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By NASA
Portrait of John Boyd, whose contributions to NASA spanned more than 70 years.Credit: NASA John Boyd, known to many as Jack and whose career spanned more than seven decades in a multitude of roles across NASA as well as its predecessor, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), died Feb. 20. He was 99. Born in 1925, and raised in Danville, Virginia, he was a long-time resident of Saratoga, California.
Boyd is being remembered by many across the agency, including Dr. Eugene Tu, director, NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley, where Boyd spent most of his career.
“Jack brought an energy, optimism, and team-based approach to solving some of the greatest technological challenges humanity has ever faced, which remains part of our culture to this day,” said Tu. “There are few careers as wide-ranging and impactful as Jack’s.”
In 1947, Boyd began his career at the then-called Ames Aeronautical Laboratory in Moffett Field, California, as an aeronautical engineer working to design and test various wing shapes using the center’s 1-by-3-foot supersonic wind tunnel. Boyd continued conducting research in wind tunnels, testing designs that led to dramatic increases in the efficiency of the supersonic B-58 bomber, as well as the F-102 and F-106 fighters.
In 1958, just before Ames became part of a newly established NASA, Boyd recalled thinking, “Maybe someday we’ll go out into the far blue yonder, and if we do, what are we going to fly? How are we going to bring it back into the atmosphere safely?” He and a team of engineers turned their attention to studying the dynamics of high-speed projectiles in hypervelocity ranges, filled with different mixtures of gases to mimic the atmospheres of Mars and Venus, in preparation for sending spacecraft out into space and safely back again or to the surface of other worlds.
By the mid-60s, Boyd was promoted into leadership and tapped to become deputy director for Aeronautics and Flight Systems at NASA Ames. In the late 1960s, as America was redefining its space exploration goals and sending humans to the Moon, Boyd served as the center’s lead to assist NASA Headquarters in Washington consolidate and create new research programs.
In 1979, Boyd served as the deputy director at NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center (now known as NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center) in Edwards, California, and prepared the center for its role as a landing site for the space shuttle. He briefly returned to Ames before heading to NASA Headquarters to be associate administrator for management under James M. Beggs. Boyd left government service in 1985, taking a position as chancellor for research and an adjunct professor of aerodynamics, engineering, and the history of spaceflight for the University of Texas System.
Boyd returned to NASA and California’s Silicon Valley in 1993,inspiring students through educational outreach initiatives, and serving as the senior advisor to the director, senior advisor for history, and the center ombudsman until his retirement in 2020.
Boyd credits his interest in airplanes to a cousin who was a paratrooper and gave him a ride in a biplane in the 1940s. In 1943, he enrolled and became the first in his family to earn a degree with a bachelor of science in aeronautical engineering from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg, Virginia. He was a recipient of the NASA Exceptional Service Award, the NASA Outstanding Leadership Award, the NASA Equal Employment Opportunity Medal, the Presidential Rank of Meritorious Executive, the NASA Distinguished Service Medal, the Army Command Medal, and the NASA Headquarters History Award. He also was a Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics and a Sloan Fellow at Stanford University.
“The agency and the nation thank and honor Jack as a member of the NASA family and the highest exemplar of a public servant who believed investing in others is the greatest contribution one can make,” added Tu. “He will be deeply missed.”
For more information about NASA Ames, visit:
https://www.nasa.gov/ames
-end-
Cheryl Warner
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
cheryl.m.warner@nasa.gov
Rachel Hoover
Ames Research Center, Silicon Valley
650-604-4789
rachel.hoover@nasa.gov
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Last Updated Feb 26, 2025 EditorJessica TaveauLocationNASA Headquarters Related Terms
Ames Research Center Aeronautics Armstrong Flight Research Center NASA Headquarters National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) View the full article
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By NASA
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket stands vertical on Tuesday, Feb. 25, 2025, at Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center ahead of Intuitive Machines’ IM-2 mission as part of the agency’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services initiative and Artemis campaign. SpaceX Sending instruments to the Moon supports a growing lunar economy on and off Earth, and the next flight of NASA science and technology is only days away. NASA’s CLPS (Commercial Lunar Payload Services) initiative is a lunar delivery service that sends NASA science and technology instruments to various geographic locations on the Moon using American companies. These rapid, cost-effective commercial lunar missions at a cadence of about two per year improve our understanding of the lunar environment in advance of future crewed missions to the Moon as part of the agency’s broader Artemis campaign.
