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By NASA
Othmane Benafan is a NASA engineer whose work is literally reshaping how we use aerospace materials — he creates metals that can shape shift. Benafan, a materials research engineer at NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, creates metals called shape memory alloys that are custom-made to solve some of the most pressing challenges of space exploration and aviation.
“A shape memory alloy starts off just like any other metal, except it has this wonderful property: it can remember shapes,” Benafan says. “You can bend it, you can deform it out of shape, and once you heat it, it returns to its shape.”
An alloy is a metal that’s created by combining two or more metallic elements. Shape memory alloys are functional metals. Unlike structural metals, which are fixed metal shapes used for construction or holding heavy objects, functional metals are valued for unique properties that enable them to carry out specific actions.
NASA often needs materials with special capabilities for use in aircraft and spacecraft components, spacesuits, and hardware designed for low-Earth orbit, the Moon, or Mars. But sometimes, the ideal material doesn’t exist. That’s where engineers like Benafan come in.
“We have requirements, and we come up with new materials to fulfill that function,” he said. The whole process begins with pen and paper, theories, and research to determine exactly what properties are needed and how those properties might be created. Then he and his teammates are ready to start making a new metal.
“It’s like a cooking show,” Benafan says. “We collect all the ingredients — in my case, the metals would be elements from the periodic table, like nickel, titanium, gold, copper, etc. — and we mix them together in quantities that satisfy the formula we came up with. And then we cook it.”
Othmane Benafan, a materials research engineer, develops a shape memory alloy in a laboratory at NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland. These elemental ingredients are melted in a container called a crucible, then poured into the required shape, such as a cylinder, plate, or tube. From there, it’s subjected to temperatures and pressures that shape and train the metal to change the way its atoms are arranged every time it’s heated or cooled.
Shape memory alloys created by Benafan and his colleagues have already proven useful in several applications. For example, the Shape Memory Alloy Reconfigurable Technology Vortex Generator (SMART VG) being tested on Boeing aircraft uses the torque generated by a heat-induced twisting motion to raise and lower a small, narrow piece of hardware installed on aircraft wings, resulting in reduced drag during cruise conditions. In space, the 2018 Advanced eLectrical Bus (ALBus) CubeSat technology demonstration mission included the use of a shape memory alloy to deploy the small satellite’s solar arrays and antennas. And Glenn’s Shape Memory Alloy Rock Splitters technology benefits mining and geothermal applications on Earth by breaking apart rocks without harming the surrounding environment. The shape memory alloy device is wrapped in a heater and inserted into a predrilled hole in the rock, and when the heater is activated, the alloy expands, creating intense pressure that drives the rock apart.
Benafan’s fascination with shape memory alloys started after he immigrated to the United States from Morocco at age 19. He began attending night classes at the Valencia Community College (now Valencia College), then went on to graduate from the University of Central Florida in Orlando. A professor did a demonstration on shape memory alloys and that changed Benafan’s life forever. Now, Benafan enjoys helping others understand related topics.
“Outside of work, one of the things I like to do most is make technology approachable to someone who may be interested but may not be experienced with it just yet. I do a lot of community outreach through camps or lectures in schools,” he said.
He believes a mentality of curiosity and a willingness to fail and learn are essential for aspiring engineers and encourages others to pursue their ideas and keep trying.
“You know, we grow up with that mindset of falling and standing up and trying again, and that same thing applies here,” Benafan said. “The idea is to be a problem solver. What are you trying to contribute? What problem do you want to solve to help humanity, to help Earth?”
To learn more about the wide variety of exciting and unexpected jobs at NASA, check out the Surprisingly STEM video series.
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By NASA
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By Beth Ridgeway
NASA’s Student Launch competition celebrated its 25th anniversary on May 4, just north of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, bringing together more than 980 middle school, high school, college, and university students from across the U.S. to showcase and launch their high-powered rocketry designs.
The event marked the conclusion of the nine-month challenge where teams designed, built, and launched more than 50 rockets carrying scientific payloads—trying to achieve altitudes between 4,000 and 6,000 feet before executing a successful landing and payload mission.
