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By NASA
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, left, and U.S. Department of State Acting Assistant Secretary in the Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs Jennifer R. Littlejohn, right, look on as Ambassador of the Republic of Austria to the United States of America Petra Schneebauer, signs the Artemis Accords, Wednesday, Dec. 11, 2024, at the Mary W. Jackson NASA Headquarters building in Washington. The Republic of Austria is the 50th country to sign the Artemis Accords, which establish a practical set of principles to guide space exploration cooperation among nations participating in NASA’s Artemis program. Credit: NASA/Joel Kowsky
Lee esta nota de prensa en español aquí.
Panama and Austria signed the Artemis Accords Wednesday during separate signing ceremonies at NASA Headquarters in Washington, becoming the 49th and 50th nations to commit to the responsible exploration of space for all humanity.
“NASA welcomes Panama and Austria to the Artemis Accords community and celebrates 50 countries united by shared principles for the safe and responsible exploration of space,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said. “More than ever before, NASA is opening space to more nations and more people for the benefit of all. Together we are building long-term and peaceful deep space exploration for the Artemis Generation.”
In just a few years, the original group of eight country signatories including the United States has multiplied, with 17 countries signings in 2024. More than a number, the Artemis Accords represent a robust community, from every region of the world, unified by the same goal: to ensure safe and responsible civil space exploration.
Through the Artemis Accords, the United States and other signatories are progressing toward continued safe and sustainable exploration of space with concrete outcomes. They committed to a method of operation and set of recommendations on non-interference, interoperability, release of scientific data, long-term sustainability guidelines, and registration to advance the implementation of the Artemis Accords.
Potential focus areas for the next year include further advancing sustainability, including debris management for both lunar orbit and the surface of the Moon.
Austria Joins Artemis Accords
Petra Schneebauer, ambassador of the Republic of Austria to the United States, signed the accords on behalf of Austria, becoming the 50th country signatory.
“Austria is proud to sign the Artemis Accords, an important step in fostering international cooperation for the civil exploration of the Moon and expanding humanity’s presence in the cosmos,” said Schneebauer. “By signing the Accords, we reaffirm our commitment to the peaceful, responsible, and cooperative use of space while emphasizing our support for strong multilateral partnerships and scientific progress. This cooperation will open new prospects for Austrian businesses, scientists, and research institutions to engage in pioneering space initiatives.”
Jennifer Littlejohn, acting assistant secretary, Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs, U.S. Department of State, also participated in Austria’s signing event.
Panama Joins Artemis Accords
Earlier Wednesday, Nelson hosted Panama for a signing ceremony. José Miguel Alemán Healy, ambassador of the Republic of Panama to the United States, signed the Artemis Accords on behalf of Panama. Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary Tony Fernandes for U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs also participated in the event.
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, left, Ambassador of the Republic of Panama to the United States of America José Miguel Alemán Healy, center, and U.S. Department of State Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs Tony Fernandes, pose for a picture after the Republic of Panama signed the Artemis Accords, Wednesday, Dec. 11, 2024, at the Mary W. Jackson NASA Headquarters building in Washington. The Republic of Panama is the 49th country to sign the Artemis Accords, which establish a practical set of principles to guide space exploration cooperation among nations participating in NASA’s Artemis program. Credit: NASA/Joel Kowsky “Today, Panama takes its place among many other nations looking not just to our own horizons, but to the horizons beyond our planet – exploring, learning, and contributing to humanity’s collective knowledge,” said Alemán.”This moment represents far more than a diplomatic signature. It is a bold commitment to peaceful exploration, scientific discovery, and international collaboration.”
In 2020, the United States, led by NASA with the U.S. Department of State, and seven other initial signatory nations established the Artemis Accords, identifying a set of principles promoting the beneficial use of space for humanity.
The Artemis Accords are grounded in the Outer Space Treaty and other agreements including the Registration Convention, the Rescue and Return Agreement, as well as best practices and norms of responsible behavior that NASA and its partners have supported, including the public release of scientific data.