Of the 11 active CLPS contracts, there have been three CLPS launches to date: Astrobotic’s Peregrine Mission One, which collected data in transit but experienced an anomaly that prevented it from landing on the Moon; Intuitive Machines’ IM-1 mission, which landed, tipped over, and operated on the lunar surface; and Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost Mission One that is currently enroute and scheduled to land in early March 2025. The CLPS contract awards cover end-to-end commercial payload delivery services, including payload integration, launch from Earth, landing on the surface of the Moon, and mission operations.
NASA’s fourth CLPS flight is from Intuitive Machines with their IM-2 mission. The IM-2 mission is carrying NASA science and technology instruments to Mons Mouton, a lunar plateau just outside of 5 degrees of the South Pole of the Moon, closer to the pole than any preceding lunar mission.
Scheduled to launch no earlier than Wednesday and land approximately eight days later, Intuitive Machines’ Nova-C lander, named Athena, will carry three NASA instruments to the lunar South Pole region – the Polar Resources Ice Mining Experiment-1 (PRIME-1) suite and the Laser Retroreflector Array (LRA).
The PRIME-1 suite consists of two instruments, the TRIDENT drill (The Regolith Ice Drill for Exploring New Terrain) and MSolo (Mass Spectrometer observing lunar operations), which will work together to extricate lunar soil samples, known as regolith, from the subsurface and analyze their composition to further understand the lunar environment and gain insight on potential resources that can be extracted for future examination.
The meter-long TRIDENT drill is designed to extract lunar regolith, up to about three feet below the surface. It will also measure soil temperature at varying depths below the surface, which will help to verify existing lunar thermal models that are used for ice stability calculations and resource mapping. By drilling into the lunar regolith, information is gathered to help answer questions about the lunar regolith geotechnical properties, such as soil strength, both at the surface and in the subsurface that will help inform Artemis infrastructure objectives. The data will be beneficial when designing future systems for on-site resource utilization that will use local resources to create everything from landing pads to rocket fuel. The lead development organization for TRIDENT is Honeybee Robotics, a Blue Origin Company.
The MSOLO instrument is a mass spectrometer capable of identifying and quantifying volatiles (or gasses that easily evaporate) found at or beneath the lunar surface, including– if it’s present in the regolith within the drill’s reach – water and oxygen, brought to the surface by the TRIDENT drill. This instrument can also detect any gases that emanate from the lander, drilling process, and other payloads conducting operations on the surface. Using MSolo to study the volatile gases found on the Moon can help us understand how the lander’s presence might alter the local environment. The lead development organization is INFICON of Syracuse, New York, in partnership with NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
NASA’s LRA is a collection of eight retroreflectors that enable precision laser ranging, which is a measurement of the distance between the orbiting or landing spacecraft to the reflector on the lander. The LRA instrument is passive, meaning it does not power on. It will function as a permanent location marker on the Moon for decades to come, similar to its predecessors. The lead development organization is NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
In addition to the CLPS instruments, two technology demonstrations aboard IM-2 were developed through NASA’s Tipping Point opportunity. These are collaborations with the agency’s Space Technology Mission Directorate and industry that support development of commercial space capabilities and benefit future NASA missions.
Intuitive Machines developed a small hopping robot, Grace, named after Grace Hopper, computer scientist and mathematician. Grace will deploy as a secondary payload from the lander and enable high-resolution imaging and science surveying of the lunar surface, including permanently shadowed craters around the landing site. Grace is designed to bypass obstacles such as steep inclines, boulders, and craters to cover a lot of terrain while moving quickly, which is a valuable capability to support future missions on the Moon and other planets, including Mars.
