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The 2024 National Science Bowl regional competition hosted by JPL included 21 schools, with this team from Irvine’s University High School taking first place. From left, coach David Knight, Feodor Yevtushenko, Yufei Chen, Nathan Ouyang, Wendy Cao, and Julianne Wu.NASA/JPL-Caltech After months of preparation, more than 100 students competed at the fast-paced annual academic competition hosted by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. For the second year in a row, a team from Irvine’s University High School claimed victory at a regional competition of the National Science Bowl, hosted Saturday, Feb. 3, by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. More than 100 students from 21 schools in Los Angeles and Orange counties competed in the academic challenge, which marked JPL’s 32nd year as host. Fullerton’s Troy High won second place, and Arcadia High placed third. Teams from University High have triumphed at the event several times in recent years. The school also won this year’s regional Ocean Sciences Bowl, hosted last month by JPL. In National Science Bowl competitions, students have mere seconds to answer multiple-choice questions on topics including biology, chemistry, Earth science, physics, energy, and math. Four students and one alternate compose each team, with a teacher serving as coach. Student teams spend months preparing, both studying and practicing their technique with the bowl’s “Jeopardy!”-style buzzers. Dozens of volunteers from JPL help make sure the contest runs smoothly. It all comes down to a surprisingly intense event. “There’s so much energy, it’s a thrill to watch,” said JPL Public Services Office manager Kim Lievense, who’s been coordinating the competition for the lab since 1993. “I just love seeing the students’ concentration and commitment, and knowing how rewarding it is for volunteers as well.” University High is now eligible to compete against winners from dozens of other regional competitions across the country at the national finals tournament, held in Washington April 25-29. Run by the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science, the National Science Bowl is one of the nation’s largest academic science competitions. More than 344,000 students have participated since the competition began in 1991. News Media Contacts Melissa Pamer Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. 626-314-4928 melissa.pamer@jpl.nasa.gov 2024-011 Share Details Last Updated Feb 05, 2024 Related TermsSTEM Engagement at NASAJet Propulsion Laboratory Explore More 6 min read NASA Puts Next-Gen Exoplanet-Imaging Technology to the Test Article 5 days ago 6 min read Poised for Science: NASA’s Europa Clipper Instruments Are All Aboard Article 6 days ago 5 min read NASA Collaborating on European-led Gravitational Wave Observatory in Space The first space-based observatory designed to detect gravitational waves has passed a major review and… Article 2 weeks ago View the full article

5 Min Read NASA’s Laser Navigation Tech Enables Commercial Lunar Exploration Navigation Doppler Lidar is a guidance system that uses laser pulses to precisely measure velocity and distance. NASA will demonstrate NDL’s capabilities in the lunar environment during the IM-1 mission. Credits: NASA / David C. Bowman Later this month, NASA’s commercial lunar delivery services provider Intuitive Machines will launch its Nova-C lunar lander carrying several NASA science and technology payloads, including the Navigation Doppler Lidar (NDL). This innovative guidance system, developed by NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, under the agency’s Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD), can potentially revolutionize landing spacecraft on extraterrestrial worlds. The NDL technology is a NASA payload for this Intuitive Machines Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) delivery, meaning NASA will demonstrate NDL’s capabilities in the lunar environment during the mission but the data is not considered mission-critical for the successful landing of Nova-C, as Intuitive Machines has its own navigation and landing systems. The Artemis mission will take humans back to the Moon and Navigation Doppler Lidar will ensure a safe landing for everyone onboard. NDL Chief Engineer Glenn Hines explains how lasers will relieve astronauts of some of the burdens of making safe, precise landings on the Moon. The NDL story started almost 20 years ago when Dr. Farzin Amzajerdian, NDL project manager at NASA Langley, made a breakthrough and successfully found a precise way to land rovers on Mars. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, several attempts at landing rovers on the surface of Mars were met with several significant challenges. Radar was inherently imprecise for this application. Radio waves cover a large area on the ground, meaning smaller craters and boulders that are commonly found on the Martian surface could ‘hide’ from detection and cause unexpected hazards for landers. “The landers needed the radar sensor to tell them how far they were off the ground and how fast they were moving so they could time their parachute deployment,” said Amzajerdian. “Too early or too late, the lander would miss its target or crash into the surface.” Radio waves also couldn’t measure velocity and range independently of one another, which is important, according to Aram Gragossian, electro-optics lead for NDL at NASA Langley, who joined the team about six years ago. “If you go over a steep slope, the range changes very quickly, but that doesn’t mean your velocity has changed,” he said. “So if you just feed that information back to your system, it may cause catastrophic reactions.” Amzajerdian knew about this problem, and he knew how to fix it. “Why not use a lidar instead of a radar?” he asked. LiDAR, which stands for light detection and ranging, is a technology that uses visible or infrared light the same way radar uses radio waves. Lidar sends laser pulses to a target, which reflects some of that light back onto a detector. As the instrument moves in relation to its target, the change in frequency of the returning signal – also known as the Doppler effect – allows the lidar to measure velocity directly and precisely. Distance is measured based on the travel time of the light to the target and back. Lidar offered several advantages over radar, notably the fact that a laser transmits a pencil beam of light that can give a more precise and accurate measurement. In 2004, Amzajerdian proposed NDL as a concept to the Mars Science Laboratory team. In 2005, he and his team received funding from Langley to put together a proof of concept. Then, in 2007, they received funding for building and testing a prototype of a helicopter. This is when Langley’s Dr. Glenn Hines joined NDL — first as electronic lead and now as chief engineer. Since then, Amzajerdian, Hines, and numerous other team members have worked tirelessly to ensure NDL’s success. Hines credits the various NASA personnel who have continued to advocate for NDL. “In almost everything in life, you’ve got to have a champion,” Hines said, “somebody in your corner saying, ‘Look, what you’re doing is good. This has credibility.’ ” The Intuitive Machines delivery is just the beginning of the NDL story; a next-generation system is already in the works. The team has developed a companion sensor to NDL, a multi-functional Flash Lidar camera. Flash Lidar is a 3D camera technology that surveys the surrounding terrain — even in complete darkness. When combined with NDL, Flash Lidar will allow you to go “anywhere, anytime.” Other future versions of NDL could have uses outside the tricky business of landing on extraterrestrial surfaces. In fact, they may have uses in a very terrestrial setting, like helping self-driving cars navigate local streets and highways. Looking at the history and trajectory of NDL, one thing is certain: The initial journey to the Moon will be the culmination of decades of hard work, perseverance, determination, and a steadfast belief in the project across the team, but held most fervently by NDL’s champions, Amzajerdian and Hines. NDL was NASA’s Invention of the Year in 2022. Four programs within STMD contributed to NDL’s development: Flight Opportunities, Technology Transfer, Small Business Innovation Research & Small Business Technology Transfer, and Game Changing Development. NASA is working with multiple CLPS vendors to establish a regular cadence of payload deliveries to the Moon to perform experiments, test technologies, and demonstrate capabilities to help NASA explore the lunar surface. Payloads delivered through CLPS will help NASA advance capabilities for science, technology, and exploration on the Moon. Simone Williams NASA Langley Research Center Explore More 4 min read Tiny NASA Cameras to Picture Interaction Between Lander, Moon’s Surface Article 3 days ago 5 min read NASA to Study Effects of Radio Noise on Lunar Science Article 4 days ago 1 min read Intuitive Machines IM-1 Mission Article 5 days ago Share Details Last Updated Feb 05, 2024 Related TermsGeneralCommercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS)Langley Research Center View the full article

Prelaunch News Conference for NASA Mission Studying Earth's Atmosphere and Oceans (Feb. 5, 2024)

Science Briefing on NASA Mission Studying Earth's Atmosphere and Oceans (Feb. 4, 2024)

A Commercial Resupply Mission to the Space Station on This Week @NASA – February 2, 2024