The accords are a voluntary commitment to engage in safe, transparent, responsible behavior in space, and any nation that wants to commit to those values is welcome to sign.
Learn more about the Artemis Accords at:
https://www.nasa.gov/artemis-accords
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Meira Bernstein / Elizabeth Shaw
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
meira.b.bernstein@nasa.gov / elizabeth.a.shaw@nasa.gov
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Last Updated Dec 11, 2024 LocationNASA Headquarters Related Terms
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By Space Force
The Space Force senior leader highlighted the ever-changing landscape of developing partnerships in the space domain.
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By NASA
NASA Astronauts (from left) Mike Barratt, Matthew Dominick, and Loral O’Hara take photographs of Earth from inside the cupola aboard space station.Credit: NASA That’s a wrap! Astronauts aboard the International Space Station conducted hundreds of science experiments and technology demonstrations during 2024. Crew members participated in research across a variety of scientific disciplines and accomplished milestones demonstrating benefits for future missions and humanity back on Earth. Their work included snapping thousands of images of Earth to understand our planet’s changing landscape, bioprinting cardiac tissues to validate technology for organ manufacturing in space, and studying physical phenomena that could improve drug delivery systems and technology for plant growth in reduced gravity.
This new image gallery showcases dozens of awe-inspiring photos and includes details about the research benefits of the state-of-the-art science happening aboard space station.
Discover the best science images of 2024 from your orbiting lab.
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By NASA
5 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter, right, stands near the apex of a sand ripple in an image taken by Perseverance on Feb. 24, 2024, about five weeks after the rotorcraft’s final flight. Part of one of Ingenuity’s rotor blades lies on the surface about 49 feet (15 meters) west of helicopter (at left in image).NASA/JPL-Caltech/LANL/CNES/CNRS The review takes a close look the final flight of the agency’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter, which was the first aircraft to fly on another world.
Engineers from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California and AeroVironment are completing a detailed assessment of the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter’s final flight on Jan. 18, 2024, which will be published in the next few weeks as a NASA technical report. Designed as a technology demonstration to perform up to five experimental test flights over 30 days, Ingenuity was the first aircraft on another world. It operated for almost three years, performed 72 flights, and flew more than 30 times farther than planned while accumulating over two hours of flight time.
The investigation concludes that the inability of Ingenuity’s navigation system to provide accurate data during the flight likely caused a chain of events that ended the mission. The report’s findings are expected to benefit future Mars helicopters, as well as other aircraft destined to operate on other worlds.
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NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter used its black-and-white navigation camera to capture this video on Feb. 11, 2024, showing the shadow of its rotor blades. The imagery confirmed damage had occurred during Flight 72. NASA/JPL-Caltech Final Ascent
Flight 72 was planned as a brief vertical hop to assess Ingenuity’s flight systems and photograph the area. Data from the flight shows Ingenuity climbing to 40 feet (12 meters), hovering, and capturing images. It initiated its descent at 19 seconds, and by 32 seconds the helicopter was back on the surface and had halted communications. The following day, the mission reestablished communications, and images that came down six days after the flight revealed Ingenuity had sustained severe damage to its rotor blades.
What Happened
“When running an accident investigation from 100 million miles away, you don’t have any black boxes or eyewitnesses,” said Ingenuity’s first pilot, Håvard Grip of JPL. “While multiple scenarios are viable with the available data, we have one we believe is most likely: Lack of surface texture gave the navigation system too little information to work with.”
The helicopter’s vision navigation system was designed to track visual features on the surface using a downward-looking camera over well-textured (pebbly) but flat terrain. This limited tracking capability was more than sufficient for carrying out Ingenuity’s first five flights, but by Flight 72 the helicopter was in a region of Jezero Crater filled with steep, relatively featureless sand ripples.