Nokia will test a Lunar Surface Communications System that employs the same cellular technology here on Earth. Reconceptualized by Nokia Bell Labs to meet the unique requirements of a lunar mission, this tipping point technology aims to demonstrate proximity communications between the lander, a Lunar Outpost rover, and the hopper.
Launching as a rideshare alongside the IM-2 mission, NASA’s Lunar Trailblazer spacecraft also will begin its journey to lunar orbit where it will map the distribution of water – and other forms of water – on the Moon.
Future CLPS flights will continue to send payloads to the near side, far side, and South Pole regions of the Moon where investigations and exploration are informed by each area’s unique characteristics. With a pool of 13 American companies under CLPS, including a portfolio of 11 lunar deliveries by five vendors sending more than 50 individual science and technology instruments to lunar orbit and the surface of the Moon, NASA continues to advance long-term exploration of the Moon, and beyond to Mars.
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By NASA
5 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
Sunlight gleams off NASA’s Lunar Trailblazer as the dishwasher-size spacecraft orbits the Moon in this artist’s concept. The mission will discover where the Moon’s water is, what form it is in, and how it changes over time, producing the best-yet maps of water on the lunar surface.Lockheed Martin Space The small satellite mission will map the Moon to help scientists better understand where its water is, what form it’s in, how much is there, and how it changes over time.
Launching no earlier than Wednesday, Feb. 26, NASA’s Lunar Trailblazer will help resolve an enduring mystery: Where is the Moon’s water? After sharing a ride on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with Intuitive Machines’ IM-2 launch — part of NASA’s CLPS (Commercial Lunar Payload Services) initiative — the small satellite will take several months to arrive in lunar orbit.
Here are six things to know about the mission.
1. Lunar Trailblazer will produce high-resolution maps of water on the lunar surface.
One of the biggest lunar discoveries in recent decades is that the Moon’s surface has quantities of water, but little about its nature is known. To investigate, Lunar Trailblazer will decipher where the water is, what form it is in, how much is there, and how it changes over time. The small satellite will produce the best-yet maps of water on the lunar surface. Observations gathered during the two-year prime mission will also contribute to the understanding of water cycles on airless bodies throughout the solar system.
2. The small satellite will use two state-of-the-art science instruments.
Key to achieving these goals are the spacecraft’s two science instruments: the High-resolution Volatiles and Minerals Moon Mapper (HVM3) infrared spectrometer and the Lunar Thermal Mapper (LTM) infrared multispectral imager. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California provided the HVM3 instrument, while LTM was built by the University of Oxford and funded by the UK Space Agency.
HVM3 will detect and map the spectral fingerprints, or wavelengths of reflected sunlight, of minerals and the different forms of water on the lunar surface. The LTM instrument will map the minerals and thermal properties of the same landscape. Together they will create a picture of the abundance, location, and form of water while also tracking how its distribution changes over time and temperature.
Fueled and attached to an adaptor used for secondary payloads, NASA’s Lunar Trailblazer is seen at SpaceX’s payload processing facility within NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida in early February 2025. The small satellite is riding along on Intuitive Machines’ IM-2 launch.SpaceX 3. Lunar Trailblazer will take a long and winding road to the Moon.
Weighing only 440 pounds (200 kilograms) and measuring 11.5 feet (3.5 meters) wide with its solar panels fully deployed, Lunar Trailblazer is about the size of a dishwasher and relies on a relatively small propulsion system. To make the spacecraft’s four-to-seven-month trip to the Moon (depending on the launch date) as efficient as possible, the mission’s design and navigation team has planned a looping trajectory that will use the gravity of the Sun, Earth, and Moon to guide Lunar Trailblazer to its final science orbit — a technique called low-energy transfer.
4. The spacecraft will peer into the darkest parts of the Moon’s South Pole.
Lunar Trailblazer’s science orbit positions it to peer into the craters at the Moon’s South Pole using the HVM3 instrument. What makes these craters so intriguing is that they harbor cold traps that may not have seen direct sunlight for billions of years, which means they’re a potential hideout for frozen water. The HVM3 spectrometer is designed to use faint reflected light from the walls of craters to see the floor of even permanently shadowed regions. If Lunar Trailblazer finds significant quantities of ice at the base of the craters, those locations could be pinpointed as a resource for future lunar explorers.