4 Min Read The Iconic Photos from STS-41B: Documenting the First Untethered Spacewalk Astronaut Bruce McCandless II, STS-41B mission specialist, reaches his maximum distance from space shuttle Challenger before returning to the spacecraft using the Manned Maneuvering Unit (MMU). Credits: NASA As astronaut Bruce McCandless II flew the Manned Maneuvering Unit (MMU) out of the space shuttle Challenger’s payload bay for the first time on February 7, 1984, many in the agency were fearful about the use of a self-propelled and untethered backpack in space. (Previous spacewalkers remained connected to the vehicle with tethers. This jet-pack allowed crews to move outside of the cargo bay and perform activities away from the safety of the spacecraft.) He remembered trying to ease the tension for his wife and the flight controllers in Mission Control, saying something similar to Neil Armstrong’s declaration as he first stepped on the Moon in 1969. “It may have been one small step for Neil,” he proclaimed, “but it’s a heck of a big leap for me.” It may have been one small step for Neil, but it’s a heck of a big leap for me. Bruce McCandless II NASA Astronaut The crew of STS-41B take an informal portrait on the mid-deck of the Earth-orbiting Challenger. Counter clockwise from the top right are astronauts Vance D. Brand commander; Robert L. “Hoot” Gibson, pilot; and Dr. Ronald E. McNair, Bruce McCandless II, and Robert L. Stewart, all mission specialists.NASA The MMU was the highlight of the STS-41B mission as demonstrated by the stunning mission photographs that graced the cover of Aviation Week & Space Technology, not once, not twice, but three times. “Hoot” Gibson, the flight’s pilot, shot the photograph featured on the February 20, 1984, issue of the magazine from the crew cabin. Gibson remembered he was the only one on the crew that “had absolutely nothing to do” as McCandless made his way out into space, so he picked up a Hasselblad camera and began documenting the events. When he first looked through the camera’s viewfinder, he could not believe what an incredible sight it was to see McCandless untethered, floating above the Earth. Gibson wanted to capture what he was seeing and remembered how meticulous he was. For each photograph he took three light meter readings and checked the focus four times. In the crew’s photography training he learned that an off-kilter horizon looked wrong and was not pleasing to the eye. That presented a slight problem because Challenger was at a 28.5-degree inclination, so he “tilted the camera to put the horizon level in the pictures.” Astronaut Bruce McCandless II is a few meters away from the cabin of the Earth-orbiting space shuttle Challenger in this iconic photo taken by Hoot Gibson, which was featured on the February 20, 1984 issue of Aviation Week & Space Technology.NASA The result was one of NASA’s most iconic and requested images. McCandless called the photograph “beautiful, partly because the sun is shining directly on me.” His son, Bruce McCandless III, said his father “appears to be glowing.” Because the sun was in his eyes, he closed the helmet visor, which made it difficult to identify who exactly was inside the spacesuit. “My anonymity means people can imagine themselves doing the same thing,” he said. And, he added, “at visitor centres [sic], they often have life-sized cardboard versions with the visor cut out, so people can peep through.” Perhaps more importantly, as expressed by United States Senator John McCain, the photo “inspired generations of Americans to believe that there is no limit to the human potential.” A second, but less recognized image, appeared on the cover of Aviation Week & Space Technology the following week: February 27, 1984. Also taken by Gibson, the image featured McCandless on the Manipulator Foot Restraint or “cherry picker” device at end of the Remote Manipulator System (RMS). The restraint was a platform where spacewalkers could work outside the vehicle but remain anchored at the end of the RMS to repair a satellite or other activities. STS-41B marked the first test of the new apparatus. Gibson explained how he chose to capture McCandless on the device. “What I did was I shifted the camera so that he wasn’t right in the center of the picture. I put him on the edge and the orbiter’s rudder on the other edge of the picture. That made a really cool photo.” The feet of Bruce McCandless II are anchored in the Mobile Foot Restraint (MFR) and moved around by the Remote Manipulator System (RMS). The aft portion of the Challenger, to which the RMS is connected, is seen in lower left corner.NASA A third image from the mission appeared on the March 12, 1984, cover of the magazine. The photograph, taken by a fixed camera on McCandless’s helmet, captured Challenger in its entirety, which included the payload bay with the Shuttle Pallet Satellite and a glimpse of astronaut Robert Stewart standing just beneath the spacecraft’s RMS. This photo of Challenger was the third from the STS-41B mission to be featured on the cover of Aviation Week & Space Technology.NASA These photographs from STS-41B, from the tenth flight of the space shuttle, illustrate just how engaging and exciting shuttle missions were. While flying in space became more routine in the 1980s, no one, not even the crew, “appreciated how spectacular” the first MMU flight “was going to be.” The STS-41B photos demonstrated that human spaceflight remained just as captivating, breathtaking, and inspiring as it had always been. See more photos from the STS-41B mission Learn about the MMU Read Hoot Gibson's oral history interviews About the AuthorJennifer Ross-NazzalNASA Human Spaceflight HistorianJennifer Ross-Nazzal is the NASA Human Spaceflight Historian. She is the author of Winning the West for Women: The Life of Suffragist Emma Smith DeVoe and Making Space for Women: Stories from Trailblazing Women of NASA's Johnson Space Center. Share Details Last Updated Feb 02, 2024 Related TermsNASA HistoryBruce McCandlessHumans in SpaceRobert L. GibsonSTS-41B Explore More 10 min read Astronaut Still Photography During Apollo Article 17 years ago 1 min read Astronaut Bruce McCandless Tests New Technology on Historic Spacewalk Article 11 months ago 9 min read Spacelab 1: A Model for International Cooperation Article 2 months ago Keep Exploring Discover More Topics From NASA Humans In Space NASA History Space Shuttle Collier Trophy Awards to the NACA and NASA View the full article

Launch of Mission to Study Earth's Atmosphere and Oceans (Official NASA Broadcast)

3 min read Meet the Creators, Part 3: NASA’s 2024 Total Solar Eclipse Posters A total solar eclipse is a captivating experience – evoking feelings of awe and wonder that are sometimes best expressed through art. Inspired by the upcoming total solar eclipse of April 8, 2024, artists Tyler Nordgren and Kristen Perrin have designed two posters for NASA that present the magic of the eclipse in unique ways. Tyler Nordgren Download the poster here. NASA/Tyler Nordgren In “The Sun and Moon Align with You” poster for NASA, Nordgren – who is a professional astronomer as well as an artist – said that his goal was to capture the experience that can be had by millions of people in cities across the United States in April, while reflecting on the last total solar eclipse that crossed the country in August 2017. “For 2017, the total solar eclipse passed over so many national parks and natural landscapes with very few cities in the path. So I created a poster modeled after the 1930s ‘See America’ national parks posters produced by the Works Progress Administration to educate Americans about the parks. I figured I was doing the same thing. Now, seven years later in 2024, this time the total solar eclipse is passing over major metropolitan areas. Over 30 million people will be living directly in the path of totality – that’s almost three times the total in 2017. So I wanted to make a poster that emphasized what it would be like to see it in one of these cities. “The poster shows a figure standing before a representative skyline where I used elements of different cities (like certain buildings and bridges) all across the path of totality. Along the underpass that sweeps overhead of our central figure are the names of major cities from every state along totality. It truly is stunning how many people in so many cities will get to see this. “Think about being in a sports or concert stadium when the crowd erupts in joy all at once. Now imagine, not just a stadium, but every single person in an entire city all at once at the instant the Sun goes black. This will be a day people will remember and talk about with awe for the rest of their lives. I hope I captured some small part of that.” Kristen Perrin Download the poster here. NASA/Kristen Perrin For her “Through the Eyes of NASA” poster, Perrin – who is an African American woman, mother of four, and the Senior Multimedia and Graphic Specialist on the NASA Heliophysics communications team – said she wanted to show that the eclipse is an experience for everyone. “Designing the poster to commemorate the total solar eclipse happening on April 8 was an honor. I wanted to highlight the event using people that represented all demographics. This was done so that the eclipse could be recognized as an event for ALL. Using the spherical elements to represent the Moon and some of the planets within our solar system encouraged the overall visual to help the audience see where the eclipse takes place and understand, by the coloring, what would happen. The look of the skyline from the audience point of view was also designed to resemble an eye. This visual honed in on the tagline ‘Through the eyes of NASA’.” To learn more about these artists and other eclipse posters they’ve created, read Meet the Creators of NASA’s Newest Eclipse Art. by Vanessa Thomas NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. Share Details Last Updated Feb 02, 2024 Related Terms 2024 Solar Eclipse Eclipses Skywatching Solar Eclipses Explore More 2 min read February’s Night Sky Notes: Constant Companions: Circumpolar Constellations, Part I Some constellations can be as familiar as old friends. Learn about three of them in… Article 1 day ago 5 min read How the 2024 Total Solar Eclipse Is Different than the 2017 Eclipse Article 3 days ago 3 min read Landing On Mars: A Tricky Feat! Why is landing on Mars so difficult? Learn more about the challenges with a special… Article 1 week ago Keep Exploring Discover Related Topics Helio Big Year 2024 Total Eclipse Shadow Notes Eclipses View the full article

NASA astronauts and Expedition 70 Flight Engineers Jasmin Moghbeli, left, and Loral O’Hara in the Destiny laboratory celebrate the successful docking of a SpaceX Dragon cargo spacecraft to the International Space Station. NASA Students from California and Massachusetts will have separate opportunities next week to hear from NASA astronauts aboard the International Space Station. The two Earth-to-space calls will air live Monday, Feb. 5, and Friday, Feb. 9, on NASA+ and agency’s website. Learn how to stream NASA TV through a variety of platforms including social media. At 12:15 p.m. EST Feb. 5, NASA astronauts Loral O’Hara and Jasmin Moghbeli will answer prerecorded questions from students at Emblem Academy in Santa Clarita, California, a public transitional kindergarten through sixth-grade school. In preparation for the event, students and their families will participate in an engineering family night where they will participate in STEM design challenges related to the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics conducted on the space station. Coverage on NASA+ will be live at: https://go.nasa.gov/4bj0k5Q Media interested in covering the event must RSVP no later than 5 p.m. Friday, Feb. 2, to Katie Demsher at kdemsher@saugususd.org or 661-294-5315. At 10:40 a.m. Feb. 9, O’Hara and ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Andreas Mogensen will answer prerecorded questions from students at Central Tree Middle, part of the Wachusett Regional School District in Massachusetts. The day of the event, 13 schools from five cities will watch live from their classrooms. Coverage on NASA+ will be live at: https://go.nasa.gov/42uPAxm Media interested in covering the event must RSVP no later than 5 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 8, to Dave Cornacchioli at david_cornacchioli@wrsd.net or 508-886-0073. For more than 23 years, astronauts have continuously lived and worked aboard the space station, testing technologies, performing science, and developing the skills needed to explore farther from Earth. Astronauts living in space aboard the orbiting laboratory communicate with NASA’s Mission Control Center in Houston 24 hours a day through the Space Communications and Navigation (SCaN) Near Space Network. Important research and technology investigations taking place aboard the International Space Station benefits people on Earth and lays the groundwork for future exploration. As part of Artemis, NASA will send astronauts to the Moon to prepare for future human exploration of Mars. Inspiring the next generation of explorers – the Artemis Generation – ensures America will continue to lead in space exploration and discovery. See videos and lesson plans highlighting research on the space station at: https://www.nasa.gov/stemonstation -end- Katherine Brown Headquarters, Washington 202-358-1288 katherine.m.brown@nasa.gov Sandra Jones Johnson Space Center, Houston 281-483-5111 sandra.p.jones@nasa.gov Share Details Last Updated Feb 02, 2024 LocationNASA Headquarters Related TermsHumans in SpaceAstronautsInternational Space Station (ISS)ISS ResearchJasmin MoghbeliJohnson Space CenterLoral O'HaraNASA Headquarters View the full article