“This is really about mirroring the NASA engineering design process,” Kevin McGhaw, director of NASA’s Office of STEM Engagement Southeast Region, said. “It gives students hands-on experience not only in building and designing hardware, but in the review and testing process. We are helping to prepare and inspire students to get out of classroom and into the aerospace industry as a capable and energizing part of our future workforce.”
NASA announced James Madison University as the overall winner of the agency’s 2025 Student Launch challenge, followed by North Carolina State University, and The University of Alabama in Huntsville. A complete list of challenge winners can be found on the agency’s Student Launch webpage.
Participants from James Madison University – the overall winner of the 2025 NASA Student Launch competition – stand around their team’s high-powered rocket as it sits on the pad before launching on May 4 event. NASA/Krisdon Manecke Each year, a payload challenge is issued to the university teams, and this year’s task took inspiration from the agency’s Artemis missions, where NASA will send astronauts to explore the Moon for scientific discovery, economic benefit, and to build the foundation for the first crewed missions to Mars. Teams were challenged to include sensor data from STEMnauts, non-living objects representing astronauts. The STEMnaut “crew” had to relay real-time data to the student team’s mission control, just as the Artemis astronaut crew will do as they explore the lunar surface.
Student Launch is one of NASA’s seven Artemis Student Challenges – activities that connect student ingenuity with NASA’s work returning to the Moon under Artemis in preparation for human exploration of Mars.
The competition is managed by Marshall’s Office of STEM Engagement. Additional funding and support are provided by the Office of STEM Engagement’s Next Generation STEM project, NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, the agency’s Space Operations Mission Directorate, Northrup Grumman, National Space Club Huntsville, American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, National Association of Rocketry, Relativity Space, and Bastion Technologies Inc.
To watch the full virtual awards ceremony, please visit NASA Marshall’s YouTube channel.
For more information about Student Launch, visit:
https://www.nasa.gov/learning-resources/nasa-student-launch/
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Last Updated Jun 16, 2025 EditorBeth RidgewayLocationMarshall Space Flight Center Related Terms
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By USH
The photograph was captured by the Mast Camera (Mastcam) aboard NASA’s Curiosity rover on Sol 3551 (August 2, 2022, at 20:43:28 UTC).
What stands out in the image are two objects, that appear strikingly out of place amid the natural Martian landscape of rocks and boulders. Their sharp edges, right angles, flat surfaces, and geometric symmetry suggest they may have been shaped by advanced cutting tools rather than natural erosion.
Could these ancient remnants be part of a destroyed structure or sculpture? If so, they may serve as yet another piece of evidence pointing to the possibility that Mars was once home to an intelligent civilization, perhaps even the advanced humanoid beings who, according to some theories, fled the catastrophic destruction of planet Maldek and sought refuge on the Red Planet.
Objects discovered by Jean Ward Watch Jean Ward's YouTube video on this topic: HereSee original NASA source: Here
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By USH
Evidence points to the existence of a massive planet once located between Mars and Jupiter, known to some as Maldek. This ancient world is believed to have had a large moon, complete with oceans, an atmosphere, and possibly even life, orbiting it for millions of years.
Maldek is thought to have once been home to a highly advanced humanoid civilization before meeting a cataclysmic end, likely the result of either internal collapse, through nuclear war, technological abuse, or spiritual decline, or an external force, whether natural or engineered. Its destruction scattered debris across the solar system, forming what we now know as the asteroid belt.
As for its large moon, it was cast adrift and eventually settled into a new orbit around the Sun. Today, we know that moon as Mars.
This theory sheds light on several of Mars’ mysteries: the stark contrast between its two hemispheres, the presence of tidal bulges typically seen in moons, and the unusual nuclear isotopes in its soil, matching those produced by atomic explosions.
For decades, government scientists have suppressed this information. But the truth remains, etched into planetary scars, buried beneath ancient monuments, and encoded in the mathematical patterns of our solar system’s violent past.
Additional: According to some alternative theories, a remnant of Maldek’s civilization escaped the planet’s cataclysmic destruction, seeking refuge on Mars, a world that once pulsed with life and bore a striking resemblance to Earth. For a time, they thrived. But Mars, too, would not remain untouched. Whether through the slow unraveling of its atmosphere or the lingering shadows of interplanetary war, Mars fell into decline. And so, the survivors journeyed again, this time to Earth. Shrouded in mystery, their presence may have shaped early human consciousness, remembered through the ages as ancient gods or sky beings.