5. Lunar Trailblazer is a high-risk, low-cost mission.
Lunar Trailblazer was a 2019 selection of NASA’s SIMPLEx (Small Innovative Missions for Planetary Exploration), which provides opportunities for low-cost science spacecraft to ride-share with selected primary missions. To maintain a lower overall cost, SIMPLEx missions have a higher risk posture and lighter requirements for oversight and management. This higher risk acceptance allows NASA to enable science missions that could not otherwise be done.
6. Future missions will benefit from Lunar Trailblazer’s data.
Mapping the Moon’s water supports future human and robotic lunar missions. With knowledge from Lunar Trailblazer of where water is located, astronauts could process lunar ice to create water for human use, breathable oxygen, or fuel. And they could conduct science by sampling the ice for later study to determine the water’s origins.
More About Lunar Trailblazer
Lunar Trailblazer is led by Principal Investigator Bethany Ehlmann of Caltech in Pasadena, California. Caltech also leads the mission’s science investigation, and Caltech’s IPAC leads mission operations, which includes planning, scheduling, and sequencing of all spacecraft activities. NASA JPL manages Lunar Trailblazer and provides system engineering, mission assurance, the HVM3 instrument, and mission design and navigation. JPL is managed by Caltech for NASA. Lockheed Martin Space provided the spacecraft, integrated the flight system, and supports operations under contract with Caltech. The University of Oxford developed and provided the LTM instrument, funded by the UK Space Agency. Lunar Trailblazer, part of NASA’s Lunar Discovery Exploration Program, is managed by NASA’s Planetary Mission Program Office at Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, for the agency’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington.
News Media Contact
Karen Fox / Molly Wasser
NASA Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
karen.c.fox@nasa.gov / molly.l.wasser@nasa.gov
Ian J. O’Neill
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-354-2649
ian.j.oneill@jpl.nasa.gov
Isabel Swafford
Caltech IPAC
626-216-4257
iswafford@ipac.caltech.edu
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Last Updated Feb 26, 2025 Related Terms
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By NASA
3 min read
NASA Open Data Turns Science Into Art
Guests enjoy Beyond the Light, a digital art experience featuring open NASA data, at ARTECHOUSE in Washington, D.C. on September 19, 2023. NASA/Wade Sisler An art display powered by NASA science data topped the Salesforce Tower in San Francisco, CA throughout December 2024. Nightly visitors enjoyed “Synchronicity,” a 20-minute-long video art piece by Greg Niemeyer, which used a year’s worth of open data from NASA satellites and other sources to bring the rhythms of the Bay Area to life.
Data for “Synchronicity” included atmospheric data from NASA and NOAA’s GOES (Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites), vegetation health data from NASA’s Landsat program, and the Sun’s extreme ultraviolet wavelengths as captured by the NASA and ESA (European Space Agency) satellite SOHO (Solar and Heliospheric Observatory). Chelle Gentemann, the program scientist for the Office of the Chief Science Data Officer within NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, advised Niemeyer on incorporating data into the piece.
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Greg Niemeyer’s “Synchronicity” was displayed on Salesforce Tower in San Francisco, CA, in December 2024. A recording of the piece on the tower’s display and the original animation are shown here. The video art piece was created using open NASA data, as well as buoy data from the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Greg Niemeyer/Emma Strebel “Artists have a lot to contribute to science,” Gentemann said. “Not only can they play a part in the actual scientific process, looking at things in a different way that will lead to new questions, but they’re also critical for getting more people involved in science.”
NASA’s history of engaging with artists goes back to the 1962 launch of the NASA Art Program, which partnered with artists in bringing the agency’s achievements to a broader audience and telling the story of NASA in a different and unexpected way. Artists such as Andy Warhol, Norman Rockwell, and Annie Leibovitz created works inspired by NASA missions. The Art Program was relaunched in September 2024 with a pair of murals evoking the awe of space exploration for the Artemis Generation.