The SpaceX Dragon Freedom spacecraft carrying the four-member Axiom Mission 3 (Ax-3) crew is pictured approaching the International Space Station 260 miles above China north of the Himalayas. NASA will provide live coverage of the undocking and departure of the Axiom Mission 3 (Ax-3) private astronaut flight from the International Space Station before the crew returns to Earth. The four-member astronaut crew is scheduled to undock no earlier than 6:05 a.m. EST Saturday, Feb. 3, from the space-facing port of the station’s Harmony module in a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft to begin the journey home and splashdown off the coast of Florida. NASA will provide live coverage of space station joint operations with Axiom Space and SpaceX. Coverage of hatch-closure preparations will begin at 4 a.m. NASA coverage of undocking will resume at 5:45 a.m. Coverage will be available on NASA+, NASA Television, the NASA app, YouTube, and the agency’s website. Learn how to stream NASA TV through a variety of platforms including social media. The four private astronauts, Michael López-Alegría, Walter Villadei, Marcus Wandt, and Alper Gezeravci, will complete about two weeks in space at the conclusion of their mission. The Axiom crew, along with Expedition 70, highlighted their stay aboard the space station during farewell remarks on Friday in advance of their undocking. Their SpaceX Dragon will return to Earth with more than 550 pounds of cargo, including NASA hardware and data from more than 30 different experiments the crew conducted during their mission. Splashdown is expected about 7 p.m. Ax-3, the third all-private astronaut mission to the International Space Station, successfully lifted off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida Jan. 18. NASA’s undocking and departure coverage for Ax-3 is as follows (all times Eastern and subject to change based on operations): Saturday, Feb. 3 4 a.m. – NASA coverage begins for 4:15 a.m. hatch closure 5:45 a.m. – NASA coverage continues for 6:05 a.m. undocking NASA’s coverage ends approximately 30 minutes after undocking when space station joint operations with Axiom Space and SpaceX mission teams conclude. Axiom Space will resume coverage of Dragon’s re-entry and splashdown on the company’s website. The Ax-3 mission is part of NASA’s effort to foster a commercial market in low Earth orbit and continue a new era of space exploration that enables more people and organizations to fly multiple mission objectives. This partnership expands the arc of human spaceflight and opens access to low Earth orbit and the International Space Station to more people, science, and commercial opportunities. Learn more about how NASA is supporting a space economy in low Earth orbit: https://www.nasa.gov/humans-in-space/commercial-space/ -end- Julian Coltre Headquarters, Washington 202-358-1100 julian.n.coltre@nasa.gov Rebecca Turkington Johnson Space Center, Houston 281-483-5111 rebecca.turkington@nasa.gov Share Details Last Updated Feb 02, 2024 LocationNASA Headquarters Related TermsInternational Space Station (ISS)Commercial CrewCommercial SpaceHumans in SpaceISS ResearchLow-Earth Orbit Economy View the full article

NASA and SpaceX technicians safely encapsulate NASA’s PACE (Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem) spacecraft in SpaceX’s Falcon 9 payload fairings on Tuesday, Jan. 30, 2024, at the Astrotech Space Operations Facility near the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.Photo Credit: NASA Goddard/Denny Henry NASA is hosting virtual activities ahead of the launch of the PACE (Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem) mission and invites you to share in the fun. The PACE mission will help us better understand how the ocean and atmosphere exchange carbon dioxide, measure key atmospheric variables associated with air quality and Earth’s climate, and monitor ocean health, in part by studying phytoplankton, tiny plants and algae that sustain the marine food web. PACE will extend and expand NASA’s long-term observations of our living planet. By doing so, it will take Earth’s pulse in new ways for decades to come. NASA’s PACE is scheduled to launch no earlier than 1:33 a.m. EST, Tuesday, Feb. 6, on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. Members of the public can register to attend the launch virtually. As a virtual guest, you have access to curated resources, schedule changes, and mission-specific information delivered straight to your inbox. Following each activity, virtual guests will receive a commemorative stamp for their virtual guest passport. Live launch coverage will begin at 12:45 a.m., Feb. 6, on NASA+, NASA Television, and the agency’s website. For more information about the PACE mission, visit: https://pace.oceansciences.org/. View the full article

2 min read UNITE All-Nighter Delights Amateur Astronomers Fadi Saibi and his daughter Sophie, age 14, pose for a photograph with their Unistellar telescope in their backyard in Sunnyvale, Calif., on Thursday, Jan. 11, 2024. Credit: Bay Area News Group/Nhat V. Meye Maybe you read about them in the papers–amateur astronomers in Japan, Russia, France, Finland, and the United States have been pulling all-nighters to spot extraordinary exoplanets, planets orbiting stars other than the Sun. NASA’s UNITE project holds these planetary stakeouts several times every month, and you can join in! This October, the UNITE team undertook a 20-hour marathon as part of tracking a Saturn-sized planet called TOI-4600 c. They watched and waited, trying to see the planet’s star dim by about 1% as the planet passed in front of it. Success would tell us that the planet takes a little more than one Earth year to orbit its star. It would place this planet on a short list of gas-giant planets known outside our own solar system that have sizes and temperatures similar to those of Saturn and Jupiter. Such planets are key laboratories for studying how our solar system was formed, so each new example is precious. In mid-January, the UNITE team coordinated observations across Europe to catch the third-ever star-crossing event for a different planet. (The third one seen by humans, that is!) Once the team does catch it, they’ll know if it takes three Earth years to orbits its star, which would make it fairly cold planet, or something closer to 100 Earth days, telling us that the planet is relatively warm. The final results of these observations remain closely-guarded secrets, but they will soon be released in an astronomy journal articles. The Unistellar Network Investigating TESS Exoplanets (UNITE) project is a global team of volunteer telescope observers tracking down rare worlds in distant solar systems. Visit science.unistellaroptics.com and you can be part of the next UNITE discovery! Share Details Last Updated Feb 02, 2024 Related Terms Astrophysics Citizen Science Uncategorized View the full article

On Feb. 3, 1994, space shuttle Discovery took off on its 18th flight, STS-60. Its six-person crew of Commander Charles F. Bolden, Pilot Kenneth S. Reightler, and Mission Specialists N. Jan Davis, Ronald M. Sega, Franklin R. Chang-Díaz, who served as payload commander, and Sergei K. Krikalev of the Russian Space Agency, now Roscosmos, flew the first mission of the Shuttle-Mir Program. Other objectives of the mission included the first flight of the Wake Shield Facility, a free-flying satellite using the ultra-vacuum of space to generate semi-conductor films for advanced electronics and the second flight of a Spacehab commercially developed pressurized module to enable multidisciplinary research and technology demonstrations. The eight-day mission marked an important step forward in international cooperation and the commercial development of space. Left: The STS-60 crew patch. Middle: The STS-60 crew of (clockwise from bottom left) Pilot Kenneth S. Reightler, Mission Specialists Franklin R. Chang-Díaz, Ronald M. Sega, Sergei K. Krikalev representing the Russian Space Agency, now Roscosmos, and N. Jan Davis, and Commander Charles F. Bolden. Right: The patch for the Phase 1 Shuttle-Mir program. In Oct. 1992, NASA announced Bolden, Reightler, Davis, Sega, and Chang-Díaz as the STS-60 crew. For Bolden and Chang-Díaz, STS-60 represented their fourth trips into space; for Bolden the second as commander. Reightler and Davis each had completed one previous spaceflight, with Sega as the sole rookie on the crew. The announcement noted that one of two RSA cosmonauts already in training at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston would join the crew at a later date. In early April 1993, NASA designated Krikalev, a veteran of two long-duration missions aboard the Mir space station, as the prime international crew member, with Vladimir G. Titov named as his backup. The now six-person crew trained extensively for the next nine months for the history-making flight. Left: Space shuttle Discovery departs the Vehicle Assembly Building on its way to Launch Pad 39A. Middle: The STS-60 crew departs crew quarters for Launch Pad 39A. Right: Liftoff of space shuttle Discovery to begin the STS-60 mission. Discovery landed at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida after its previous mission, STS-51, on Sept. 22, 1993, where workers towed it to the Orbiter Processing Facility to refurbish it for STS-60. They towed it to the Vehicle Assembly Building on Jan. 4, 1994, for mating with its external tank and twin solid rocket boosters, and rolled the completed stack to Launch Pad 39A six days later. The astronauts participated in the Terminal Countdown Demonstration Test, a rehearsal for the actual countdown, on Jan. 14. Senior managers held the Flight Readiness Review on Jan. 22 to confirm the Feb. 3 launch date. Engineers began the countdown for launch on Jan. 31. Liftoff occurred on schedule at 7:10 a.m. EST on Feb. 3, and Discovery and its six-person crew flew up the U.S. East Coast to achieve a 57-degree inclination orbit. Left: Discovery’s payload bay, showing the Spacehab module including the externally mounted Sample Return Experiment, and the Canadian-built Remote Manipulator System. Middle: Astronauts N. Jan Davis, left, and Franklin R. Chang-Díaz open the hatch to the Spacehab module. Right: Ronald M. Sega monitors Sergei K. Krikalev as he performs a neurosensory investigation. Once in orbit, the astronauts opened Discovery’s payload bay doors to begin their activities. Chang-Díaz and Davis opened the hatches to the Spacehab, accessed from the middeck through the airlock and a connecting tunnel, and activated the module’s systems. They began activating some of the 12 experiments in the Spacehab, primarily focused on biotechnology and materials processing. In the middeck, Reightler, Davis, Sega, and Krikalev performed the first session of the joint neurovestibular experiment, which they repeated five more times during the mission. The astronauts also began activating some of the experiments in the shuttle’s middeck. Left: Charles F. Bolden prepares to take a blood sample from Franklin R. Chang-Díaz for the metabolic experiment. Middle: Kenneth S. Reightler processes blood samples in the centrifuge. Right: Reightler places the processed blood samples in the GN2 freezer. The astronauts began the joint metabolic experiment to investigate biochemical responses to weightlessness on flight day 2. With Bolden and Chang-Díaz serving as phlebotomists, they and Reightler participated as subjects for this study that involved drawing blood samples, spinning them in a centrifuge, and placing them in gaseous nitrogen freezers for return to Earth for analysis. Left: The Wake Shield Facility (WSF) deployed at the end of the Canadian-built Remote Manipulator System, with the aurora in the background. Middle: The WSF at the end of the RMS. Right: The robotic arm about to stow the Wake Shield Facility. Operations with the wake shield began in flight day three. Davis grappled the WSF (Wake Shield Facility) with the shuttle’s Canadian-built remote manipulator system, or robotic arm, lifting it out of the payload bay, placing it in the “ram clearing” attitude to have atomic oxygen present in low Earth orbit cleanse it of contaminants that could hamper the purity of any produced samples. Plans called for Davis to then release the facility for its two days of free flight. During this process, the astronauts and Mission Control could not properly assess the satellite’s configuration, and troubleshooting efforts led to loss of communications with it. Mission Control instructed the astronauts to berth the facility overnight as ground teams assessed the problem. Engineers traced the problem to a radio frequency interference issue missed due to inadequate preflight testing. The next morning, Davis once again picked up the facility with the robotic arm. The communications issue recurred, but a reboot of the facility’s computer appeared to fix that problem. However, problems cropped up with the satellite’s navigation system, precluding its deployment. All operations and manufacturing occurred with the WSF remaining attached to the robotic arm. Despite this, the facility demonstrated its capabilities by producing five semiconductor films of good quality before Davis berthed it back in the payload bay on flight day seven. Left: N. Jan Davis takes a peripheral venous pressure measurement on Charles F. Bolden. Middle: Davis operates a fluid processing apparatus, one of the experiments in the Commercial Generic Bioprocessing Apparatus. Right: Bolden operates the Organic Separation experiment. Meanwhile, the astronauts continued with experiments in the middeck and the Spacehab. Another joint investigation called for the measurement of peripheral venous blood pressure. The Spacehab module contained 12 experiments in the fields of biotechnology, materials processing, and microacceleration environment measurement. A thirteenth experiment mounted on the module’s exterior collected cosmic dust particles on aerogel capture cells. Left: Ronald M. Sega operates the liquid phase sintering experiment. Middle left: Franklin R. Chang-Díaz operates the Space Experiment Furnace. Middle right: The Stirling Orbiter Refrigerator/Freezer technology demonstration. Right: The STS-60 crew enjoys ice cream stored in the freezer. A technology demonstration on STS-60 involved the test flight of a Stirling Orbiter Refrigerator/Freezer. Planned for use on future missions to store biological samples, on STS-60 the astronauts tested the unit’s ability to chill water containers and provided the crew with a rare treat in space: real ice cream. Left: In the Mission Control Center, President William J. “Bill” Clinton chats with the STS-60 crew during his visit to NASA’s Johnson Space Center. Right: The Mir crew and the STS-60 crew talk with each other through the communications link established during the ABC program Good Morning America. On the astronauts’ fifth day in orbit, President William J. “Bill” Clinton visited Johnson and stopped in the Mission Control Center to talk with them. NASA Administrator Daniel S. Golden and Johnson Director Carolyn L. Huntoon accompanied the President on his tour. President Clinton praised the crew, saying, “I think this is the first step in what will become the norm in global cooperation. And when we get this space station finished…it’s going to be a force for peace and progress that will be truly historic, and you will have played a major role in that.” The following day, the ABC program Good Morning America set up a communications link between Bolden, Davis, and Krikalev aboard Discovery and the three cosmonauts aboard the Mir space station. The two crews chatted with each other and answered reporters’ questions. A selection of STS-60 Earth observation photographs of North American cities. Left: Los Angeles. Middle left: Chicago. Middle right: Montréal. Right: New York City. Every space mission includes astronaut Earth photography, and the 57-degree inclination of STS-60 enabled this crew to image areas on the planet not usually visible to astronauts. Many of the images included spectacular views of snow-covered landscapes in the northern hemisphere winter. Left: Deployment of one of the six spheres of the Orbital Debris Radar Calibration Spheres experiment. Middle: The six spheres fly away from the shuttle. Right: Deployment of the University of Bremen satellite. Once the astronauts had stowed the WSF on flight day seven, they could proceed to the deployment of two payloads. The first called Orbital Debris Radar Calibration Spheres consisted of deploying six metal spheres of three different sizes from Discovery’s payload bay. Ground-based radars and optical telescopes observed and tracked the metal spheres to calibrate their instruments. The University of Bremen in Germany provided the second deployable payload. It measured various parameters of its in-orbit environment as well as its internal pressure and temperature as it burned up when it reentered Earth’s atmosphere. Left: The STS-60 crew members pose near the end of their successful mission. Right: Franklin R. Chang-Díaz, left, and N. Jan Davis close the hatch to the Spacehab module at the end of the mission. With most of the experiments completed by flight day eight, the astronauts busied themselves with tidying up the middeck and the Spacehab. Bolden and Reightler tested Discovery’s reaction control system thrusters and flight control surfaces in preparation for the deorbit, entry, and landing the following day. Left: Charles F. Bolden prepares to bring Discovery home. Right: Bolden makes a perfect touchdown at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida to conclude STS-60. On the morning of Feb. 11, the mission’s final day in space, Chang-Díaz and Davis deactivated the Spacehab and closed the hatches to the module. The astronauts donned their launch and entry suits, but NASA delayed their deorbit burn by one orbit due to inclement weather at John F. Kennedy Space Center. Ninety minutes later, they fired the two Orbital Maneuvering System engines to bring them out of orbit and Bolden guided Discovery to a smooth landing at Kennedy, ending the STS-60 mission after 8 days, 7 hours, and 9 minutes, having circled the Earth 130 times. Enjoy the crew narrate a video about the STS-60 mission. Read Bolden’s and Sega‘s recollections of the STS-60 mission in their oral histories with Johnson’s History Office. Explore More 25 min read Honoring Black Astronauts During Black History Month 2024 Article 1 day ago 7 min read 40 Years Ago: President Reagan Directs NASA to Build a Space Station Article 1 week ago 3 min read NASA Glenn Established in Cleveland in 1941 Article 1 week ago View the full article