This short animation depicts a NASA concept for a proposed follow-on to the agency’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter called Mars Chopper, which remains in early conceptual and design stages. In addition to scouting, such a helicopter could carry science instruments to study terrain rovers can’t reach. One of the navigation system’s main requirements was to provide velocity estimates that would enable the helicopter to land within a small envelope of vertical and horizontal velocities. Data sent down during Flight 72 shows that, around 20 seconds after takeoff, the navigation system couldn’t find enough surface features to track.
Photographs taken after the flight indicate the navigation errors created high horizontal velocities at touchdown. In the most likely scenario, the hard impact on the sand ripple’s slope caused Ingenuity to pitch and roll. The rapid attitude change resulted in loads on the fast-rotating rotor blades beyond their design limits, snapping all four of them off at their weakest point — about a third of the way from the tip. The damaged blades caused excessive vibration in the rotor system, ripping the remainder of one blade from its root and generating an excessive power demand that resulted in loss of communications.
This graphic depicts the most likely scenario for the hard landing of NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter during its 72nd and final flight on Jan. 18, 2024. High horizontal velocities at touchdown resulted in a hard impact on a sand ripple, which caused Ingenuity to pitch and roll, damaging its rotor blades. NASA/JPL-Caltech Down but Not Out
Although Flight 72 permanently grounded Ingenuity, the helicopter still beams weather and avionics test data to the Perseverance rover about once a week. The weather information could benefit future explorers of the Red Planet. The avionics data is already proving useful to engineers working on future designs of aircraft and other vehicles for the Red Planet.
“Because Ingenuity was designed to be affordable while demanding huge amounts of computer power, we became the first mission to fly commercial off-the-shelf cellphone processors in deep space,” said Teddy Tzanetos, Ingenuity’s project manager. “We’re now approaching four years of continuous operations, suggesting that not everything needs to be bigger, heavier, and radiation-hardened to work in the harsh Martian environment.”
Inspired by Ingenuity’s longevity, NASA engineers have been testing smaller, lighter avionics that could be used in vehicle designs for the Mars Sample Return campaign. The data is also helping engineers as they research what a future Mars helicopter could look like — and do.
During a Wednesday, Dec. 11, briefing at the American Geophysical Union’s annual meeting in Washington, Tzanetos shared details on the Mars Chopper rotorcraft, a concept that he and other Ingenuity alumni are researching. As designed, Chopper is approximately 20 times heavier than Ingenuity, could fly several pounds of science equipment, and autonomously explore remote Martian locations while traveling up to 2 miles (3 kilometers) in a day. (Ingenuity’s longest flight was 2,310 feet, or 704 meters.)
“Ingenuity has given us the confidence and data to envision the future of flight at Mars,” said Tzanetos.
More About Ingenuity
The Ingenuity Mars Helicopter was built by JPL, which also manages the project for NASA Headquarters. It is supported by NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley and NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, provided significant flight performance analysis and technical assistance during Ingenuity’s development. AeroVironment, Qualcomm, and SolAero also provided design assistance and major vehicle components. Lockheed Space designed and manufactured the Mars Helicopter Delivery System. At NASA Headquarters, Dave Lavery is the program executive for the Ingenuity Mars helicopter.
For more information about Ingenuity:
https://mars.nasa.gov/technology/helicopter
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Karen Fox / Molly Wasser
NASA Headquarters, Washington
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Last Updated Dec 11, 2024 Related Terms
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By NASA
If Digital Transformation were a ship, the vessel for delivering on our missions and ensuring smooth passage into the future, our final Digital Transformer of 2024 would be the captain. Growing up sailing with her father on the Chesapeake Bay, this transformer developed the navigation skills she now uses at NASA “with both clarity and precision, much like a sailor who understands the subtle shifts in the wind,” says Christina Haymes, DT Enterprise Integration Architect. “She knows how to watch the sea to find the invisible breeze,” notes Patrick Murphy, DT Portfolio Manager. “I admire how she operates as a leader both in calm and troubling seas to get us where we want to be.” Vision and leadership are just two of the many reasons why our December Digital Transformer, Jill Marlowe, stands at the helm of our ever-evolving journey.
