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By NASA
4 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
A Massachusetts Institute of Technology Lincoln Laboratory pilot controls a drone during NASA’s In-Time Aviation Safety Management System test series in collaboration with a George Washington University team July 17-18, 2024, at the U.S. Army’s Fort Devens in Devens, Massachusetts. MIT Lincoln Laboratory/Jay Couturier From agriculture and law enforcement to entertainment and disaster response, industries are increasingly turning to drones for help, but the growing volume of these aircraft will require trusted safety management systems to maintain safe operations.
NASA is testing a new software system to create an improved warning system – one that can predict hazards to drones before they occur. The In-Time Aviation Safety Management System (IASMS) will monitor, assess, and mitigate airborne risks in real time. But making sure that it can do all that requires extensive experimentation to see how its elements work together, including simulations and drone flight tests.
“If everything is going as planned with your flight, you won’t notice your in-time aviation safety management system working,” said Michael Vincent, NASA acting deputy project manager with the System-Wide Safety project at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. “It’s before you encounter an unusual situation, like loss of navigation or communications, that the IASMS provides an alert to the drone operator.”
The team completed a simulation in the Human-Autonomy Teaming Laboratory at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley on March 5 aimed at finding out how critical elements of the IASMS could be used in operational hurricane relief and recovery.
During this simulation, 12 drone pilots completed three 30-minute sessions where they managed up to six drones flying beyond visual line of sight to perform supply drops to residents stranded after a severe hurricane. Additional drones flew scripted search and rescue operations and levee inspections in the background. Researchers collected data on pilot performance, mission success, workload, and perceptions of the experiences, as well as the system’s usability.
This simulation is part of a longer-term strategy by NASA to advance this technology. The lessons learned from this study will help prepare for the project’s hurricane relief and recovery flight tests, planned for 2027.
As an example of this work, in the summer of 2024 NASA tested its IASMS during a series of drone flights in collaboration with the Ohio Department of Transportation in Columbus, Ohio, and in a separate effort, with three university-led teams.
For the Ohio Department of Transportation tests, a drone flew with the NASA-developed IASMS software aboard, which communicated back to computers at NASA Langley. Those transmissions gave NASA researchers input on the system’s performance.
Students from the Ohio State University participate in drone flights during NASA’s In-Time Aviation Safety Management System test series in collaboration with the Ohio Department of Transportation from March to July 2024 at the Columbus Aero Club in Ohio. NASA/Russell Gilabert NASA also conducted studies with The George Washington University (GWU), the University of Notre Dame, and Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU). These occurred at the U.S. Army’s Fort Devens in Devens, Massachusetts with GWU; near South Bend, Indiana with Notre Dame; and in Richmond, Virginia with VCU. Each test included a variety of types of drones, flight scenarios, and operators.
Students from Virginia Commonwealth University walk toward a drone after a flight as part of NASA’s In-Time Aviation Safety Management System (IASMS) test series July 16, 2024, in Richmond, Virginia. NASA/Dave Bowman Each drone testing series involved a different mission for the drone to perform and different hazards for the system to avoid. Scenarios included, for example, how the drone would fly during a wildfire or how it would deliver a package in a city. A different version of the NASA IASMS was used to fit the scenario depending on the mission, or depending on the flight area.
Students from the University of Notre Dame prepare a small drone for takeoff as part of NASA’s In-Time Aviation Safety Management System (IASMS) university test series, which occurred on August 21, 2024 in Notre Dame, Indiana.University of Notre Dame/Wes Evard When used in conjunction with other systems such as NASA’s Unmanned Aircraft System Traffic Management, IASMS may allow for routine drone flights in the U.S. to become a reality. The IASMS adds an additional layer of safety for drones, assuring the reliability and trust if the drone is flying over a town on a routine basis that it remains on course while avoiding hazards along the way.
“There are multiple entities who contribute to safety assurance when flying a drone,” Vincent said. “There is the person who’s flying the drone, the company who designs and manufactures the drone, the company operating the drone, and the Federal Aviation Administration, who has oversight over the entire National Airspace System. Being able to monitor, assess and mitigate risks in real time would make the risks in these situations much more secure.”
All of this work is led by NASA’s System-Wide Safety project under the Airspace Operations and Safety program in support of the agency’s Advanced Air Mobility mission, which seeks to deliver data to guide the industry’s development of electric air taxis and drones.