This new NASA Hubble Space Telescope image shows ESO 185-IG013, a luminous blue compact galaxy (BCG). BCGs are nearby galaxies that show an intense burst of star formation. They are unusually blue in visible light, which sets them apart from other high-starburst galaxies that emit more infrared light. Astrophysicists study BCGs because they provide a relatively close-by equivalent for galaxies from the early universe. This means that BCGs can help scientists learn about galaxy formation and evolution that may have been happening billions of years ago. Hubble imaged ESO 185-IG013 in ultraviolet, visible, and infrared wavelengths to reveal details about its past. Hundreds of young star clusters, many of which are younger than 100 million years, populate the galaxy. A large number of star clusters are only 3.5 million years old – relative infants compared to the timescale of our universe. Scientists predict that many of these youngest clusters will not last, since young clusters can often perish after expelling too much of their gas. The large number of young star clusters indicates that this galaxy was part of a recent galaxy collision and merger. The perturbed structure of the galaxy, which likely occurred from the violent interactions of gas and dust during the collision, is another sign. The merger supplied the system with lots of fuel for star formation, which continues to take place today. ESO 185-IG013 also contains a tidal shell, the diffuse glow surrounding its bright center, which is a common signal of galaxy mergers. Scientists believe that in a galaxy merger, the smaller of the two interacting galaxies gets disrupted by the larger galaxy, losing most of its material. This releases the material, which then gets pulled in again by the gravity of the larger galaxy. The dense area where the material gets repositioned is called the shell, and it contains many star clusters. In addition to the shell, ESO 185-IG013 boasts a tail of gas in the northeast. All of the stars in the system have a combined mass more than 7 billion times that of our Sun. The system is located about 260 million light-years away. LEARN MORE: Hubble’s Cosmic Collisions Hubble Science: Galaxy Details and Mergers Hubble Science: Tracing the Growth of Galaxies Download this image Media Contact: Claire Andreoli NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD claire.andreoli@nasa.gov View the full article

4 min read Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) Say cheese, Moon. We’re coming in for a close-up. As Intuitive Machines’ Nova-C lander descends toward the Moon, four tiny NASA cameras will be trained on the lunar surface, collecting imagery of how the surface changes from interactions with the spacecraft’s engine plume. The Stereo Cameras for Lunar Plume-Surface Studies will help us to land larger payloads as we explore space. Olivia Tyrrell from the SCALPPS photogrammetry team explains how a small array of cameras will capture invaluable imagery during lunar descent and landing, and how that imagery can inform our future missions to the Moon and beyond. Developed at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, Stereo Cameras for Lunar Plume-Surface Studies (SCALPSS) is an array of cameras placed around the base of a lunar lander to collect imagery during and after descent. Using a technique called stereo photogrammetry, researchers at Langley will use the overlapping images from the version of SCALPSS on Nova-C — SCALPSS 1.0 — to produce a 3D view of the surface. These images of the Moon’s surface won’t just be a “gee-whiz” novelty. As trips to the Moon increase and the number of payloads touching down in proximity to one another grows, scientists and engineers need to be able to accurately predict the effects of landings. How much will the surface change? As a lander comes down, what happens to the lunar soil, or regolith, it ejects? With limited data collected during descent and landing to date, SCALPSS will be the first dedicated instrument to measure plume-surface interaction on the Moon in real time and help to answer these questions. “If we’re placing things – landers, habitats, etc. – near each other, we could be sand blasting what’s next to us, so that’s going to drive requirements on protecting those other assets on the surface, which could add mass, and that mass ripples through the architecture,” said Michelle Munk, principal investigator for SCALPSS and acting chief architect for NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters. “It’s all part of an integrated engineering problem.” Under Artemis, NASA intends to collaborate with commercial and international partners to establish the first long-term presence on the Moon. On this Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative delivery, SCALPSS 1.0 is purely focused on how the lander alters the surface of the Moon during landing. It will begin capturing imagery from before the time the lander’s plume begins interacting with the surface until after the landing is complete. The final images will be gathered on a small onboard data storage unit before being sent to the lander for downlink back to Earth. The team will likely need at least a couple of months to process the images, verify the data, and generate the 3D digital elevation maps of the surface. The expected depression they reveal probably won’t be very deep — not this time, anyway. “Even if you look at the old Apollo images — and the Apollo crewed landers were larger than these new robotic landers — you have to look really closely to see where the erosion took place,” said Rob Maddock, SCALPSS project manager at Langley. “We’re anticipating something on the order of centimeters deep — maybe an inch. It really depends on the landing site and how deep the regolith is and where the bedrock is.” But this is a chance for researchers to see how well SCALPSS will work as the U.S. advances into a future where Human-Landing-Systems-class spacecraft will start making trips to the Moon. “Those are going to be much larger than even Apollo. Those are pretty large engines, and they could conceivably dig some good holes,” said Maddock. “So that’s what we’re doing. We’re collecting data we can use to validate the models that are predicting what will happen.” SCALPSS 1.1, which will feature two additional cameras, is scheduled to fly on another CLPS delivery — Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost — later this year. The extra cameras are optimized to take images at a higher altitude, prior to the expected onset of plume-surface interaction, and provide a more accurate before-and-after comparison. SCALPSS 1.0 was funded by NASA’s Science Mission Directorate through the NASA-Provided Lunar Payloads Program. The SCALPSS 1.1 project is funded by the Space Technology Mission Directorate’s Game Changing Development Program. NASA is working with several American companies to deliver science and technology to the lunar surface through the CLPS initiative. These companies, ranging in size, bid on delivering payloads for NASA. This includes everything from payload integration and operations, to launching from Earth and landing on the surface of the Moon. Joe Atkinson NASA Langley Research Center Explore More 5 min read NASA to Study Effects of Radio Noise on Lunar Science Article 1 day ago 1 min read Intuitive Machines IM-1 Mission Article 2 days ago 4 min read NASA Autonomous Flight Software Successfully Used in Air Taxi Stand-Ins Article 1 week ago Share Details Last Updated Feb 02, 2024 Related TermsCommercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS)Langley Research Center View the full article

