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By NASA
2 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
NASA NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center will host astronauts for a media opportunity as the center celebrates its 65th anniversary during a free, community event on Saturday, July 19, from noon to 5 p.m. CDT at The Orion Amphitheater in Huntsville, Alabama.
Marshall, along with its partners and collaborators, will fill the amphitheater with space exhibits, music, food vendors, and hands-on activities for all ages. The summer celebration will mark 65 years of innovation and exploration, not only for Marshall, but for Huntsville and other North Alabama communities.
The event will kick off with a program at 12:30 p.m. led by Joseph Pelfrey, director of NASA Marshall, and will include a presentation from some of the Expedition 72 crew members who recently returned from their mission after dedicating more than 1,000 combined hours to scientific research and technology demonstrations aboard the International Space Station. The crew will share their experiences in space with the community.
The official portrait of the International Space Station’s Expedition 72 crew. At the top (from left) are Roscosmos cosmonaut and Flight Engineer Alexey Ovchinin, NASA astronaut and space station Commander Suni Williams, and NASA astronaut and Flight Engineer Butch Wilmore. In the middle row are Roscosmos cosmonaut and Flight Engineer Ivan Vagner and NASA astronaut and Flight Engineer Don Pettit. In the bottom row are Roscosmos cosmonaut and Flight Engineer Aleksandr Gorbunov and NASA astronaut and Flight Engineer Nick Hague. NASA/Bill Stafford and Robert Markowitz Media are invited to attend the event and participate in a news conference with the astronauts after the presentation but must confirm their attendance by 4:30 p.m., Thursday, July 17, to Lance D. Davis – lance.d.davis@nasa.gov – in Marshall’s Office of Communications.
Media should arrive at the front entrance of The Orion Amphitheater by 11:45 a.m., Saturday, July 19, to be escorted by the Office of Communications.
Founded July 1, 1960, in Huntsville, Marshall has shaped or supported nearly every facet of the nation’s ongoing mission of space exploration and discovery, solving the most complex, technical flight challenges, and contributing to science to improve life and protect resources around the world.
Learn more about Marshall’s 65th anniversary celebration at:
https://www.nasa.gov/marshall65/
Lance D. Davis
Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala.
256-640-9065
lance.d.davis@nasa.gov
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Last Updated Jul 16, 2025 EditorBeth RidgewayLocationMarshall Space Flight Center Related Terms
Marshall Space Flight Center View the full article
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By NASA
A collaboration between NASA and the Indian Space Research Organisation, NISAR will use synthetic aperture radar to monitor nearly all the planet’s land- and ice-covered surfaces twice every 12 days.Credit: NASA NASA will host a news conference at 12 p.m. EDT Monday, July 21, to discuss the upcoming NISAR (NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar) mission.
The Earth-observing satellite, a first-of-its-kind collaboration between NASA and ISRO (Indian Space Research Organisation), carries an advanced radar system that will help protect communities by providing a dynamic, three-dimensional view of Earth in unprecedented detail and detecting the movement of land and ice surfaces down to the centimeter.
The NISAR mission will lift off from ISRO’s Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, on India’s southeastern coast. Launch is targeted for no earlier than late July.
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California will stream the briefing live on its X, Facebook, and YouTube channels. Learn how to watch NASA content through a variety of platforms, including social media.
Participants in the news conference include:
Nicky Fox, associate administrator, Science Mission Directorate, NASA Headquarters Karen St. Germain, director, Earth Science Division, NASA Headquarters Wendy Edelstein, deputy project manager, NISAR, NASA JPL Paul Rosen, project scientist, NISAR, NASA JPL To ask questions by phone, members of the media must RSVP no later than two hours before the start of the event to: rexana.v.vizza@jpl.nasa.gov. NASA’s media accreditation policy is available online. Questions can be asked on social media during the briefing using #AskNISAR.
With its two radar instruments — an S-band system provided by ISRO and an L-band system provided by NASA — NISAR will use a technique known as synthetic aperture radar (SAR) to scan nearly all the planet’s land and ice surfaces twice every 12 days. Each system’s signal is sensitive to different sizes of features on Earth’s surface, and each specializes in measuring different attributes, such as moisture content, surface roughness, and motion.
These capabilities will help scientists better understand processes involved in natural hazards and catastrophic events, such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, land subsidence, and landslides.
Additionally, NISAR’s cloud penetrating ability will aid urgent responses to communities during weather disasters such as hurricanes, storm surge, and flooding. The detailed maps the mission creates also will provide information on both gradual and sudden changes occurring on Earth’s land and ice surfaces.
