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By NASA
2 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
NASA’s C-130, now under new ownership, sits ready for its final departure from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia, on Friday, April 18, 2025. NASA/Garon Clark NASA’s C-130 Hercules, fondly known as the Herc, went wheels up at 9:45 a.m., Friday, April 18, as it departed from its decade-long home at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia, for the final time. The aircraft is embarking on a new adventure to serve and protect in the state of California where it is now under the ownership of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE).
The transition of the C-130 to CAL FIRE is part of a long-running, NASA-wide aircraft enterprise-management activity to consolidate the aircraft fleet and achieve greater operational efficiencies while reducing the agency’s infrastructure footprint.
The C-130 Hercules takes off for the final time from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia.NASA/Garon Clark “Our C-130 and the team behind it has served with great distinction over the past decade,” said David L. Pierce, Wallops Flight Facility director. “While our time with this amazing airframe has come to a close, I’m happy to see it continue serving the nation in this new capacity with CAL FIRE.”
The research and cargo aircraft, built in 1986, was acquired by NASA in 2015. Over the past decade, the C-130 supported the agency’s airborne scientific research, provided logistics support and movement of agency cargo, and supported technology demonstration missions. The aircraft logged approximately 1,820 flight hours in support of missions across the world during its time with the agency.
Additional aircraft housed at NASA Wallops will be relocated to NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, in the coming months.
For more information on NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility, visit: www.nasa.gov/wallops.
By Olivia Littleton
NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility, Wallops Island, Va.
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Last Updated Apr 18, 2025 EditorOlivia F. LittletonLocationWallops Flight Facility Related Terms
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By European Space Agency
Image: This very high-resolution image captures the Egyptian city of Giza and its surrounding area, including the world-famous Giza Pyramid Complex. View the full article
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By European Space Agency
Each year, cutting-edge technologies developed by the European Space Agency (ESA) for its complex missions and scientific discoveries find new life in applications used to benefit Earth and improve our daily lives.
From 9–13 April, ESA was guest of honour at the 50th International Exhibition of Inventions Geneva in Switzerland with more than 1000 inventions, which attracted 30 000 visitors from the public. ESA showcased its new technologies and applications that have been invented for space missions and patented for use in and outside the space arena.
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By NASA
In an open challenge, NASA is seeking innovative business models that propose new approaches to solving complex Earth science problems using unconventional computing methods and is holding an informational webinar on Monday, April 28.
The agency’s Beyond the Algorithm Challenge, sponsored by NASA’s Earth Science Technology Office, asks for proposals to more rapidly and accurately understand our home planet using transformative computing methods such as quantum computing, quantum machine learning, neuromorphic computing, in-memory computing, or other approaches.
The Beyond the Algorithm Challenge kicked off in March and consists of three phases. Participant submissions, which are due on July 25, will be evaluated based on creativity, technical feasibility, impact, business model evaluation, and presentation. Up to 10 finalists will be invited to present their ideas to a panel of judges at a live pitch event, and winners will a monetary prize.
For details about the challenge, interested participants can sign up for the informational webinar on Monday, April 28, here.
Using the vantage point of space, NASA’s observations of Earth increase our understanding of our home planet, improve lives, and safeguard our future. The capabilities of NASA’s Earth Science Division include developing new technology, delivering actionable science, and providing environmental information to meet the increased demand for more sophisticated, more accurate, more trustworthy, and more actionable environmental information for decision-makers and policymakers.
For example, rapid flood analysis is one area that may benefit from computing advancements. Flood hazards affect personal safety and land use, directly affecting individual livelihoods, community property, and infrastructure development and resilience. Advanced flood analysis capability enables contributions to protect and serve impacted communities, making a tangible difference in areas such as disaster preparedness, recovery, and resilience.
Advancements in computing capabilities show promise in overcoming processing power, efficiency, and performance limitations of conventional computing methods in addressing Earth science challenges like rapid flood analysis. Quantum computers offer a fundamentally different paradigm of computation and can solve certain classes of problems exponentially faster than their classical counterparts. Likewise, quantum machine learning offers the potential to reduce required training data or produce more accurate models. The emerging field of neuromorphic, or brain-inspired, computing holds significant promise for algorithm development optimized for high-speed, low power. And in-memory computing saves time and energy for data-heavy processes like artificial intelligence training.
