approximately 660 miles (1,100 km). The spacecraft’s closest approach distance was 600 miles (960 km), but the image shown was taken approximately 40 seconds beforehand. The image has been sharpened and processed to enhance contrast. NASA/Goddard/SwRI/Johns Hopkins APL/NOIRLab NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, provides overall mission management, systems engineering and the safety and mission assurance for Lucy, as well as the designing and building the L’Ralph instrument. Hal Levison of the Boulder, Colorado, office of SwRI is the principal investigator. SwRI is headquartered in San Antonio and also leads the mission’s science team, science observation planning, and data processing. NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, provides overall mission management, systems engineering, and the safety and mission assurance for Lucy, as well as the L’Ralph instrument. Lockheed Martin Space in Littleton, Colorado, built the spacecraft, designed the orbital trajectory, and provides flight operations. Goddard and KinetX Aerospace are responsible for navigating the Lucy spacecraft. The Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, designed and built the L’LORRI (Lucy Long Range Reconnaissance Imager) instrument. Arizona State University designed and built the L’TES (Lucy Thermal Emission Spectrometer). Lucy is the thirteenth mission in NASA’s Discovery Program, which is managed by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.
By Katherine Kretke
Southwest Research Institute
Media Contact:
Karen Fox / Molly Wasser
Headquarters, Washington
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karen.c.fox@nasa.gov / molly.l.wasser@nasa.gov
Nancy N. Jones
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
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Last Updated Apr 21, 2025 Editor Jamie Adkins Contact Molly Wasser molly.l.wasser@nasa.gov Related Terms
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By NASA
NASA’s SpaceX 32nd commercial resupply services mission, scheduled to lift off from the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in April, is heading to the International Space Station with experiments that include research on whether plant DNA responses in space correlate to human aging and disease, and measuring the precise effects of gravity on time.
Discover more details about the two experiments’ potential impacts on space exploration and how they can enhance life on Earth:
“Second Guessing” Time in Space
As outlined in Einstein’s general theory of relativity, how we experience the passage of time is influenced by gravity. However, there is strong evidence to believe this theory may not be complete and that there are unknown forces at play. These new physics effects may manifest themselves in small deviations from Einstein’s prediction.
The ACES (Atomic Clock Ensemble in Space) investigation is an ESA (European Space Agency) mission that aims to help answer fundamental physics questions. By comparing a highly precise atomic clock in space with numerous ground atomic clocks around the world, ACES could take global time synchronization and clock comparison experiments to new heights.
Sponsored by NASA, United States scientists are participating in the mission in various ways, including contributing ground station reference clocks. Scheduled to collect data for 30 months, this vast network of precise clocks is expected to provide fresh insights into the exact relationship between gravity and time, set new limits for unknown forces, and improve global time synchronization.
In addition to investigating the laws of physics, ACES will enable new terrestrial applications such as relativistic geodesy, which involves measuring Earth’s shape and gravitational field with extreme precision. These advancements are critical to space navigation, satellite operations, and GPS systems. For example, without understanding the time fluctuations between Earth and medium Earth orbit, GPS would be progressively less accurate.
A robotic arm will attach ACES to the Columbus Laboratory module aboard the International Space Station. Image courtesy of ESA Probing Plants for Properties to Protect DNA
The APEX-12 (Advanced Plant EXperiment-12) investigation will test the hypothesis that induction of telomerase activity in space protects plant DNA molecules from damage elicited by cellular stress evoked by the combined spaceflight stressors experienced by seedlings grown aboard the space station. It is expected that results will lead to a better understanding of differences between human and plant telomere behavior in space.
Data on telomerase activity in plants could be leveraged not only to develop therapies for age-related diseases in space and on Earth, but also for ensuring food crops are more resilient to spaceflight stress.
Telomeres and telomerase influence cell division and cell death, two processes crucial to understanding aging in humans. Telomeres are the protective end caps of chromosomes. Each time a cell divides, the telomeres shorten slightly, essentially acting as a biological clock for cell aging. Conversely, telomerase is an enzyme that adds nucleotide sequences to the ends of telomeres, lengthening them and counteracting their shortening.
In humans, telomere shortening is linked to various age-related conditions, such as cardiovascular diseases and certain cancers. In astronauts, studies have shown that spaceflight leads to changes in telomere length, with a notable lengthening observed. This phenomenon carries potential implications for astronaut health outcomes. By contrast, plant telomere length did not change during spaceflight, despite a dramatic increase in telomerase activity.
A microscopic image of plant telomeres taken under a fluorescent microscope. The chromosomes are highlighted in blue. The telomeres are highlighted in yellow. Image courtesy of Texas A&M University How this benefits space exploration: Experiments aboard NASA’s SpaceX CRS-32 mission is twofold. One, they have the potential to significantly enhance precision timekeeping, which is necessary to improve space navigation and communication. Two, they can provide insights into how plants adapt to protect DNA molecules from cellular stress caused by environmental factors experienced in spaceflight, in an effort to sustain plant life in space.
How this benefits humanity: The experiments conducted on NASA’s SpaceX CRS-32 mission offer a range of potential benefits to humanity. First, improving precision timekeeping for more accurate GPS technology. Second, capturing data about how telomerase activity correlates to cellular stress in plants, which could lead to assays which better correlate telomerase activity and cellular stress and provide fundamental research to contribute to potential therapies for humans.
Learn more about the investigations:
ACES (Atomic Clock Ensemble in Space)
Atomic Clock Ensemble in Space (ACES) is a European Space Agency (ESA) mission that aims to help answer fundamental physics questions.
APEX-12 (Advanced Plant EXperiment-12)
Advanced Plant EXperiment-12 (APEX-12) will test the hypothesis that induction of telomerase, a protein complex, activity in space protects plant DNA molecules from damage elicited by cellular stress evoked by the combined spaceflight stressors experienced by seedlings grown aboard the space station.
About BPS
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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