2 min read Hubble Views a Dim but Distinct Galaxy Both visible and ultraviolet wavelengths of light comprise this Hubble Space Telescope image of the spiral galaxy UGC 11105. ESA/Hubble & NASA, R. J. Foley (UC Santa Cruz) This image of the softly luminous spiral galaxy UGC 11105 is from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. It lies about 110 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Hercules. Astronomers have different ways of quantifying how bright celestial objects are. Apparent magnitude is one of those methods. It describes how bright an object appears to an observer on Earth, which is not the same thing as measuring how bright an object actually is; or its intrinsic brightness. Apparent magnitude depends heavily on an object’s proximity to Earth. To better understand how apparent magnitude works, consider streetlights; each lamppost is putting out the same amount of light, but the light that is closer to you is much brighter than one several blocks away. Although their intrinsic brightness is the same, their apparent brightness is different. UGC 11105 has an apparent magnitude, or brightness, of around 13.6 in the light our eyes are sensitive to, called visible or optical light. However, this image also holds ultraviolet data, allowing us to see wavelengths beyond those that the human eye can see. Because of its proximity and our perspective here on Earth, the Sun appears to be about 14 thousand trillion times brighter than UGC 11105, even though UGC 11105 is an entire galaxy. Hubble’s sensitivity and location above Earth’s light-distorting atmosphere allows the observatory to see extraordinarily dim objects in visible light, ultraviolet light, and a small portion of infrared light. Text credit: European Space Agency (ESA) Download this image Media Contact: Claire Andreoli NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD claire.andreoli@nasa.gov Share Details Last Updated Feb 02, 2024 Editor Andrea Gianopoulos Location Goddard Space Flight Center Related Terms Astrophysics Astrophysics Division Galaxies Goddard Space Flight Center Hubble Space Telescope Missions Spiral Galaxies The Universe Keep Exploring Discover More Topics From NASA Hubble Space Telescope Since its 1990 launch, the Hubble Space Telescope has changed our fundamental understanding of the universe. Galaxies Stories Stars Stories James Webb Space Telescope Webb is the premier observatory of the next decade, serving thousands of astronomers worldwide. It studies every phase in the… View the full article

2 min read Hubble Sees a Merged Galaxy This new NASA Hubble Space Telescope image reveals the luminous blue compact galaxy called ESO 185-IG013. NASA, ESA, and R. Chandar (University of Toledo); Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America) This new NASA Hubble Space Telescope image shows ESO 185-IG013, a luminous blue compact galaxy (BCG). BCGs are nearby galaxies that show an intense burst of star formation. They are unusually blue in visible light, which sets them apart from other high-starburst galaxies that emit more infrared light. Astrophysicists study BCGs because they provide a relatively close-by equivalent for galaxies from the early universe. This means that BCGs can help scientists learn about galaxy formation and evolution that may have been happening billions of years ago. Hubble imaged ESO 185-IG013 in ultraviolet, visible, and infrared wavelengths to reveal details about its past. Hundreds of young star clusters, many of which are younger than 100 million years, populate the galaxy. A large number of star clusters are only 3.5 million years old – relative infants compared to the timescale of our universe. Scientists predict that many of these youngest clusters will not last, since young clusters can often perish after expelling too much of their gas. The large number of young star clusters indicates that this galaxy was part of a recent galaxy collision and merger. The perturbed structure of the galaxy, which likely occurred from the violent interactions of gas and dust during the collision, is another sign. The merger supplied the system with lots of fuel for star formation, which continues to take place today. ESO 185-IG013 also contains a tidal shell, the diffuse glow surrounding its bright center, which is a common signal of galaxy mergers. Scientists believe that in a galaxy merger, the smaller of the two interacting galaxies gets disrupted by the larger galaxy, losing most of its material. This releases the material, which then gets pulled in again by the gravity of the larger galaxy. The dense area where the material gets repositioned is called the shell, and it contains many star clusters. In addition to the shell, ESO 185-IG013 boasts a tail of gas in the northeast. All of the stars in the system have a combined mass more than 7 billion times that of our Sun. The system is located about 260 million light-years away. LEARN MORE: Hubble’s Cosmic Collisions Hubble Science: Galaxy Details and Mergers Hubble Science: Tracing the Growth of Galaxies Download this image Media Contact: Claire Andreoli NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD claire.andreoli@nasa.gov Share Details Last Updated Feb 01, 2024 Editor Andrea Gianopoulos Location Goddard Space Flight Center Related Terms Astrophysics Division Galaxies Goddard Space Flight Center Hubble Space Telescope Missions The Universe Keep Exploring Discover More Topics From NASA Hubble Space Telescope Since its 1990 launch, the Hubble Space Telescope has changed our fundamental understanding of the universe. Galaxies Stories Stars Stories James Webb Space Telescope Webb is the premier observatory of the next decade, serving thousands of astronomers worldwide. It studies every phase in the… View the full article

NASA/Danny Nowlin Clouds of white vapor pile up at NASA’s Stennis Space Center in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi during a full-duration, 500-second hot fire of an RS-25 certification engine Jan. 17, 2024. This test series is critical for future flights of NASA’s SLS (Space Launch System) rocket in support of the Artemis campaign. During the Jan. 17 test, operators followed a “test like you fly” approach, firing the engine for the same amount of time – almost eight-and-a-half minutes (500 seconds) – needed to launch SLS and at power levels ranging between 80% to 113%. Image Credit: NASA/Danny Nowlin View the full article

5 min read OpenET Moisture Measurement Tool is Proving Highly Accurate This is a false-color image, acquired December 26, 2018, with the OLI (Operational Land Imager) on Landsat 8, and shows flooded rice fields along the Sacramento and Feather Rivers. Inundated fields appear dark blue; vegetation is bright green. NASA Earth Observatory / Lauren Dauphin As the world looks for sustainable solutions, a system tapping into NASA satellite data for water management has passed a critical test. Called OpenET, the system uses an ensemble of six satellite-driven models that harness publicly available data from the Landsat program to calculate evapotranspiration (ET)—the movement of water vapor from soil and plant leaves into the atmosphere. OpenET does this on a field-level scale that is greatly improving the way farmers, ranchers, and water resource managers steward one of Earth’s most precious resources. Researchers have now conducted a large-scale analysis of how well OpenET is tracking evapotranspiration over crops and natural landscapes. The team compared OpenET data with measurements from 152 sites with ground-based instruments across the United States. In agricultural areas, OpenET calculated evapotranspiration with high accuracy, especially for annual crops such as wheat, corn, soy, and rice. The researchers reported their findings on January 15 in Nature Water. “I was pleasantly surprised by the results,” said John Volk, lead author of the study and assistant research scientist and software engineer at Desert Research Institute in Reno, Nev. “The accuracy in croplands was quite strong, particularly in western arid regions, which are important areas for agriculture and have water sustainability challenges.” That’s welcome news for regions where OpenET data is already being put to work. In Northern California’s Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, water resource managers are using OpenET to help farmers comply with state rules requiring them to report aspects of their water use. The new study “gives us more confidence that these numbers are accurate, and that OpenET is continually improving over time,” said Lindsay Kammeier, a senior engineer with the California State Water Board in Sacramento, who was not involved in the new research. “ET is notoriously difficult to calculate,” she added. “Having a really accurate number helps us to make decisions to manage the environment, manage for agricultural uses, and manage for urban uses better and from a common understanding.” Tracking the Invisible Movement of Water While many people are familiar with what one inch of rainfall means, few stop to think about one inch of evapotranspiration returning to the atmosphere, said Forrest Melton, the OpenET project scientist at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley. “OpenET is working to make the unseen process of evapotranspiration as easy to track as checking the amount of rainfall in the daily weather forecast.” Evapotranspiration is the natural process in which water moves to the atmosphere from the surface. The term combines evaporation—water changing from liquid to gas (vapor) and rising from soil, lakes, and oceans—and transpiration, the “exhaling” by plants as they release moisture back into the air. After precipitation, evapotranspiration is one of the most important factors for estimating how much water is available for crops or other plants. In California, state officials and farmers are using satellite data through OpenET to track evapotranspiration to better manage water resources. The process is a window into the water consumed by plants and crops, such as those grown in the Central Valley. NASA Earth Observatory using openetdata.org For farmers and water managers, accurate data provides a measure of the amount of water required through irrigation to replace the water that has been consumed by evapotranspiration. Knowing precisely how much water is available helps people give plants the moisture they need to flourish, without needing to apply too much. And that, in turn, can help save money for water and for the electricity used to pump water for irrigation. But all that rising water vapor is invisible, making it difficult and expensive to track on the ground. Farmers, scientists, and others previously relied on estimates of “potential evaporation” based on temperature, humidity, and other weather data. Or they turned to ground-based stations such as flux towers, equipped with sensors that monitor carbon dioxide, water vapor, and the exchange of heat between Earth’s surface and the atmosphere—a process crucial to calculating evapotranspiration. But while they tend to be highly accurate, flux towers are expensive to set up and maintain, so there are a limited number, and their data is local and cannot represent wider regions. That’s where calculating evapotranspiration from space comes in. Satellites pass over the same areas regularly, offering consistent monitoring. OpenET’s primary observations come from the Landsat 8 and 9 satellites, a partnership between NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey. The satellites combine data on land surface temperatures and the greenness of plants, among other things. Cooler land surface temperatures over areas with healthier, denser vegetation, for example, usually indicate higher levels of transpiration. That data is then fed into models to calculate evapotranspiration at high resolution—about a quarter of an acre for each image pixel. The new results show that for agricultural lands, OpenET data for monthly, growing season, and annual timescales had an average error rate of about 10-20%. The OpenET consortium includes NASA, USGS, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture working with Desert Research Institute and nearly a dozen other universities, Environmental Defense Fund, and Google Earth Engine. For more information, go to: https://openetdata.org/ By: Emily DeMarco, NASA Earth Science Division About the Author Emily DeMarco Share Details Last Updated Feb 01, 2024 Related Terms Earth Earth Science Water & Energy Cycle Explore More 5 min read 2023 NASA International Space Apps Challenge Announces 10 Global Winners Ten teams from around the world have been named the Global Winners of the 2023… Article 6 days ago 6 min read NASA’s PACE To Investigate Oceans, Atmosphere in Changing Climate Article 3 weeks ago 2 min read Going the Extra 500 miles for Alaskan River Ice Article 1 month ago Keep Exploring Discover More Topics From NASA Missions Humans in Space Climate Change Solar System View the full article