Blue Clarity is hosting the Beyond the Algorithm Challenge on behalf of NASA. The NASA Tournament Lab, part of the Prizes, Challenges, and Crowdsourcing program in the Space Technology Mission Directorate, manages the challenge. The program supports global public competitions and crowdsourcing as tools to advance NASA research and development and other mission needs.
For more information about the contest and a full list of rules and eligibility requirements, visit:
https://www.nasa-beyond-challenge.org
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By NASA
Explore This Section Science Science Activation GLOBE Mission Earth Supports… Overview Learning Resources Science Activation Teams SME Map Opportunities More Science Activation Stories Citizen Science 4 min read
GLOBE Mission Earth Supports Career Technical Education
The NASA Science Activation program’s GLOBE Mission EARTH (GME) project is forging powerful connections between career technical education (CTE) programs and real-world science, inspiring students across the United States to pursue careers in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM).
GME is a collaborative effort between NASA scientists, educators, and schools that brings NASA Earth science and the GLOBE Program into classrooms to support hands-on, inquiry-based learning. GLOBE (Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment) is an international science and education program that provides students and the public with the opportunity to participate in data collection and the scientific process, contributing meaningfully to our understanding of the Earth system.
By connecting students directly to environmental research and NASA data, GME helps make science more relevant, engaging, and applicable to students’ futures. In CTE programs—where project-based and work-based learning are key instructional strategies—GME’s integration of GLOBE protocols offers students the chance to develop not only technical skills, but also essential data literacy and professional competencies like collaboration, critical thinking, and communication. These cross-cutting skills are valuable across a wide range of industries, from agriculture and advanced manufacturing to natural resources and public safety.
The real-world, hands-on approach of CTE makes it an ideal setting for implementing GLOBE to support STEM learning across industries. At Skyline High School in Oakland, California, for example, GLOBE has been embedded in multiple courses within the school’s Green Energy Pathway, originally launched by GLOBE partner Tracy Ostrom. Over the past decade, nearly 1,000 students have participated in GLOBE activities at Skyline. Many of these students describe their experiences with environmental data collection and interactions with NASA scientists as inspiring and transformative. Similarly, at Toledo Technology Academy, GME is connecting students with NASA science and renewable energy projects—allowing them to study how solar panels impact their local environment and how weather conditions affect wind energy generation.
To expand awareness of how GLOBE can enhance CTE learning and career preparation, WestEd staff Svetlana Darche and Nico Janik presented at the Educating for Careers Conference on March 3, 2025, in Sacramento, California. This event, sponsored by the California chapter of the Association for Career and Technical Education (ACTE), brought together over 2,600 educators dedicated to equipping students with the tools they need to succeed in an evolving job market. Darche and Janik’s session, titled “Developing STEM Skills While Contributing to Science,” showcased GLOBE’s role in work-based learning and introduced new federal definitions from the Carl D. Perkins Act (Perkins V) that emphasize:
Interactions with industry professionals A direct link to curriculum and instruction First-hand engagement with real-world tasks in a given career field GLOBE’s approach to scientific data collection aligns perfectly with these criteria. Janik led 40 educators through a hands-on experience using the GLOBE Surface Temperature Protocol, demonstrating how students investigate the Urban Heat Island Effect while learning critical technical and analytical skills. By collecting and analyzing real-world data, students gain firsthand experience with the tools and methods used by scientists, bridging the gap between classroom learning and future career opportunities.
Through GME’s work with CTE programs, students are not only learning science—they are doing science. These authentic experiences inspire, empower, and prepare students for careers where data literacy, scientific inquiry, and problem-solving are essential. With ongoing collaborations between GLOBE, NASA, and educators nationwide, the next generation of STEM professionals is already taking shape—one real-world investigation at a time.
GME is supported by NASA under cooperative agreement award number NNX16AC54A and is part of NASA’s Science Activation Portfolio. Learn more about how Science Activation connects NASA science experts, real content, and experiences with community leaders to do science in ways that activate minds and promote deeper understanding of our world and beyond: https://science.nasa.gov/learn
GreenEnergyPathway presenting the Green Energy Pathway CTE program. Share
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Last Updated Apr 11, 2025 Editor NASA Science Editorial Team Related Terms
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