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By NASA
Arsia Mons, an ancient Martian volcano, was captured before dawn on May 2, 2025, by NASA’s 2001 Mars Odyssey orbiter while the spacecraft was studying the Red Planet’s atmosphere, which appears here as a greenish haze.NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU The 2001 Odyssey spacecraft captured a first-of-its-kind look at Arsia Mons, which dwarfs Earth’s tallest volcanoes.
A new panorama from NASA’s 2001 Mars Odyssey orbiter shows one of the Red Planet’s biggest volcanoes, Arsia Mons, poking through a canopy of clouds just before dawn. Arsia Mons and two other volcanoes form what is known as the Tharsis Montes, or Tharsis Mountains, which are often surrounded by water ice clouds (as opposed to Mars’ equally common carbon dioxide clouds), especially in the early morning. This panorama marks the first time one of the volcanoes has been imaged on the planet’s horizon, offering the same perspective of Mars that astronauts have of the Earth when they peer down from the International Space Station.
Launched in 2001, Odyssey is the longest-running mission orbiting another planet, and this new panorama represents the kind of science the orbiter began pursuing in 2023, when it captured the first of its now four high-altitude images of the Martian horizon. To get them, the spacecraft rotates 90 degrees while in orbit so that its camera, built to study the Martian surface, can snap the image.
Arsia Mons is the southernmost of the three volcanoes that make up Tharsis Montes, shown in the center of this cropped topographic map of Mars. Olympus Mons, the solar system’s largest volcano, is at upper left. The western end of Valles Marineris begins cutting its wide swath across the planet at lower right.NASA/JPL-Caltech The angle allows scientists to see dust and water ice cloud layers, while the series of images enables them to observe changes over the course of seasons.
“We’re seeing some really significant seasonal differences in these horizon images,” said planetary scientist Michael D. Smith of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “It’s giving us new clues to how Mars’ atmosphere evolves over time.”
Understanding Mars’ clouds is particularly important for understanding the planet’s weather and how phenomena like dust storms occur. That information, in turn, can benefit future missions, including entry, descent and landing operations.
Volcanic Giants
While these images focus on the upper atmosphere, the Odyssey team has tried to include interesting surface features in them, as well. In Odyssey’s latest horizon image, captured on May 2, Arsia Mons stands 12 miles (20 kilometers) high, roughly twice as tall as Earth’s largest volcano, Mauna Loa, which rises 6 miles (9 kilometers) above the seafloor.
The southernmost of the Tharsis volcanoes, Arsia Mons is the cloudiest of the three. The clouds form when air expands as it blows up the sides of the mountain and then rapidly cools. They are especially thick when Mars is farthest from the Sun, a period called aphelion. The band of clouds that forms across the planet’s equator at this time of year is called the aphelion cloud belt, and it’s on proud display in Odyssey’s new panorama.
“We picked Arsia Mons hoping we would see the summit poke above the early morning clouds. And it didn’t disappoint,” said Jonathon Hill of Arizona State University in Tempe, operations lead for Odyssey’s camera, called the Thermal Emission Imaging System, or THEMIS.
The THEMIS camera can view Mars in both visible and infrared light. The latter allows scientists to identify areas of the subsurface that contain water ice, which could be used by the first astronauts to land on Mars. The camera can also image Mars’ tiny moons, Phobos and Deimos, allowing scientists to analyze their surface composition.
More About Odyssey
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, California, manages the Mars Odyssey Project for the agency’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington as part of NASA’s Mars Exploration Program portfolio. Lockheed Martin Space in Denver built the spacecraft and collaborates with JPL on mission operations. THEMIS was built and is operated by Arizona State University in Tempe.
For more about Odyssey:
https://science.nasa.gov/mission/odyssey/
News Media Contacts
Andrew Good
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-393-2433
andrew.c.good@jpl.nasa.gov
Karen Fox / Molly Wasser
NASA Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
karen.c.fox@nasa.gov / molly.l.wasser@nasa.gov
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Last Updated Jun 06, 2025 Related Terms
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