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Last Updated Apr 02, 2025 EditorDede DiniusContactTeresa Whitingteresa.whiting@nasa.gov Related Terms
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By NASA
5 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
NASA’s SPHEREx, which will map millions of galaxies across the entire sky, captured one of its first exposures March 27. The observatory’s six detectors each captured one of these uncalibrated images, to which visible-light colors have been added to represent infrared wavelengths. SPHEREx’s complete field of view spans the top three images; the same area of the sky is also captured in the bottom three images. NASA/JPL-Caltech Processed with rainbow hues to represent a range of infrared wavelengths, the new pictures indicate the astrophysics space observatory is working as expected.
NASA’s SPHEREx (short for Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer) has turned on its detectors for the first time in space. Initial images from the observatory, which launched March 11, confirm that all systems are working as expected.
Although the new images are uncalibrated and not yet ready to use for science, they give a tantalizing look at SPHEREx’s wide view of the sky. Each bright spot is a source of light, like a star or galaxy, and each image is expected to contain more than 100,000 detected sources.
There are six images in every SPHEREx exposure — one for each detector. The top three images show the same area of sky as the bottom three images. This is the observatory’s full field of view, a rectangular area about 20 times wider than the full Moon. When SPHEREx begins routine science operations in late April, it will take approximately 600 exposures every day.
Each image in this uncalibrated SPHEREx exposure contains about 100,000 light sources, including stars and galaxies. The two insets at right zoom in on sections of one image, showcasing the telescope’s ability to capture faint, distant galaxies. These sections are processed in grayscale rather than visible-light color for ease of viewing.NASA/JPL-Caltech “Our spacecraft has opened its eyes on the universe,” said Olivier Doré, SPHEREx project scientist at Caltech and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, both in Southern California. “It’s performing just as it was designed to.”
The SPHEREx observatory detects infrared light, which is invisible to the human eye. To make these first images, science team members assigned a visible color to every infrared wavelength captured by the observatory. Each of the six SPHEREx detectors has 17 unique wavelength bands, for a total of 102 hues in every six-image exposure.
Breaking down color this way can reveal the composition of an object or the distance to a galaxy. With that data, scientists can study topics ranging from the physics that governed the universe less than a second after its birth to the origins of water in our galaxy.
“This is the high point of spacecraft checkout; it’s the thing we wait for,” said Beth Fabinsky, SPHEREx deputy project manager at JPL. “There’s still work to do, but this is the big payoff. And wow! Just wow!”
During the past two weeks, scientists and engineers at JPL, which manages the mission for NASA, have executed a series of spacecraft checks that show all is well so far. In addition, SPHEREx’s detectors and other hardware have been cooling down to their final temperature of around minus 350 degrees Fahrenheit (about minus 210 degrees Celsius). This is necessary because heat can overwhelm the telescope’s ability to detect infrared light, which is sometimes called heat radiation. The new images also show that the telescope is focused correctly. Focusing is done entirely before launch and cannot be adjusted in space.
“Based on the images we are seeing, we can now say that the instrument team nailed it,” said Jamie Bock, SPHEREx’s principal investigator at Caltech and JPL.
How It Works
Where telescopes like NASA’s Hubble and James Webb space telescopes were designed to target small areas of space in detail, SPHEREx is a survey telescope and takes a broad view. Combining its results with those of targeted telescopes will give scientists a more robust understanding of our universe.
The observatory will map the entire celestial sky four times during its two-year prime mission. Using a technique called spectroscopy, SPHEREx will collect the light from hundreds of millions of stars and galaxies in more wavelengths any other all-sky survey telescope.
Track the real-time location of NASA’s SPHEREx space observatory using the agency’s 3D visualization tool, Eyes on the Solar System. When light enters SPHEREx’s telescope, it’s directed down two paths that each lead to a row of three detectors. The observatory’s detectors are like eyes, and set on top of them are color filters, which are like color-tinted glasses. While a standard color filter blocks all wavelengths but one, like yellow- or rose-tinted glasses, the SPHEREx filters are more like rainbow-tinted glasses: The wavelengths they block change gradually from the top of the filter to the bottom.
“I’m rendered speechless,” said Jim Fanson, SPHEREx project manager at JPL. “There was an incredible human effort to make this possible, and our engineering team did an amazing job getting us to this point.”
More About SPHEREx
The SPHEREx mission is managed by JPL for the agency’s Astrophysics Division within the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters. BAE Systems (formerly Ball Aerospace) built the telescope and the spacecraft bus. The science analysis of the SPHEREx data will be conducted by a team of scientists located at 10 institutions in the U.S., two in South Korea, and one in Taiwan. Caltech managed and integrated the instrument. Data will be processed and archived at IPAC at Caltech. The mission’s principal investigator is based at Caltech with a joint JPL appointment. The SPHEREx dataset will be publicly available at the NASA-IPAC Infrared Science Archive. Caltech manages JPL for NASA.