Managed by Caltech for NASA, JPL leads the U.S. component of the NISAR project and provided the L-band SAR. NASA JPL also provided the radar reflector antenna, the deployable boom, a high-rate communication subsystem for science data, GPS receivers, a solid-state recorder, and payload data subsystem. NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the Near Space Network, which will receive NISAR’s L-band data.
Multiple ISRO centers have contributed to NISAR. The Space Applications Centre is providing the mission’s S-band SAR. The U R Rao Satellite Centre provided the spacecraft bus. The rocket is from Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, launch services are through Satish Dhawan Space Centre, and satellite mission operations are by the ISRO Telemetry Tracking and Command Network. The National Remote Sensing Centre is responsible for S-band data reception, operational products generation, and dissemination.
To learn more about NISAR, visit:
https://nisar.jpl.nasa.gov
-end-
Karen Fox / Elizabeth Vlock
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
karen.c.fox@nasa.gov / elizabeth.a.vlock@nasa.gov
Andrew Wang / Scott Hulme
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
626-379-6874 / 818-653-9131
andrew.wang@jpl.nasa.gov / scott.d.hulme@jpl.nasa.gov
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Last Updated Jul 16, 2025 EditorJessica TaveauLocationNASA Headquarters Related Terms
NISAR (NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar) Earth Science Division Goddard Space Flight Center Jet Propulsion Laboratory Near Space Network Science Mission Directorate View the full article
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By NASA
X-ray: NASA/CXC/RIT/A. Varga et al.; Illustration: NASA/CXC/SAO/M. Weiss; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/N. Wolk A star is unleashing a barrage of X-rays that is causing a closely-orbiting, young planet to wither away an astonishing rate, according to a new study using data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and described in our latest press release. A team of researchers has determined that this planet will go from the size of Jupiter down to a small, barren world.
This graphic provides a visual representation of what astronomers think is happening around the star (known as TOI 1227) and a planet that is orbiting it at a fraction the distance between Mercury and the Sun. This “baby” planet, called TOI 1227 b, is just about 8 million years old, about a thousand times younger than our Sun. The main panel is an artist’s concept that shows the Jupiter-sized planet (lower left) around TOI 1227, which is a faint red star. Powerful X-rays from the star’s surface are tearing away the atmosphere of the planet, represented by the blue tail. The star’s X-rays may eventually completely remove the atmosphere.
The team used new Chandra data — seen in the inset — to measure the amounts of X-rays from TOI 1227 that are striking the planet. Using computer models of the effects of these X-rays, they concluded they will have a transformative effect, rapidly stripping away the planet’s atmosphere. They estimate that the planet is losing a mass equivalent to a full Earth’s atmosphere about every 200 years.
The researchers used different sets of data to estimate the age of TOI 1227 b. One method exploits measurements of how TOI 1227 b’s host star moves through space in comparison to nearby populations of stars with known ages. A second method compared the brightness and surface temperature of the star with theoretical models of evolving stars. The very young age of TOI 1227 b makes it the second youngest planet ever to be observed passing in front of its host star (a so-called transit). Previously the planet had been estimated by others to be about 11 million years old.
Of all the exoplanets astronomers have found with ages less than 50 million years, TOI 1227 b stands out for having the longest year and the host planet with the lowest mass. These properties, and the high dose of X-rays it is receiving, make it an outstanding target for future observations.
A paper describing these results has been accepted publication in The Astrophysical Journal and a preprint is available here. The authors of the paper are Attila Varga (Rochester Institute of Technology), Joel Kastner (Rochester Institute of Technology), Alexander Binks (University of Tubingen, Germany), Hans Moritz Guenther (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), and Simon J. Murphy (University of New South Wales Canberra in Australia).
NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, manages the Chandra program. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory’s Chandra X-ray Center controls science operations from Cambridge, Massachusetts, and flight operations from Burlington, Massachusetts.
Read more from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory Learn more about the Chandra X-ray Observatory and its mission here:
https://www.nasa.gov/chandra
https://chandra.si.edu
Visual Description
This release features an artist’s illustration of a Jupiter-sized planet closely orbiting a faint red star. An inset image, showing the star in X-ray light from Chandra, is superimposed on top of the illustration at our upper left corner.
At our upper right, the red star is illustrated as a ball made of intense fire. The planet, slightly smaller than the star, is shown at our lower left. Powerful X-rays from the star are tearing away the atmosphere of the planet, causing wisps of material to flow away from the planet’s surface in the opposite direction from the star. This gives the planet a slight resemblance to a comet, complete with a tail.
