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By NASA
Credit: NASA NASA’s Small Spacecraft Systems Virtual Institute (S3VI) is pleased to announce the official release of the highly anticipated 2024 State-of-the-Art Small Spacecraft Technology report. This significant accomplishment was made possible by the contributions of numerous dedicated people across NASA who graciously supported the preparation of the document as authors and reviewers. We also want to extend our gratitude to all the companies, universities, and organizations that provided content for this report.
The 2024 report can be found online at https://www.nasa.gov/smallsat-institute/sst-soa. The report is also available in PDF format as a single document containing all report content as well as individual chapters available on their respective chapter webpages. This 2024 edition reflects updates in several chapters to include: the Formation Flying and Rendezvous and Proximity Operations section within the “Guidance, Navigation, and Control” chapter; the Additive Manufacturing section within the “Structures, Materials, and Mechanisms” chapter; the Free Space Optical Communications section within the “Communications” chapter; and the Hosted Orbital Services section within the “Complete Spacecraft Platforms” chapter.
As in previous editions, the report contains a general overview of current state-of-the-art SmallSat technologies and their development status as discussed in open literature. The report is not intended to be an exhaustive representation of all technologies currently available to the small spacecraft community, nor does the inclusion of technologies in the report serve as an endorsement by NASA. Sources of publicly available date commonly used as sources in the development of the report include manufacturer datasheets, press releases, conference papers, journal papers, public filings with government agencies, and news articles. Readers are highly encouraged to reach out to companies for further information regarding the performance and maturity of described technologies of interest. During the report’s development, companies were encouraged to release test information and flight data when possible so it may be appropriately captured. It should be noted that technology maturity designations may vary with change to payload, mission requirements, reliability considerations, and the associated test/flight environment in which performance was demonstrated.
Suggestions or corrections to the 2024 report toward a subsequent edition, should be submitted to the NASA Small Spacecraft Systems Virtual Institute Agency-SmallSat-Institute@mail.nasa.gov for consideration prior to the publication of the future edition. When submitting suggestions or corrections, please cite appropriate publicly accessible references. Private correspondence is not considered an adequate reference. Efforts are underway for the 2025 report and organizations are invited to submit technologies for consideration for inclusion by August 1, 2025.
NASA’s Small Spacecraft Technology program within the Space Technology Mission Directorate funds the Small Spacecraft Systems Virtual Institute.
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By NASA
2 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
NASA’s Sustainable Flight Demonstrator project concluded wind tunnel testing in the fall of 2024. Tests on a Boeing-built X-66 model were completed at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley in its 11-Foot Transonic Unitary Plan Facility. The model underwent tests representing expected flight conditions to obtain engineering information to influence design of the wing and provide data for flight simulators.NASA/Brandon Torres Navarrete NASA’s Sustainable Flight Demonstrator (SFD) project recently concluded wind tunnel tests of its X-66 semi-span model in partnership with Boeing. The model, designed to represent half the aircraft, allows the research team to generate high-quality data about the aerodynamic forces that would affect the actual X-66.
Test results will help researchers identify areas where they can refine the X-66 design – potentially reducing drag, enhancing fuel efficiency, or adjusting the vehicle shape for better flying qualities.
Tests on the Boeing-built X-66 semi-span model were completed at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley in its 11-Foot Transonic Unitary Plan Facility. The model underwent tests representing expected flight conditions so the team could obtain engineering information to influence the design of the aircraft’s wing and provide data for flight simulators.
NASA’s Sustainable Flight Demonstrator project concluded wind tunnel testing in the fall of 2024. Tests on a Boeing-built X-66 model were completed at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley in its 11-Foot Transonic Unitary Plan Facility. Pressure points, which are drilled holes with data sensors attached, are installed along the edge of the wing and allow engineers to understand the characteristics of airflow and will influence the final design of the wing.NASA/Brandon Torres Navarrete Semi-span tests take advantage of symmetry. The forces and behaviors on a model of half an aircraft mirror those on the other half. By using a larger half of the model, engineers increase the number of surface pressure measurements. Various sensors were placed on the wing to measure forces and movements to calculate lift, drag, stability, and other important characteristics.
The semi-span tests follow earlier wind tunnel work at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, using a smaller model of the entire aircraft. Engineers will study the data from all of the X-66 wind tunnel tests to determine any design changes that should be made before fabrication begins on the wing that will be used on the X-66 itself.
The SFD project is NASA’s effort to develop more efficient aircraft configurations as the nation moves toward aviation that’s more economically, societally, and environmentally sustainable. The project seeks to provide information to inform the next generation of single-aisle airliners, the most common aircraft in commercial aviation fleets around the world. Boeing and NASA are partnering to develop the X-66 experimental demonstrator aircraft.