For more about SPHEREx, visit:
https://science.nasa.gov/mission/spherex/
News Media Contact
Calla Cofield
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
626-808-2469
calla.e.cofield@jpl.nasa.gov
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Last Updated Apr 01, 2025 Related Terms
SPHEREx (Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe and Ices Explorer) Astrophysics Galaxies Origin & Evolution of the Universe The Search for Life The Universe Explore More
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By NASA
Explore Hubble Hubble Home Overview About Hubble The History of Hubble Hubble Timeline Why Have a Telescope in Space? Hubble by the Numbers At the Museum FAQs Impact & Benefits Hubble’s Impact & Benefits Science Impacts Cultural Impact Technology Benefits Impact on Human Spaceflight Astro Community Impacts Science Hubble Science Science Themes Science Highlights Science Behind Discoveries Hubble’s Partners in Science Universe Uncovered Explore the Night Sky Observatory Hubble Observatory Hubble Design Mission Operations Missions to Hubble Hubble vs Webb Team Hubble Team Career Aspirations Hubble Astronauts News Hubble News Hubble News Archive Social Media Media Resources Multimedia Multimedia Images Videos Sonifications Podcasts e-Books Online Activities Lithographs Fact Sheets Posters Hubble on the NASA App Glossary More 35th Anniversary Online Activities 5 Min Read 20-Year Hubble Study of Uranus Yields New Atmospheric Insights
The image columns show the change of Uranus for the four years that STIS observed Uranus across a 20-year period. Over that span of time, the researchers watched the seasons of Uranus as the south polar region darkened going into winter shadow while the north polar region brightened as northern summer approaches. Credits:
NASA, ESA, Erich Karkoschka (LPL) The ice-giant planet Uranus, which travels around the Sun tipped on its side, is a weird and mysterious world. Now, in an unprecedented study spanning two decades, researchers using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope have uncovered new insights into the planet’s atmospheric composition and dynamics. This was possible only because of Hubble’s sharp resolution, spectral capabilities, and longevity.
The team’s results will help astronomers to better understand how the atmosphere of Uranus works and responds to changing sunlight. These long-term observations provide valuable data for understanding the atmospheric dynamics of this distant ice giant, which can serve as a proxy for studying exoplanets of similar size and composition.
When Voyager 2 flew past Uranus in 1986, it provided a close-up snapshot of the sideways planet. What it saw resembled a bland, blue-green billiard ball. By comparison, Hubble chronicled a 20-year story of seasonal changes from 2002 to 2022. Over that period, a team led by Erich Karkoschka of the University of Arizona, and Larry Sromovsky and Pat Fry from the University of Wisconsin used the same Hubble instrument, STIS (the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph), to paint an accurate picture of the atmospheric structure of Uranus.
Uranus’ atmosphere is mostly hydrogen and helium, with a small amount of methane and traces of water and ammonia. The methane gives Uranus its cyan color by absorbing the red wavelengths of sunlight.
The Hubble team observed Uranus four times in the 20-year period: in 2002, 2012, 2015, and 2022. They found that, unlike conditions on the gas giants Saturn and Jupiter, methane is not uniformly distributed across Uranus. Instead, it is strongly depleted near the poles. This depletion remained relatively constant over the two decades. However, the aerosol and haze structure changed dramatically, brightening significantly in the northern polar region as the planet approaches its northern summer solstice in 2030.
The image columns show the change of Uranus for the four years that STIS observed Uranus across a 20-year period. Over that span of time, the researchers watched the seasons of Uranus as the south polar region darkened going into winter shadow while the north polar region brightened as northern summer approaches. NASA, ESA, Erich Karkoschka (LPL) Uranus takes a little over 84 Earth years to complete a single orbit of the Sun. So, over two decades, the Hubble team has only seen mostly northern spring as the Sun moves from shining directly over Uranus’ equator toward shining almost directly over its north pole in 2030. Hubble observations suggest complex atmospheric circulation patterns on Uranus during this period. The data that are most sensitive to the methane distribution indicate a downwelling in the polar regions and upwelling in other regions.
The team analyzed their results in several ways. The image columns show the change of Uranus for the four years that STIS observed Uranus across a 20-year period. Over that span of time, the researchers watched the seasons of Uranus as the south polar region (left) darkened going into winter shadow while the north polar region (right) brightened as it began to come into a more direct view as northern summer approaches.
The top row, in visible light, shows how the color of Uranus appears to the human eye as seen through even an amateur telescope.