X-ray data from Chandra, presented in the inset image, shows the star as a small purple orb on a black background. Astronomers used the Chandra data to measure the amount of X-rays striking the planet from the star. They estimate that the planet is losing a mass equivalent to a full Earth’s atmosphere about every 200 years, causing it to ultimately shrink from the size of Jupiter down to a small, barren world.
News Media Contact
Megan Watzke
Chandra X-ray Center
Cambridge, Mass.
617-496-7998
mwatzke@cfa.harvard.edu
Corinne Beckinger
Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Alabama
256-544-0034
corinne.m.beckinger@nasa.gov
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Last Updated Jul 16, 2025 EditorLee MohonContactCorinne M. Beckingercorinne.m.beckinger@nasa.gov Related Terms
Astrophysics Chandra X-Ray Observatory Exoplanet Science Exoplanets Marshall Astrophysics Marshall Space Flight Center Science & Research Studying Exoplanets The Universe Explore More
6 min read NASA’s TRACERS Studies Explosive Process in Earth’s Magnetic Shield
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By NASA
6 Min Read NASA’s TRACERS Studies Explosive Process in Earth’s Magnetic Shield
High above us, particles from the Sun hurtle toward Earth, colliding with the upper atmosphere and creating powerful explosions in a murky process called magnetic reconnection. A single magnetic reconnection event can release as much energy as the entire United States uses in a day.
NASA’s new TRACERS (Tandem Reconnection and Cusp Electrodynamics Reconnaissance Satellites) mission will study magnetic reconnection, answering key questions about how it shapes the impacts of the Sun and space weather on our daily lives.
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NASA’s TRACERS mission, or the Tandem Reconnection and Cusp Electrodynamics Reconnaissance Satellites, will fly in low Earth orbit through the polar cusps, funnel-shaped holes in the magnetic field, to study magnetic reconnection and its effects in Earth’s atmosphere. NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center The TRACERS spacecraft are slated to launch no earlier than late July 2025 aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 4 East at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. The two TRACERS spacecraft will orbit Earth to study how the solar wind — a continuous outpouring of electrically charged particles from the Sun — interacts with Earth’s magnetic shield, the magnetosphere.
What Is Magnetic Reconnection?
As solar wind flows out from the Sun, it carries the Sun’s embedded magnetic field out across the solar system. Reaching speeds over one million miles per hour, this soup of charged particles and magnetic field plows into planets in its path.
“Earth’s magnetosphere acts as a protective bubble that deflects the brunt of the solar wind’s force. You can think of it as a bar magnet that’s rotating and floating around in space,” said John Dorelli, TRACERS mission science lead at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “As the solar wind collides with Earth’s magnetic field, this interaction builds up energy that can cause the magnetic field lines to snap and explosively fling away nearby particles at high speeds — this is magnetic reconnection.”
Openings in Earth’s magnetic field at the North and South Poles, called polar cusps, act as funnels allowing charged particles to stream down towards Earth and collide with atmospheric gases. These phenomena are pieces of the space weather system that is in constant motion around our planet — whose impacts range from breathtaking auroras to disruption of communications systems and power grids. In May 2024, Earth experienced the strongest geomagnetic storm in over 20 years, which affected high-voltage power lines and transformers, forced trans-Atlantic flights to change course, and caused GPS-guided tractors to veer off-course.
How Will TRACERS Study Magnetic Reconnection?
The TRACERS mission’s twin satellites, each a bit larger than a washing machine, will fly in tandem, one behind the other, in a relatively low orbit about 360 miles above Earth. Traveling over 16,000 mph, each satellite hosts a suite of instruments to measure different aspects of extremely hot, ionized gas called plasma and how it interacts with Earth’s magnetosphere.
An artist’s concept of the twin TRACERS satellites in orbit above Earth. NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center The satellites will focus where Earth’s magnetic field dips down to the ground at the North polar cusp. By placing the twin TRACERS satellites in a Sun-synchronous orbit, they always pass through Earth’s dayside polar cusp, studying thousands of reconnection events at these concentrated areas.
This will build a step-by-step picture of how magnetic reconnection changes over time and from Earth’s dayside to its nightside.
NASA’s TRICE-2 mission also studied magnetic reconnection near Earth, but with a pair of sounding rockets launched into the northern polar cusp over the Norwegian Sea in 2018.
“The TRICE mission took great data. It took a snapshot of the Earth system in one state. It proved that these instruments could make this kind of measurement and achieve this kind of science,” said David Miles, TRACERS principal investigator at the University of Iowa. “But the system’s more complicated than that. The TRACERS mission demonstrates how you can use multi-spacecraft technology to get a picture of how things are moving and evolving.”