4 min read Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) Alabama A&M University Agribition Center will host the final Break the Ice Lunar Challenge featuring a large dirt-based indoor arena on 40 acres of land, offering plenty of green space to build Break the Ice’s complex testing infrastructure.Photo Courtesy: Alabama A&M University Extension By Savannah Bullard NASA has selected Alabama A&M University’s Agribition Center in Huntsville, Alabama, to host the final level of the agency’s Break the Ice Lunar Challenge, using indoor and outdoor space to ground test the finalists’ solutions. The challenge opened in 2020 to find novel solutions for excavating icy lunar regolith and delivering acquired resources in extreme environmental conditions. In alignment with NASA’s Moon to Mars objectives, the challenge aims to develop technologies that could support a sustained human presence on the Moon. Throughout the challenge, competitors have designed, built, and independently tested robots that could theoretically withstand the harsh environments inside permanently shadowed regions of the lunar South Pole. The six finalists who succeeded in Phase 2: Level 2 of the challenge were announced in December 2023. “We were looking for a unique set of criteria to house the Break the Ice Lunar competition, so we partnered with Jacobs Space Exploration Group in finding a facility,” said Denise Morris, NASA Centennial Challenges program manager at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. “Alabama A&M is a good fit for this challenge because of the on-site capabilities they have and being close to NASA facilities makes logistics much easier.” Located a few miles east of the Alabama A&M University (AAMU) campus, the Agribition (agriculture + exhibition) Center is managed by the Alabama Cooperative Extension System with support from AAMU and its College of Agricultural, Life, and Natural Sciences. Its indoor arena features a large dirt space, typically equipped to support rodeos and other agricultural expos. Outside, the center sits on roughly 40 acres of land, offering plenty of green space to build the competition’s complex infrastructure. The final Phase 2: Level 3 testing will occur June 10-12, 2024. There are two components that each team will focus on mastering: excavation and transportation. Six identically sized concrete slabs will be set up inside the arena for the finalists’ robots to dig. The slabs, measuring 300 cubic feet, will have qualities similar to a permanently shadowed crater located at the Moon’s South Pole. A gravity-offloading crane and pulley system will lift the excavators while working, simulating the one-sixth gravity experienced on the Moon. Each team will have one hour to dig as much material as possible or until they reach the payload capacity of their excavation robot. Up to three top-performing teams will earn an opportunity to test their solution inside one of the thermal vacuum chambers located at Marshall, which can simulate the temperature and vacuum conditions at the lunar South Pole. Outside the Agribition Center, challenge teams will take turns on a custom-built track outfitted with slopes, boulders, pebbles, rocks, and gravel to simulate the lunar surface. This volatile surface will stretch approximately 300 meters and include several twists and turns for more intermediate handling. Each team will get one hour on the track to deliver a payload and return to the starting point. Times, distances, and pitfalls will be recorded independently. “These two testing methods address the excavation and transportation of large quantities of icy regolith, which are some of NASA’s current top technology gaps,” said Naveen Vetcha, NASA challenge manager at Jacobs Space Exploration Group. “This competition has enabled teams to develop lightweight, energy efficient, reliable and durable hardware, all while performing well in Moon-like conditions like reduced gravity and complex terrain.” The total prize purse is $1.5 million, with the first-place winner taking home $1 million and the second-place winner receiving $500,000. The Break the Ice Lunar Challenge is a NASA Centennial Challenge led by the agency’s Marshall Space Flight Center, with support from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Centennial Challenges are part of the Prizes, Challenges, and Crowdsourcing program under NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate. Ensemble Consultancy supports challenge competitors. Learn more about Break the Ice Jonathan Deal NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center 256-544-0034 jonathan.e.deal@nasa.gov Facebook logo @NASAPrize @NASAPrize Instagram logo @NASAPrize Share Details Last Updated Feb 01, 2024 LocationMarshall Space Flight Center Related TermsCentennial ChallengesMarshall Space Flight Center Explore More 3 min read Break the Ice Lunar Challenge Phase 2 Article 2 years ago 4 min read NASA Awards $500,000 in Break the Ice Lunar Challenge Article 2 years ago 3 min read Top Teams Advance in NASA’s Break the Ice Lunar Challenge NASA has named 15 teams moving on to compete in the semifinal level of its… Article 1 year ago 4 min read Six Finalists Named in NASA’s $3.5 Million Break the Ice Challenge Article 2 months ago Keep Exploring Discover Related Topics Missions Humans in Space Climate Change Solar System View the full article

Jennifer Kunz, associate director, technical, at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, participates in a virtual Town Hall meeting on Jan. 13, 2022, for Kennedy employees. NASA/Kim Shiflett Jennifer Kunz, associate director technical of NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, released the following statement after speaking Thursday at the SpaceCom / 50th Space Congress in Orlando, Florida. “NASA’s Moon to Mars strategy rests on three pillars: pursuing science to better understand the universe and our origins; inspiring the next generation to achieve the seemingly impossible; and building on American preeminence in science, technology and exploration while strengthening economic and diplomatic ties with other nations. Kennedy is proud to be at the forefront of helping achieve the agency’s ambitious Moon to Mars Objectives for the benefit of all. “Most people know Kennedy for launching rockets, but our spaceport also is home to new technologies needed to establish a sustained human presence on the Moon and exploration throughout the solar system. Today, Kennedy teams are working on the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion spacecraft for the Artemis campaign, which will return humans to the lunar surface after more than 50 years. Kennedy is the only place on Earth where the SLS rocket is fully assembled prior to launch. Once built, the rocket, spacecraft, and ground systems will undergo rigorous testing and validation in preparation for launching astronauts further and deeper in space than ever before. “Engineers also are developing technologies that our astronauts will need on the lunar surface. These include 3D printing capability to build structures on the Moon; rovers, and instruments to find water, minerals, and other resources to help sustain a long-term presence; and electrodynamic dust shield technologies that repel the abrasive Moon dust and protect vehicles and sensitive equipment. “Kennedy’s plant researchers continue working hard to find new ways to grow food in space to supplement the diets of astronauts with key nutrients. And as we advance these technologies, we also administer a number of programs that enable university researchers to help solve other key Moon to Mars challenges. “While we focus on Moon and Mars, NASA continues to enable the growth of the commercial space sector. Beyond supporting Artemis, our industry and international partners make it possible to launch crews and conduct critical research on the International Space Station. We also rely on commercial expertise to launch many of our robotic science missions that study the Earth, the solar system, and beyond. “As we stand at the dawn of a new age of space exploration, I can’t wait to see the innovations and advancements to come. We often hear that “space is hard,” and we at Kennedy take great inspiration from our history, which is full of stories of NASA engineers solving seemingly impossible problems. As we make the next giant leap to the Moon and Mars, Kennedy Space Center is proud to do our part to advance science, inspire the Artemis Generation, and strengthen America’s standing in the world.” Kunz’s biography is available online, and file images are available from NASA’s image library in vertical and horizontal formats. For more information about Kennedy Space Center, visit: www.nasa.gov/kennedy -end- Patti Bielling Kennedy Space Center, Florida 321-501-7575 patricia.a.bielling@nasa.gov View the full article