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Last Updated Feb 05, 2025 EditorDede DiniusContactSarah Mannsarah.mann@nasa.govLocationArmstrong Flight Research Center Related Terms
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By NASA
3 min read
NASA’s Cloud-based Confluence Software Helps Hydrologists Study Rivers on a Global Scale
The Paraná River in northern Argentina. Confluence, which is open-source and free to use, allows researchers to estimate river discharge and suspended sediment levels in Earth’s rivers at a global scale. NASA/ISS Rivers and streams wrap around Earth in complex networks millions of miles long, driving trade, nurturing ecosystems, and stocking critical reserves of freshwater.
But the hydrologists who dedicate their professional lives to studying this immense web of waterways do so with a relatively limited set of tools. Around the world, a patchwork of just 3,000 or so river gauge stations supply regular, reliable data, making it difficult for hydrologists to detect global trends.
“The best way to study a river,” said Colin Gleason, Armstrong Professional Development Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, “is to get your feet wet and visit it yourself. The second best way to study a river is to use a river gauge.”
Now, thanks to Gleason and a team of more than 30 researchers, there’s another option: ‘Confluence,’ an analytic collaborative framework that leverages data from NASA’s Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) mission and the Harmonized Landsat Sentinel-2 archive (HLS) to estimate river discharge and suspended sediment levels in every river on Earth wider than 50 meters. NASA’s Physical Oceanography Distributed Active Archive Center (PO.DAAC) hosts the software, making it open-source and free for users around the world.
By incorporating both altimetry data from SWOT which informs discharge estimates, and optical data from HLS, which informs estimates of suspended sediment data, Confluence marks the first time hydrologists can create timely models of river size and water quality at a global scale. Compared to existing workflows for estimating suspended sediment using HLS data, Confluence is faster by a factor of 30.
I can’t do global satellite hydrology without this system. Or, I could, but it would be extremely time consuming and expensive.
Colin Gleason
Nikki Tebaldi, a Cloud Adoption Engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and Co-Investigator for Confluence, was the lead developer on this project. She said that while the individual components of Confluence have been around for decades, bringing them together within a single, cloud-based processing pipeline was a significant challenge.
“I’m really proud that we’ve pieced together all of these different algorithms, got them into the cloud, and we have them all executing commands and working,” said Tebaldi.
Suresh Vannan, former manager of PO.DAAC and a Co-Investigator for Confluence, said this new ability to produce timely, global estimates of river discharge and quality will have a huge impact on hydrological models assessing everything from the health of river ecosystems to snowmelt.
“There are a bunch of science applications that river discharge can be used for, because it’s pretty much taking a snapshot of what the river looks like, how it behaves. Producing that snapshot on a global scale is a game changer,” said Vannan.
While the Confluence team is still working with PO.DAAC to complete their software package, users can currently access the Confluence source code here. For tutorials, manuals, and other user guides, visit the PO.DAAC webpage here.
All of these improvements to the original Confluence algorithms developed for SWOT were made possible by NASA’s Advanced Intelligent Systems Technology (AIST) program, a part of the agency’s Earth Science Technology Office (ESTO), in collaboration with SWOT and PO.DAAC.
To learn more about opportunities to develop next-generation technologies for studying Earth from outer space, visit ESTO’s solicitation page here.
Project Lead: Colin Gleason / University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Sponsoring Organization: Advanced Intelligent Systems Technology program, within NASA’s Earth Science Technology Office
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Last Updated Feb 04, 2025 Related Terms
Science-enabling Technology Earth Science Oceanography SWOT (Surface Water and Ocean Topography) Explore More
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By NASA
5 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
Typically, asteroids — like the one depicted in this artist’s concept — originate from the main asteroid belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, but a small population of near-Earth objects may also come from the Moon’s surface after being ejected into space by an impact.NASA/JPL-Caltech The near-Earth object was likely ejected into space after an impact thousands of years ago. Now it could contribute new insights to asteroid and lunar science.
The small near-Earth object 2024 PT5 captured the world’s attention last year after a NASA-funded telescope discovered it lingering close to, but never orbiting, our planet for several months. The asteroid, which is about 33 feet (10 meters) wide, does not pose a hazard to Earth, but its orbit around the Sun closely matches that of our planet, hinting that it may have originated nearby.
As described in a study published Jan. 14 in the Astrophysical Journal Letters, researchers have collected further evidence of 2024 PT5 being of local origin: It appears to be composed of rock broken off from the Moon’s surface and ejected into space after a large impact.
