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By NASA
3 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
Gateway’s HALO module at Northrop Grumman’s facility in Gilbert, Arizona, on April 4, 2025, shortly after its arrival from Thales Alenia Space in Turin, Italy. NASA/Josh Valcarcel NASA continues to mark progress on plans to work with commercial and international partners as part of the Gateway program. The primary structure of HALO (Habitation and Logistics Outpost) arrived at Northrop Grumman’s facility in Gilbert, Arizona, where it will undergo final outfitting and verification testing.
HALO will provide Artemis astronauts with space to live, work, and conduct scientific research. The habitation module will be equipped with essential systems including command and control, data handling, energy storage, power distribution, and thermal regulation.
Following HALO’s arrival on April 1 from Thales Alenia Space in Turin, Italy, where it was assembled, NASA and Northrop Grumman hosted an April 24 event to acknowledge the milestone, and the module’s significance to lunar exploration. The event opened with remarks by representatives from Northrop Grumman and NASA, including NASA’s Acting Associate Administrator for Exploration Systems Development Lori Glaze, Gateway Program Manager Jon Olansen, and NASA astronaut Randy Bresnik. Event attendees, including Senior Advisor to the NASA Administrator Todd Ericson, elected officials, and local industry and academic leaders, viewed HALO and virtual reality demonstrations during a tour of the facilities.
Dr. Lori Glaze, acting associate administrator for NASA’s Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate, and Dr. Jon B. Olansen, Gateway Program manager, on stage during an April 24, 2025, event at Northrop Grumman’s facility in Gilbert, Arizona, commemorating HALO’s arrival in the United States. Northrop Grumman While the module is in Arizona, HALO engineers and technicians will install propellant lines for fluid transfer and electrical lines for power and data transfer. Radiators will be attached for the thermal control system, as well as racks to house life support hardware, power equipment, flight computers, and avionics systems. Several mechanisms will be mounted to enable docking of the Orion spacecraft, lunar landers, and visiting spacecraft.
Launching on top of HALO is the ESA (European Space Agency)-provided Lunar Link system which will enable communication between crewed and robotic systems on the Moon and to mission control on Earth. Once these systems are installed, the components will be tested as an integrated spacecraft and subjected to thermal vacuum, acoustics, vibration, and shock testing to ensure the spacecraft is ready to perform in the harsh conditions of deep space.
In tandem with HALO’s outfitting at Northrop Grumman, the Power and Propulsion Element – a powerful solar electric propulsion system – is being assembled at Maxar Space Systems in Palo Alto, California. Solar electric propulsion uses energy collected from solar panels converted to electricity to create xenon ions, then accelerates them to more than 50,000 miles per hour to create thrust that propels the spacecraft.
The element’s central cylinder, which resembles a large barrel, is being attached to the propulsion tanks, and avionics shelves are being installed. The first of three 12-kilowatt thrusters has been delivered to NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland for acceptance testing before delivery to Maxar and integration with the Power and Propulsion Element later this year.
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Last Updated Apr 25, 2025 ContactLaura RochonLocationJohnson Space Center Related Terms
Artemis Artemis 4 Earth's Moon Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate Gateway Space Station General Humans in Space Explore More
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By NASA
Jeremy Johnson, a research pilot and aviation safety officer, poses in front of a PC-12 aircraft inside the hangar at NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland on Thursday, April 17, 2025. Johnson flies NASA planes to support important scientific research and testing.Credit: NASA/Sara Lowthian-Hanna Jeremy Johnson laces his black, steel-toed boots and zips up his dark blue flight suit. Having just finished a pre-flight mission briefing with his team, the only thing on his mind is heading to the aircraft hangar and getting a plane in the air.
As he eases a small white-and-blue propeller aircraft down the hangar’s ramp and onto the runway, he hears five essential words crackle through his headset: “NASA 606, cleared for takeoff.”
This is a typical morning for Johnson, a research pilot and aviation safety officer at NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland. Johnson flies NASA planes to support important scientific research and testing, working with researchers to plan and carry out flights that will get them the data they need while ensuring safety.
Johnson hasn’t always flown in NASA planes. He comes to the agency from the U.S. Air Force, where he flew missions all over the world in C-17 cargo aircraft, piloted unmanned reconnaissance operations out of California, and trained young aviators in Oklahoma on the fundamentals of flying combat missions.
Jeremy Johnson stands beside a C-17 aircraft before a night training flight in Altus, Oklahoma, in 2020. Before supporting vital flight research at NASA through a SkillBridge fellowship, which gives transitioning service members the opportunity to gain civilian work experience, Johnson served in the U.S. Air Force and flew C-17 airlift missions all over the world.Credit: Courtesy of Jeremy Johnson He’s at Glenn for a four-month Department of Defense SkillBridge fellowship. The program gives transitioning service members an opportunity to gain civilian work experience through training, apprenticeships, or internships during their last 180 days of service before separating from the military.
“I think SkillBridge has been an amazing tool to help me transition into what it’s like working somewhere that isn’t the military,” Johnson said. “In the Air Force, flying the mission was the mission. At NASA Glenn, the science—the research—is the mission.”
By flying aircraft outfitted with research hardware or carrying test equipment, Johnson has contributed to two vital projects at NASA so far. One is focused on testing how well laser systems can transmit signals for communication and navigation. The other, part of NASA’s research under Air Mobility Pathfinders, explores how 5G telecommunications infrastructure can help electric air taxis of the future be safely incorporated into the national airspace. This work, and the data that scientists can collect through flights, supports NASA’s research to advance technology and innovate for the benefit of all.
Jeremy Johnson pilots NASA Glenn Research Center’s PC-12 aircraft during a research flight on Thursday, April 17, 2025.Credit: NASA/Sara Lowthian-Hanna “It’s really exciting to see research hardware come fresh from the lab, and then be strapped onto an aircraft and taken into flight to see if it actually performs in a relevant environment,” Johnson said. “Every flight you do is more than just that flight—it’s one little part of a much bigger, much more ambitious project that’s going on. You remember, this is a small little piece of something that is maybe going to change the frontier of science, the frontier of discovery.”
Johnson has always had a passion for aviation. In college, he worked as a valet to pay for flying lessons. To hone his skills before Air Force training, one summer he flew across the country in a Cessna with his aunt, a commercial pilot. They flew down the Hudson River as they watched the skyscrapers of New York City whizz by and later to Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, where the Wright brothers made their historic first flight. Johnson even flew skydivers part-time while he was stationed in California.
Jeremy Johnson in the cockpit of a PC-12 aircraft as it exits the hangar at NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland before a research flight on Thursday, April 17, 2025.Credit: NASA/Sara Lowthian-Hanna Although he’s spent countless hours flying, he still takes the window seat on commercial flights whenever he can so he can look out the window and marvel at the world below.
Despite his successes, Johnson’s journey to becoming a pilot wasn’t always smooth. He recalls that as he was about to land after his first solo flight, violent crosswinds blew his plane off the runway and sent him bouncing into the grass. Though he eventually got back behind the stick for another flight, he said that in that moment he wondered whether he had the strength and skills to overcome his self-doubt.
“I don’t know anyone who flies for a living that had a completely easy path into it,” Johnson said. “To people who are thinking about getting into flying, just forge forward with it. Make people close doors on you, don’t close them on yourself, when it comes to flying or whatever you see yourself doing in the future. I just kept knocking on the door until there was a crack in it.”
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By European Space Agency
Image: Copernicus Sentinel-1 captured this radar image over French Guiana – home to Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, where ESA’s Biomass mission is being prepared for liftoff on 29 April onboard a Vega-C rocket. View the full article
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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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