5 Min Read Lagniappe for February 2024 Explore the February 2024 issue, highlighted by NASA reaching the halfway point for the Artemis Moon Rocket Engine Certification Series, NASA’s Day of Remembrance, and what fuels a NASA Stennis Test Operations Leader. Explore the February 2024 edition featuring: RS-25 Test on Jan. 27 Day of Remembrance NASA Spinoff Gator Speaks Gator SpeaksNASA Stennis There are two reasons why the last Thursday in January and the month of February are important at NASA moving ahead as the Artemis Generation. Having been around for decades as the NASA Stennis mascot, it is easy to forget important things if you are not intentional about remembering. For newer folks, whether new employees at NASA Stennis or new fans of NASA in general, it is easy not to know something if you are never told about it. NASA intentionally carves out time each January for a Day of Remembrance to honor members of the NASA family who lost their lives while furthering the cause of exploration and discovery, including the crews of Apollo 1 and space shuttles Challenger and Columbia. This current moment in space history is a tribute to the men and women who made the ultimate sacrifice. One of the best ways NASA honors the sacrifice made by the previous crew members is by embracing safety as one of the core values at NASA. This is the cornerstone for mission success as NASA prepares to send the first Artemis astronauts to the Moon. The four astronauts will venture around the Moon on Artemis II as part of NASA’s path to creating a long-term presence on the lunar surface for science and exploration. The NASA safety culture benefits astronauts, employees, and even surrounding communities where employees participate in daily life. This is a reminder every day at NASA, and especially on the final Thursday in January. Going forward, the annual Day of Remembrance leads into Black History Month (observed each February), which brings the opportunity to recognize Black Americans who have made contributions to America and NASA’s space program. One such person is the late NASA astronaut Ronald McNair, who was honored during the Day of Remembrance. McNair, the second Black astronaut to fly to space, was a member of the Challenger crew. He is one of many African Americans whose contributions helped pave the way for NASA to take giant leaps in space exploration for the Artemis Generation. May we never forget that it is through the sacrifice and contributions of all that NASA explores for the benefit of all. May we never fail to honor those who have come before us, and may we always remember there is space for everybody – in NASA and all of life. NASA Stennis Top News NASA Day of Remembrance Honors Fallen Heroes NASA’s Stennis Space Center and NASA Shared Services Center leaders commemorate NASA Day of Remembrance on Jan. 25 with a ceremony at the south Mississippi site. Rodney McKellip, NASA Stennis associate director (right), and Ken Newton, NASA Shared Services Center acting executive director, observe a moment of silence as employees honor members of the NASA family who lost their lives while furthering the cause of exploration and discovery, including the crews of Apollo 1, and space shuttles Challenger and Columbia.NASA/Danny Nowlin View the NASA Day of Remembrance 2024 video NASA Marks Halfway Point for Artemis Moon Rocket Engine Certification Series NASA completed the sixth of 12 scheduled RS-25 engine certification tests in a critical series for future flights of the agency’s SLS (Space Launch System) rocket as engineers conducted a full-duration hot fire Jan. 27 at NASA’s Stennis Space Center near Bay St. Louis, Mississippi. Read More About the Latest Certification Test NASA Continues Artemis Moon Rocket Engine Tests with 1st Hot Fire of 2024 NASA continued a critical test series for future flights of NASA’s SLS (Space Launch System) rocket in support of the Artemis campaign on Jan. 17 with a full-duration hot fire of the RS-25 engine on the Fred Haise Test Stand at NASA’s Stennis Space Center near Bay St. Louis, Mississippi. Read More About the 1st Hot Fire of 2024 NASA Spinoffs Feature NASA Stennis Developed Technologies As NASA innovates for the benefit of all, what the agency develops for exploration has the potential to evolve into other technologies with broader use here on Earth. Many of those examples are highlighted in NASA’s annual Spinoff book including dozens of NASA-enabled medical innovations, as well other advancements in 3D printing, robots, and brake designs. Read More About NASA Stennis Contributions Center Activities Leadership Class Visits NASA Stennis The Pearl River County Leadership Class stands in front of the Thad Cochran Test Stand during a NASA Stennis site tour on Jan. 18. The group learned about the RS-25 engine certification test series underway for future flights of NASA’s SLS (Space Launch System) rocket and preparations for Green Run testing at the Thad Cochran Test Stand (B-2) for NASA’s Exploration Upper Stage (EUS) in support of the Artemis program. EUS is expected to fly on the Artemis IV mission. Prior to that time, it will undergo a series of integrated systems tests to demonstrate it is ready to fly. Through Artemis, NASA will send the first woman and first person of color to the Moon. The agency will use what is learned on and around the Moon to take the next giant leap – sending astronauts to Mars.NASA Stennis Employees View RS-25 Engine Test Sitewide employees at NASA’s Stennis Space Center watch the RS-25 test conducted on Jan. 23 as NASA continued a critical test series for future Artemis flights of NASA’s SLS (Space Launch System) rocket. The full-duration hot fire on the Fred Haise Test Stand is part of a 12-test series to certify production of new RS-25 engines by lead contractor Aerojet Rocketdyne, an L3Harris Technologies company. The new engines will help power SLS rocket on Artemis missions to the Moon and beyond, beginning with Artemis V. NASA/Danny Nowlin NASA Joins Students for Space Day Event NASA Visitor Relations Specialist Nick Middleton shares a presentation with Woodley Elementary students on Jan. 26 in Hattiesburg. As part of the Artemis Generation, the more than 100 students from five pre-K and kindergarten classes learned about the Moon and space exploration. Through Artemis, NASA will send the first woman and first person of color to the Moon. As NASA explores the secrets of the universe for the benefit of all, the agency will use what is learned on and around the Moon to take the next giant leap of sending astronauts to Mars.NASA/Samone Wilson NASA in the News After Three Years on Mars, NASA’s Ingenuity Helicopter Mission Ends – NASA NASA Shares Progress Toward Early Artemis Moon Missions with Crew – NASA NASA, Lockheed Martin Reveal X-59 Quiet Supersonic Aircraft – NASA Employee Profile Maury Vander stands at NASA’s Stennis Space Center, where he has worked more than 30 years supporting NASA’s mission of space exploration. NASA/Danny Nowlin One thing has remained constant throughout Maury Vander’s career with NASA – the satisfaction of being part of a team working to innovate and benefit the agency and the aerospace industry at large. Read More About Maury Vander Looking Back: NASA Stennis Meets Testing Needs In the 1980s, President Ronald Reagan unveiled plans for a National Aerospace Plane (NASP). In May 1992, NASA’s Stennis Space Center was selected to initially test new materials for the NASP that would be able to withstand the extreme change in temperature the plane would endure when it flew into Earth’s orbit and then landed in destinations across the globe. In January 1993, foundations for the various tanks needed for the new High Heat Flux Facility at NASA Stennis were poured. Even though the facility was designed to support the NASP project, NASA Stennis leaders and engineers are always thinking towards the future. To that end, they not only equipped the facility to handle testing of NASP components but designed it with the ability to evolve into a versatile test complex able to handle a range of test projects. Thus, even after the NASP program was cancelled, the leadership at NASA Stennis continued to evolve the test facility to meet the needs of the future. What began as the High Heat Flux Facility is now cell 1 on the E-2 Test Stand at the south Mississippi site.NASA Stennis Additional Resources NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter NASA+ Small Steps, Giant Leaps Podcast with Christine Powell Earth Now Calliefirst – NASA Subscription Info Lagniappe is published monthly by the Office of Communications at NASA’s Stennis Space Center. The NASA Stennis office may be contacted by at 228-688-3333 (phone); ssc-office-of-communications@mail.nasa.gov (email); or NASA OFFICE OF COMMUNICATIONS, Attn: LAGNIAPPE, Mail code IA00, Building 1111 Room 173, Stennis Space Center, MS 39529 (mail). The Lagniappe staff includes: Managing Editor Lacy Thompson, Editor Bo Black, and photographer Danny Nowlin. To subscribe to the monthly publication, please email the following to ssc-office-of-communications@mail.nasa.gov – name, location (city/state), email address. View the full article

5 min read Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) In February 2024, Intuitive Machines’ IM-1 mission will launch to the Moon’s South Polar region, as part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services, or CLPS, initiative. This mission is part of CLPS’ ongoing effort to bring down the cost for science investigations and technology demonstrations going to the Moon and to make them more routine in the lead-up to the Artemis landings later this decade. Among the NASA-provided research flying aboard IM-1 will be an instrument designed to observe the Moon’s surface environment in radio frequencies, to determine how natural and human-generated activity near the surface interacts with and could interfere with science conducted there. The instrument is called the Radio wave Observation at the Lunar Surface of the photo-Electron Sheath (ROLSES) and is designed to study the dynamic radio energy environment near the lunar surface. It will launch aboard Intuitive Machines’ Nova-C lander. In February 2024, Intuitive Machines’ IM-1 mission will launch to the Moon’s South Pole as part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services initiative. Among the NASA provided payloads will be an instrument called the Radio wave Observation at the Lunar Surface of the photo-Electron Sheath (ROLSES) designed to observe the Moon’s surface environment in radio frequencies, to determine how natural and human-generated activity near the surface interacts with and could interfere with science conducted there. Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/Scientific Visualization Studio James Tralie (ADNET Systems, Inc.). Lead Producer Natchimuthuk Gopalswamy (NASA/GSFC). This video can be freely shared and downloaded at https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/14516 The ROLSES instrument project is headed up by Dr. Natchimuthuk “Nat” Gopalswamy of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Gopalswamy describes the design of ROLSES as being a very simple system. “We have four antennas which observe whatever radio emissions are present on the Moon [radio emissions are a type of light, or electromagnetic radiation, which have the longest wavelength, or distance between peaks in their energy waves],” said Gopalswamy. “These antennas are very long, about 8 feet (2.5 meters). But for launching they are packed into a small canister, about 8 inches (21 centimeters) in size.” The main purpose of ROLSES will be to account for the variety of radiation generated by cosmic phenomena, as well as by human activity on Earth. “There are varying sorts of radio emissions,” said Gopalswamy. “These include activity on Earth that produces radio interference at the lunar surface. And then we have natural radio emissions, coming from Jupiter, coming from the Sun, even coming from our Milky Way galaxy. There is even an emission from Earth that is associated with the Aurora.” The trick, as Gopalswamy points out, is that each of these types of radio noise produces its own dynamic spectral pattern, somewhat similar to the way in which fingerprints are unique for each person. “The spectrum of each event looks different from the others,” he said. “Therefore, it’s easy for us to identify which is coming from Jupiter, or from the Sun, or from the galaxy, which is very low-frequency background radiation.” Another source of radio interference will be the lunar lander itself. “Landers obviously have mechanisms, motors and things; they all will produce some kind of radio emission, and that will also be recorded in the spectrum,” said Gopalswamy. “And those will produce distinct features which show that there is interference going on at this particular location.” By identifying this type of interference, scientists can work to sift through the noise it creates when analyzing data returned by instruments like ROLSES. That way, they can hone in on real data, and not “noise” created by non-natural processes. The four ROLSES antennas are also mounted at two different heights, meaning that once they begin taking measurements, they can provide information on variations in the cloud of negatively charged electrons blasted from the lunar surface by sunlight, and how it changes between different heights. “This way, we can measure the electrons’ density based upon distance from the surface,” said Gopalswamy. “Then we can see how the number of electrons decreases as you go farther from the surface.” This information, he points out, will be essential when it comes time to design and build future lunar observatories, since the radio frequency interference from the electron cloud and from Earth-based radio transmitters will need to be accounted for. These radio observations will help build what Gopalswamy calls a library of knowledge on the lunar environment. “That way we will know if we’re at this latitude, at this height, we’re going to have this type of radiation and emission background, and we’ll be able to design our hardware accordingly.” This will aid NASA in its mission to return humans to the Moon over the next decade and beyond, and to establish a sustainable, long-term presence. ROLSES and IM-1 are part of the agency’s CLPS initiative, which was developed with the goal of creating a lunar economy through commercial deliveries of NASA-provided payloads. With CLPS, private companies of varying sizes and backgrounds are responsible for designing the landers and procuring the launch vehicles, allowing NASA to focus its efforts on designing the instrument payloads. When the agency’s Artemis program establishes a human presence on the Moon, the data gathered by instruments onboard CLPS flights will help astronauts conduct more lunar science. By Nick Oakes NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Share Details Last Updated Feb 01, 2024 EditorWilliam SteigerwaldContactNancy N. Jonesnancy.n.jones@nasa.govLocationGoddard Space Flight Center Related TermsCommercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS)Artemis Explore More 4 min read What is Artemis? Article 5 years ago 1 min read Artemis Media Resources Article 3 weeks ago 2 min read Intuitive Machines Article 5 years ago View the full article