Jill has dedicated over three decades to her career at NASA, starting as an engineer and evolving into her position as the Digital Transformation Officer. Her early sailing experiences led her to pursue ocean and aerospace engineering at Virginia Tech; an innate passion for continual growth led to subsequent master’s degrees in mechanical, civil, and environmental engineering. As Jill moved into leadership positions across NASA’s engineering organizations, divisions, and directorates, she realized that the technology she was instinctively using to transform her work could also help the agency overcome a wider range of challenges.
Her keen eye for cross-cutting solutions perfectly positioned her for the dynamic role of Digital Transformation Officer, diving into technical problems with engineers one day and strategizing with senior executives the next. Although she brings a rigorous technical background to the role, Jill most enjoys the creative and collaborative aspects. “It really gives me an opportunity to engage with a lot of earlier career folks who often are bringing some of these digital ideas into our workplace,” she says. “To me, it’s a very generative role, and that’s what I like the best about it.”
Jill commits to practicing what she preaches, strategically leveraging tools like Microsoft Teams and other M365 applications to build a culture of digital innovation and influence others to join the movement. Krista Kinnard, DT Culture and Communications Lead, says, “We work in a digital world with new tools that make our lives easier. Jill has really shown how the way we interact with each other matters and can be streamlined to drive our team to success.” Jill’s growth-oriented mindset drives her to stay on the cutting edge of new capabilities—always with the goal of enabling mission outcomes and increasing our capacity for partnership.
When times are challenging, people want heroes. I think a lot of what NASA does is bring humanity together.
Jill Marlowe
Digital Transformation Officer
Jill’s fervent belief in the power of collaboration is evident in the way she talks about her technical work, particularly with Digital Engineering (DE). “I am very excited about where we are with digital engineering at NASA and the progress Terry Hill and his team have made [toward] a unified engineering community,” says Jill. Through seed funding and ongoing support, Jill and the DT team grew Digital Engineering at NASA from initial prototype tests to an operationalized program within the Office of the Chief Engineer. In addition to the community’s alignment around a shared vision, Jill is proud of the team’s quantitative achievements in developing systems, tools, and approaches for digitalizing the engineering processes and adopting a common toolchain. “I feel like we’ve been talking about those kinds of ideas my entire career, and we’re this close to having this in the hands of the engineers across NASA so they can work together and with our partners in ways that we haven’t been able to before”
For Jill, the measure of DT’s success lies in the ability to enable more complex missions, collaborate more seamlessly with partners, and build more resilient systems that prepare us for the future. Under her leadership, DT facilitated the maturation of NASA Mission Cloud, a digital solution for capturing mission capability requirements and defining technology needs. In FY24, DT launched the new IT Modernization for Transformation (ITMX) fund and curated a $10M portfolio of enterprise solutions in data interoperability, federated search, digital engineering, cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, and more. By championing Digital Transformation at NASA and demonstrating its value, Jill paved the way for solutions that accelerate discovery and mission delivery.
Over her career, Jill forged bonds, championed innovation, and positioned the agency to leverage the ripple effects of her work long after her upcoming retirement in December. Her legacy, however, might be best summarized by the way she made people feel. “It sounds simple, but so many people are listening to respond, whereas Jill is listening to understand,” Krista says. The rest of DT leadership echoes this sentiment. “Jill has a deep knowledge of NASA and has built strong relationships across the agency. Most of all, I value her mentorship and friendship,” says Christina. Patrick puts it simply: “Collaborating with Jill is a joy.”
As she reflects on her time at the agency, Jill shares inspiring aspirations for NASA’s future and DT’s ability to carry us on that voyage. “When times are challenging, people want heroes. I think a lot of what NASA does is bring humanity together. When I think about those big expectations on NASA for the future and the technology that’s coming along that can make those dreams come true…it literally gives me chills.” She continues, “I encourage the continued community around Digital Transformation, the continued quest to find shared solutions to common challenges. Because I really do think that’s the way we’re going to get there from here.”
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