In the second row, the false-color image of the planet is assembled from visible and near-infrared light observations. The color and brightness correspond to the amounts of methane and aerosols. Both of these quantities could not be distinguished before Hubble’s STIS was first aimed at Uranus in 2002. Generally, green areas indicate less methane than blue areas, and red areas show no methane. The red areas are at the limb, where the stratosphere of Uranus is almost completely devoid of methane.
The two bottom rows show the latitude structure of aerosols and methane inferred from 1,000 different wavelengths (colors) from visible to near infrared. In the third row, bright areas indicate cloudier conditions, while the dark areas represent clearer conditions. In the fourth row, bright areas indicate depleted methane, while dark areas show the full amount of methane.
At middle and low latitudes, aerosols and methane depletion have their own latitudinal structure that mostly did not change much over the two decades of observation. However, in the polar regions, aerosols and methane depletion behave very differently.
In the third row, the aerosols near the north pole display a dramatic increase, showing up as very dark during early northern spring, turning very bright in recent years. Aerosols also seem to disappear at the left limb as the solar radiation disappeared. This is evidence that solar radiation changes the aerosol haze in the atmosphere of Uranus. On the other hand, methane depletion seems to stay quite high in both polar regions throughout the observing period.
Astronomers will continue to observe Uranus as the planet approaches northern summer.
The Hubble Space Telescope has been operating for over three decades and continues to make ground-breaking discoveries that shape our fundamental understanding of the universe. Hubble is a project of international cooperation between NASA and ESA (European Space Agency). NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the telescope and mission operations. Lockheed Martin Space, based in Denver, also supports mission operations at Goddard. The Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, conducts Hubble science operations for NASA.
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20 Years of Uranus Observations
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Last Updated Mar 31, 2025 Editor Andrea Gianopoulos Location NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
Contact Media Claire Andreoli
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
Greenbelt, Maryland
claire.andreoli@nasa.gov
Ann Jenkins
Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Maryland
Ray Villard
Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Maryland
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By NASA
Explore Hubble Hubble Home Overview About Hubble The History of Hubble Hubble Timeline Why Have a Telescope in Space? Hubble by the Numbers At the Museum FAQs Impact & Benefits Hubble’s Impact & Benefits Science Impacts Cultural Impact Technology Benefits Impact on Human Spaceflight Astro Community Impacts Science Hubble Science Science Themes Science Highlights Science Behind Discoveries Hubble’s Partners in Science Universe Uncovered Explore the Night Sky Observatory Hubble Observatory Hubble Design Mission Operations Missions to Hubble Hubble vs Webb Team Hubble Team Career Aspirations Hubble Astronauts News Hubble News Hubble News Archive Social Media Media Resources Multimedia Multimedia Images Videos Sonifications Podcasts e-Books Online Activities Lithographs Fact Sheets Posters Hubble on the NASA App Glossary More 35th Anniversary Online Activities 2 min read
Hubble Spots a Chance Alignment
This NASA/ESA Hubble image features the spiral galaxy NGC 5530. ESA/Hubble & NASA, D. Thilker The subject of today’s NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image is the stunning spiral galaxy NGC 5530. This galaxy is situated 40 million light-years away in the constellation Lupus, the Wolf, and classified as a ‘flocculent’ spiral, meaning its spiral arms are patchy and indistinct.
While some galaxies have extraordinarily bright centers that host a feasting supermassive black hole, the bright source near the center of NGC 5530 is not an active black hole but a star within our own galaxy, only 10,000 light-years from Earth. This chance alignment gives the appearance that the star is at the dense heart of NGC 5530.
If you pointed a backyard telescope at NGC 5530 on the evening of September 13, 2007, you would have seen another bright point of light adorning the galaxy. That night, Australian amateur astronomer Robert Evans discovered a supernova, named SN 2007IT, by comparing NGC 5530’s appearance through the telescope to a reference photo of the galaxy. While it’s remarkable to discover even one supernova using this painstaking method, Evans has in fact discovered more than 40 supernovae this way! This particular discovery was truly serendipitous: it’s likely that the light from the supernova completed its 40-million-year journey to Earth just days before Evans spotted the explosion.
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Last Updated Mar 28, 2025 Editor Andrea Gianopoulos Location NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Related Terms
Hubble Space Telescope Astrophysics Astrophysics Division Galaxies Goddard Space Flight Center Spiral Galaxies The Universe Keep Exploring Discover More Topics From Hubble
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By European Space Agency
The first image from a new Italian Earth observation satellite mission was published today: a high-resolution image of a strip of the Italian peninsular showing the city of Rome at a resolution of 2.66 metres. This is three times higher than the resolution currently available for systematic acquisition over Italy.
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