Long-term space exploration exposes humans to radiation that can damage deoxyribonucleic acid or DNA, which carries the genetic information for our development and functioning. Conditions in space also affect the way the body repairs such damage, potentially compounding the risk. Research on the International Space Station studies DNA damage and repair using tools and techniques to sequence, analyze, and even edit DNA. Those tools and techniques have been developed especially for use in space, which has unique safety considerations and where there are limits on the size and weight of equipment. This specialization has made this type of research possible and resulted in significant milestones in DNA research. NASA astronaut Kate Rubins prepares a run of Biomolecule Sequencer experiment, which sequenced DNA in space for the first time.NASA In April 2016, ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Tim Peake first amplified DNA using the first polymerase chain reaction (PCR) device sent to station, called miniPCR.1 An important step in the process of analyzing genetic material, amplification involves making multiple copies of a segment of DNA. NASA astronaut Kate Rubin sequenced DNA in space for the first time in August 2016 using a commercial off-the-shelf device called MinION.2 In August 2017, NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson combined the miniPCR and MinION to identify the first unknown microbe from the station, validating a process that could make possible in-flight identification of microbes and diagnosis of infectious diseases on future missions.3 In August 2018, NASA astronaut Ricky Arnold first used a “swab to sequencer” DNA sequencing method that eliminates the need to culture bacteria before analysis.4 NASA astronaut Ricky Arnold processes DNA from swabs of space station surfaces to identify microbes.NASA Another milestone, reached in May 2019, was the first CRISPR gene editing on station, performed by NASA astronaut Christina Koch.5 CRISPR stands for Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats. These are short, repeated sequences of DNA noted in bacteria with viral DNA sequences in between them. Bacteria transcribe the viral DNA sequences to RNA, which then guides a specific protein to the viral DNA and cuts it – creating a line of defense against invading viruses. Researchers can create a guide RNA to be specific to any part of a genome. This means CRISPR can be used to create precise breaks in a known location of a gene, resulting in simplified gene editing. A program called Genes in Space has employed these advances for multiple investigations. A collaboration between Boeing and miniPCR bio sponsored by the ISS National Lab and New England Biolabs, this program is a national contest where students in grades 7 through 12 design DNA analysis experiments for the space station. Genes in Space-6 used CRISPR to successfully generate breaks in the DNA of a common yeast, allow for repair of the breaks, and sequence the patched-up DNA to determine whether its original order was restored, all during spaceflight.5 Performing the entire process in space – rather than causing a break, freezing the sample, and sending it into space to repair –provided researchers insight into the type of repair mechanism used. Organisms repair DNA breaks in one of two major ways. One method may add or delete bases while the other rejoins the strands without changing the DNA sequence. Understanding whether one type of repair is less error-prone has important implications for protecting crew members. NASA astronaut Christina Koch works on the Genes in Space-6 experiment.NASA Genes in Space-5 represented an important step toward a rapid, safe, and cost-effective way to examine the immune system during spaceflight. This investigation also provided proof of concept for simultaneously amplifying multiple DNA sequences in space, expanding the possibilities for in-flight research and health monitoring. Genes in Space-10 validated a method for measuring and analyzing the length of DNA fragments known as telomeres using fluorescence. Telomeres, cap-like genetic structures at the end of chromosomes that protect them from damage, shorten with age but have been found to lengthen in space. Analyzing telomere length could help determine the mechanism behind this effect. Results from the investigation also could provide a way to measure DNA and to diagnose genetic-based medical problems during spaceflight. Sending DNA samples back to Earth for analysis can cause the samples to degrade and is not feasible for future long-duration missions. Insight into why telomeres lengthen in space could lead to a better understanding of their role in human aging as well. Having an entire molecular laboratory in space greatly increases what scientists can do. The ability to analyze DNA, study how it is damaged and repaired in space, and make specific changes to it enables more complex research. Identifying unknown organisms and changes in known ones is key to keeping crew members safe on future missions. Melissa Gaskill International Space Station Program Science Office Johnson Space Center Search this database of scientific experiments to learn more about those mentioned above. Citations 1 Boguraev, A. S. et al. Successful amplification of DNA aboard the International Space Station. NPJ Microgravity 3, 26, doi:10.1038/s41526-017-0033-9 (2017). 2 Castro-Wallace, S. L. et al. Nanopore DNA Sequencing and Genome Assembly on the International Space Station. Sci Rep 7, 18022, doi:10.1038/s41598-017-18364-0 (2017). 3 Burton, A. S. et al. Off Earth Identification of Bacterial Populations Using 16S rDNA Nanopore Sequencing. Genes (Basel) 11, doi:10.3390/genes11010076 (2020). 4 Stahl-Rommel, S. et al. Real-Time Culture-Independent Microbial Profiling Onboard the International Space Station Using Nanopore Sequencing. Genes (Basel) 12, doi:10.3390/genes12010106 (2021). 5 Stahl-Rommel, S. et al. A CRISPR-based assay for the study of eukaryotic DNA repair onboard the International Space Station. PloS one 16, e0253403, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0253403 (2021). Keep Exploring Discover More Topics Station Science 101: Biology and Biotechnology Latest News from Space Station Research Space Station Technology Demonstration Space Station Research and Technology View the full article

5 min read Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) NASA’s 2024 Spinoff publication features more than 40 medical and other commercialized technologies using the agency’s research and development expertise. It also features new technology developed at various agency centers, including NASA’s Stennis Space Center.NASA As NASA innovates for the benefit of all, what the agency develops for exploration has the potential to evolve into other technologies with broader use here on Earth. Many of those examples are highlighted in NASA’s annual Spinoff book including dozens of NASA-enabled medical innovations, as well other advancements in 3D printing, robots, and brake designs. This year’s publication also features a section highlighting technologies developed at agency centers such as NASA’s Stennis Space Center near Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, that are available for use by various industries. NASA’s 2024 Spinoff highlights more than 40 medical and other commercialized technologies using the agency’s research and development expertise. “As we continue to push new frontiers and do the unimaginable, NASA’s scientists and engineers are constantly innovating and advancing technologies,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. “A critical part of our mission is to quickly get those advances into the hands of companies and entrepreneurs who can use them to grow their businesses, open new markets, boost the economy, and raise the quality of life for everyone.” One of the featured medical innovations is the first wireless arthroscope – a small tube carrying a camera inserted into the body during surgery – to receive clearance from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which benefited from NASA’s experience with spacesuits and satellite batteries. Commercialized technologies for diagnosing illnesses like the coronavirus, hepatitis, and cancer have also stemmed from NASA’s space exploration and science endeavors. Even certain types of toothpaste originated from the agency’s efforts to grow crystals for electronics. The book also features several technologies NASA has identified as promising future spinoffs and information on how to license agency tech. Since the 1970s, thousands of NASA technologies have found their way into many scientific and technical disciplines, impacting nearly every American industry. Additional 2024 Spinoff highlights include developments under NASA’s Artemis campaign, like a small, rugged video camera used to improve aircraft safety and a new method for detecting defects or damage in composite materials. Meanwhile, another spinoff story details the latest benefits of fuel cell technology created more than 50 years ago for Apollo, which is now poised to support terrestrial power grids based on renewable energy. The book also features other notable spinoffs like: Spherical “squishy” robots capable of dropping into dangerous situations before first responders enter “Digital winglets” aircraft-routing technology that’s enabling increased fuel efficiency and smoother flights Lighter, more durable disc brake designs that produce less dust than traditional disc brakes Computer software to help businesses and communities cope with and recover from natural disasters like wildfires New 3D printing methods to additively manufacture rocket engines and other large aluminum parts NASA Stennis items included in the new publication are: Remote Sensing Toolkit. The NASA Spinoff 2024 publication describes the remote sensing toolkit as an online portal that offers easy access to NASA Earth-observation data. NASA’s Technology Transfer program at NASA Stennis developed the online resource to promote wider use of the agency’s freely available remote sensing data and software to work with it. It helps users find, analyze, and use the most relevant data for projects such as precision agriculture and crop forecasting, conservation and resource management, and natural disaster planning and response. The free and easy-to-use toolkit includes data from more than 20 satellites and missions. Cryogenic Butterfly Cam Valve. According to the NASA Spinoff 2024 book, the unique butterfly valve designed at NASA Stennis provides “no-leak” performance in a broad range of temperatures. The NASA Stennis valve addresses a key disadvantage of current butterfly valves, which require the butterfly disc to establish a tight seal at exactly 90 degrees. Providing additional torque to the valve may cause the disc to rotate beyond 90 degrees, allowing fluid flow. Current butterfly valves also usually fail leakage tests when used with liquid nitrogen, a key cryogenic in propulsion testing. The simple NASA Stennis design remedies these issues by allowing rotation of the valve shaft, enabling the disc to slide until it seals tightly despite temperature changes. The NASA Stennis valve can be used in various aerospace, natural gas, and cryogenic plant systems. “As NASA’s longest continuously running program, we continue to increase the number of technologies we license year-over-year while streamlining the development path from the government to the commercial sector,” said Daniel Lockney, Technology Transfer program executive at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “These commercialization success stories continually prove the benefits of transitioning agency technologies into private hands, where the real impacts are made.” Spinoffs are part of NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate and its Technology Transfer program. Tech Transfer is charged with finding broad, innovative applications for NASA-developed technology through partnerships and licensing agreements, ensuring agency investments benefit the nation and the world. To read or download the digital version of the latest issue of Spinoff, visit: https://spinoff.nasa.gov/ For information about NASA Stennis Space Center, visit: www.nasa.gov/centers/stennis/ Share Details Last Updated Feb 01, 2024 EditorNASA Stennis CommunicationsContactC. Lacy Thompsoncalvin.l.thompson@nasa.gov / (228) 688-3333LocationStennis Space Center Related TermsStennis Space Center Explore More 2 min read NASA Marks Halfway Point for Artemis Moon Rocket Engine Certification Series Article 3 days ago 4 min read NASA Stennis Internship Brings Aerospace Industry to Life Article 1 month ago 7 min read Lagniappe Article 1 month ago Keep Exploring Discover More Topics from NASA Stennis Doing Business with NASA Stennis About NASA Stennis Visit NASA Stennis NASA Stennis Media Resources View the full article