“We had a general idea that this asteroid may have come from the Moon, but the smoking gun was when we found out that it was rich in silicate minerals — not the kind that are seen on asteroids but those that have been found in lunar rock samples,” said Teddy Kareta, an astronomer at Lowell Observatory in Arizona, who led the research. “It looks like it hasn’t been in space for very long, maybe just a few thousand years or so, as there’s a lack of space weathering that would have caused its spectrum to redden.”
The asteroid was first detected on Aug. 7, 2024, by the NASA-funded Sutherland, South Africa, telescope of the University of Hawai’i’s Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS). Kareta’s team then used observations from the Lowell Discovery Telescope and the NASA Infrared Telescope Facility (IRTF) at the Mauna Kea Observatory in Hawai’i to show that the spectrum of reflected sunlight from the small object’s surface didn’t match that of any known asteroid type; instead, the reflected light more closely matched rock from the Moon.
Not (Old) Rocket Science
A second clue came from observing how the object moves. Along with asteroids, Space Age debris, such as old rockets from historic launches, can also be found in Earth-like orbits.
The difference in their orbits has to do with how each type responds to solar radiation pressure, which comes from the momentum of photons — quantum particles of light from the Sun — exerting a tiny force when they hit a solid object in space. This momentum exchange from many photons over time can push an object around ever so slightly, speeding it up or slowing it down. While a human-made object, like a hollow rocket booster, will move like an empty tin can in the wind, a natural object, such as an asteroid, will be much less affected.
Researchers studying asteroid 2024 PT5 have plotted its looping motion on two graphs. To a trained eye, they show that the object never gets captured by Earth’s gravity but, instead, lingers nearby before continuing its orbit around the Sun. NASA/JPL-Caltech To rule out 2024 PT5 being space junk, scientists at NASA’s Center for Near Earth Object Studies (CNEOS), which is managed by the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, analyzed its motion. Their precise calculations of the object’s motion under the force of gravity ultimately enabled them to search for additional motion caused by solar radiation pressure. In this case, the effects were found to be too small for the object to be artificial, proving 2024 PT5 is most likely of natural origin.
“Space debris and space rocks move slightly differently in space,” said Oscar Fuentes-Muñoz, a study coauthor and NASA postdoctoral fellow at JPL working with the CNEOS team. “Human-made debris is usually relatively light and gets pushed around by the pressure of sunlight. That 2024 PT5 doesn’t move this way indicates it is much denser than space debris.”
Asteroid Lunar Studies
The discovery of 2024 PT5 doubles the number of known asteroids thought to originate from the Moon. Asteroid 469219 Kamo’oalewa was found in 2016 with an Earth-like orbit around the Sun, indicating that it may also have been ejected from the lunar surface after a large impact. As telescopes become more sensitive to smaller asteroids, more potential Moon boulders will be discovered, creating an exciting opportunity not only for scientists studying a rare population of asteroids, but also for scientists studying the Moon.
If a lunar asteroid can be directly linked to a specific impact crater on the Moon, studying it could lend insights into cratering processes on the pockmarked lunar surface. Also, material from deep below the lunar surface — in the form of asteroids passing close to Earth — may be accessible to future scientists to study.
“This is a story about the Moon as told by asteroid scientists,” said Kareta. “It’s a rare situation where we’ve gone out to study an asteroid but then strayed into new territory in terms of the questions we can ask of 2024 PT5.”
The ATLAS, IRTF, and CNEOS projects are funded by NASA’s planetary defense program, which is managed by the Planetary Defense Coordination Office at NASA Headquarters in Washington.
For more information about asteroids and comets, visit:
https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/topics/asteroids/
NASA Asteroid Experts Create Hypothetical Impact Scenario for Exercise NASA Researchers Discover More Dark Comets Lesson Plan: How to Explore an Asteroid News Media Contacts
Ian J. O’Neill
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-354-2649
ian.j.oneill@jpl.nasa.gov
Karen Fox / Molly Wasser
NASA Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
karen.c.fox@nasa.gov / molly.l.wasser@nasa.gov
Kevin Schindler
Lowell Observatory Public Information Officer
928-607-1387
kevin@lowell.edu
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Last Updated Jan 22, 2025 Related Terms
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By NASA
1 Min Read Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR)
The SBIR/STTR programs provide an opportunity for small, high technology companies and research institutions (RI) to participate in Government sponsored research and development (R&D) efforts in key technology areas. NASA SBIR Phase I contracts have a period of performance for 6 months with a maximum funding of $125,000, and Phase II contracts have a period of performance up to 24 months with a maximum funding of $750,000. The STTR Phase I contracts last for 13 months with a maximum funding of $125,000, and Phase II contracts last for 24 months with the maximum contract value of $750,000.
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