The inaugural murals for the relaunched NASA Art Program appear side-by-side at 350 Hudson Street, Monday, Sept. 23, 2024, in New York City. The murals, titled “To the Moon, and Back,” were created by New York-based artist team Geraluz and WERC and use geometrical patterns to invite deeper reflection on the exploration, creativity, and connection with the cosmos. NASA/Joel Kowsky The use of NASA data in art pieces emerged a few decades after the NASA Art Program first launched. Several in-house agency programs, such as NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio, create stunning animated works from science data. In the realm of audio, NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory runs the Universe of Sound project to convert astronomy data into “sonifications” for the public’s listening pleasure.
Collaborations with external artists help bring NASA data to an even broader audience. NASA’s commitment to open science – making it as easy as possible for the public to access science data – greatly reduces the obstacles for creatives looking to fuse their art with cutting-edge science.
Michelle Thaller, assistant director for science communication at Goddard, presents the “Pillars of Creation” in the Eagle nebula to the ARTECHOUSE team during a brainstorming session at Goddard. The left image is a view from the Hubble Space Telescope, and the right view is from the Webb telescope. NASA/Wade Sisler Another recent blend of NASA data and art came when digital art gallery ARTECHOUSE created “Beyond the Light,” a 26-minute immersive video experience featuring publicly available images from the James Webb Space Telescope and Hubble Space Telescope. The experience has been running at various ARTECHOUSE locations since September 2023. The massive potential for art to incorporate science data promises to fuel even more of these collaborations between NASA and artists in the future.
“One of the integral values of open science is providing opportunities for more people to participate in science,” Gentemann said. “I think that by getting the public interested in how this art is done, they also are starting to play with scientific data, maybe for the first time. In that way, art has the power to create new scientists.”
Learn more about open science at NASA at https://science.nasa.gov/open-science.
By Lauren Leese
Web Content Strategist for the Office of the Chief Science Data Officer
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Last Updated Feb 26, 2025 Related Terms
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The four crew members of NASA’s SpaceX Crew-9 mission, including NASA astronauts Nick Hague, Suni Williams, and Butch Wilmore, along with Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov, pose for a photo aboard the International Space StationNASA Media are invited to hear from NASA’s SpaceX Crew-9 astronauts during a news conference beginning at 11:55 a.m. EST, Tuesday, March 4, from the International Space Station.
NASA astronauts Nick Hague, Suni Williams, and Butch Wilmore will discuss their return to Earth on NASA+. Learn how to watch NASA content through a variety of platforms, including social media.
Media interested in participating must contact the newsroom at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston no later than 5 p.m. Monday, March 3, at 281-483-5111 or jsccommu@mail.nasa.gov. To ask questions, media must dial into the news conference no later than 15 minutes prior to the start of the call. A copy of NASA’s media accreditation policy is online. Questions also may be submitted on social media using #AskNASA.
Crew-9 contributed to hundreds of scientific experiments, including swabbing the station’s exterior for microbes, printing 3D medical devices, and studying how moisture, orbital altitude, and ultraviolet light affect plant growth.
The crew will depart the space station after the arrival of Crew-10 and a short handover period. Ahead of Crew-9’s return, mission teams will review weather conditions at the splashdown sites off the coast of Florida prior to departure from station.
The mission is part of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, which provides reliable access to space, maximizing the use of the station for research and development and supporting future missions beyond low Earth orbit by partnering with private companies to transport astronauts to and from the space station.
Follow updates on the Crew-9 mission at:
https://www.nasa.gov/station
-end-
Joshua Finch / Jimi Russell
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1100
joshua.a.finch@nasa.gov / james.j.russell@nasa.gov
Courtney Beasley
Johnson Space Center, Houston
281-483-5111
courtney.m.beasley@nasa.gov
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Last Updated Feb 26, 2025 LocationNASA Headquarters Related Terms
Humans in Space Astronauts Barry E. Wilmore International Space Station (ISS) Sunita L. Williams
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