The TRACERS mission demonstrates how you can use multi-spacecraft technology to get a picture of how things are moving and evolving.
DAVID MILES
TRACERS principal investigator, University of Iowa
Since previous missions could only take one measurement of an event per launch, too many changes in the region prevented forming a full picture. Following each other closely in orbit, the twin TRACERS satellites will provide multiple snapshots of the same area in rapid succession, spaced as closely as 10 seconds apart from each other, reaching a record-breaking 3,000 measurements in one year. These snapshots will build a picture of how the whole Earth system behaves in reaction to space weather, allowing scientists to better understand how to predict space weather in the magnetosphere.
Working Across Missions in Solar Harmony
The TRACERS mission will collaborate with other NASA heliophysics missions, which are strategically placed near Earth and across the solar system. At the Sun, NASA’s Parker Solar Probe closely observes our closest star, including magnetic reconnection there and its role in heating and accelerating the solar wind that drives the reconnection events investigated by TRACERS.
Data from recently launched NASA missions, EZIE (Electrojet Zeeman Imaging Explorer), studying electrical currents at Earth’s nightside, and PUNCH (Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere) studying the solar wind and interactions in Earth’s atmosphere, can be combined with observations from TRACERS. With research from these missions, scientists will be able to get a more complete understanding of how and when Earth’s protective magnetic shield can suddenly connect with solar wind, allowing the Sun’s material into Earth’s system.
“The TRACERS mission will be an important addition to NASA’s heliophysics fleet.” said Reinhard Friedel, TRACERS program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “The missions in the fleet working together increase understanding of our closest star to improve our ability to understand, predict, and prepare for space weather impacts on humans and technology in space.”
The TRACERS mission is led by David Miles at the University of Iowa with support from the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas. NASA’s Heliophysics Explorers Program Office at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the mission for the agency’s Heliophysics Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington. The University of Iowa, Southwest Research Institute, University of California, Los Angeles, and the University of California, Berkeley, all lead instruments on TRACERS that study changes in the magnetic field and electric field. NASA’s Launch Services Program, based at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, manages the VADR (Venture-class Acquisition of Dedicated and Rideshare) contract.
by Desiree Apodaca
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
Header Image:
An artist’s concept of the TRACERS mission, which will help research magnetic reconnection and its effects in Earth’s atmosphere.
Credits: Andy Kale
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Last Updated Jul 16, 2025 Related Terms
Goddard Space Flight Center Earth’s Magnetic Field Heliophysics Heliophysics Division The Sun The Sun & Solar Physics TRACERS Explore More
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By NASA
An artist’s concept of the Starlab commercial space station.Starlab As NASA continues its transition toward a commercial low Earth orbit marketplace, an agency-supported commercial space station, Starlab, recently completed five development and design milestones. Starlab’s planned design consists of a service module and a habitat that will be launched to orbit on a single flight.
The milestones, part of a NASA Space Act Agreement awarded in 2021, focused on reviews of Starlab’s preliminary design and safety, as well as spacecraft mockup and procurement plans. Each milestone provides NASA insight into the company’s development progress.
“As we work toward the future of low Earth orbit, these milestones demonstrate Starlab’s dedication to building a commercial space station that can support human life and advance scientific research,” said Angela Hart, program manager for NASA’s Commercial Low Earth Orbit Development Program at the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. “Both the insight shared by Starlab and the expertise shared by NASA are critical to future mission success.”
Starlab recently completed a preliminary design and safety review of its station’s architecture and systems. The company now will begin detailed design and hardware development, culminating in a critical design review later this year. Critical design reviews are an important step in a station’s development, assessing design maturity before proceeding with fabrication and assembly.
An artist’s concept of the Starlab commercial space station.Starlab Starlab also has begun construction of a full-scale, high-fidelity mockup of the station. The mockup, which will be housed in the Space Vehicle Mockup Facility at NASA Johnson, will be used for human-in-the-loop testing, during which participants perform day-in-the-life walkthroughs and evaluate the interior design, crew training, procedure development, hardware checks, and in-flight issue resolution.
In addition, Starlab completed reviews of the system design architecture, procurement plan, and Northrop Grumman Cygnus spacecraft docking system design. In 2023, Northrop Grumman teamed up with Starlab to provide cargo logistics services and engineering consultation to support the commercial space station. These reviews included design configuration updates of solar arrays, docking ports, crew quarters, and more.
NASA supports the design and development of multiple commercial space stations through funded and unfunded agreements. Following the design and development phase, NASA plans to procure services from one or more companies as part of its strategy to become one of many customers for low Earth orbit stations.
Learn more about commercial space stations at:
www.nasa.gov/commercialspacestations
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